That’s all she wrote: City council balks at idea to hire full-time grant writer

Run up the flagpole but finding few salutes, an idea to add a full-time grant writer for the city made for much of the discussion at Monday’s Rhinelander common council meeting.

Mayor Kris Hanus had requested putting it on the agenda. “It’s something that’s been a topic with administration for the last couple years,” he explained. “We’re just looking to get some feedback from council to see if this is something we want to explore.”

Concerns about the cost of a full-time hire, which alderperson Luke Kramer said he found in Wisconsin averages about $62,000, “anywhere from $55,000 all the way up to $150,000 if it’s a really experienced grant writer,” were noted.

“A drawback is, you’re paying that person for the effort, not for the result,” Hanus acknowledged. “So we could apply for a million grants but if we get awarded none, there’s still the cost to the city.” 

Having a full-time grant writer hunting down grants that otherwise may have been missed also wasn’t seen as a priority. 

“I’m not seeing anything major that we’re missing that we’re not already working on,” said alderperson Bob Lueder.

“Who knows how to get that grant more than the contractors?” said city attorney Steve Sorensen. “... If you have a grant writer that gets paid by getting the grant, they’ll come to you … it’s not quite ‘they shall come’ like in Field of Dreams, but it at least is a way of looking at it.”

“A good example of what (Sorensen) mentioned would be the 55 and up community project that’s moving forward over on Boyce (Drive),” Hanus added. “That developer came to us with multiple millions of dollars of WHEDA money to make that project happen.” 

Council president Carrie Mikalauski pointed out writing a grant takes the least amount of time and effort that grant will require overall. 

“It’s not just writing the grant, it’s also following through with what’s expected of the grant, and a lot of that is data collection and reporting on the results of what the grant is,” she said.

Sorensen added communities he’s seen with their own grant writer are usually cities with populations of over 30,000.

“You almost need a department that manages the grants,” he said.  “ … Are there grants out there that we can probably go after? Sure, but … I don’t know that we have the personnel if we got the grant to carry it through to the fruition of all the stuff we have to get. I mean, ArtStart’s a good one where people are struggling to get all this stuff. You have to be very, very careful when you go for some grants.”

Most of all, though, the fact was raised that a good many people are already writing grants for the city.

“It’s almost been built into what our department heads have been doing during the budget cycle, of saying ‘Hey this is a big need that we have, is there a potential for a grant’ and taking that into consideration,” said alderperson Steven Jopek. “ … Our department heads do put in significant amount of research when they’re making their budgets to try and, you know, alleviate costs as much as they can.”

“What I’m getting from the body,” Hanus summed up, “and part of this was … to let the public know, because if you’re not involved in government, you’re not seeing the work behind the scenes of all these department heads and organizations we partner with is status quo: keep doing what we’re doing. The work of the department heads and (city administrator) Patrick (Reagan), as well as the different non-profits, are serving us pretty well and they kind of keep the status quo of what we’re doing currently.”

Two citizens spoke in the public comment portion of the meeting. Alex Schmocker shared his concern regarding the location of an offender recently released to his neighborhood, noting, “it’s kind of right where all the kids walk to get to school, you can almost see the high school itself from this location.” Terri Thompson spoke about “a tragedy just waiting to happen,” asserting that sidewalks not cleared of snow along a section of Lincoln Street are giving some people she’s seen “no other choice” than to walk in the road’s bike lane without wearing high-visibility clothing. 

In his mayor’s comments, Hanus announced wanting to form an ad hoc committee to study public transport. 

“I think this is something that the city needs to work better with county to see if there’s improvements or areas we could work together to add more public transmit options with the program they currently have,” he noted.

Alderpersons Gerald Anderson, Kramer, and Mikalauski volunteered for the committee, which Hanus said would meet with Oneida County transport manager Barabara Newman “just to see if there’s any opportunities there to make it more efficient, get more money into that program as well as help the ridership.”

The communications section of the meeting included the DNR’s 2026 Sanitary Survey Report and Notice of Noncompliance to the city, regarding deficiencies with the maintenance and operations of the city’s water system. Reagan explained that the two significant deficiencies cited — exercising/flushing of hydrants within the city, and the lack of auxiliary power at wells and reservoirs — are being worked on by public works staff, who are also working with Town and Country Engineering to acquire through grants backup generators for auxiliary power.

In a memo in the meeting’s packet, Reagan noted, “Wells 7 & 8 being offline since 2019 has caused hydrant flushing to be problematic due to lower water capacity.” 

Those wells had been taken offline due to high PFAS levels. Pilot testing of the wells is currently underway by Town and Country to learn what sort of treatment will be needed. City public works director Tom Roeser was on hand at the meeting and mentioned that there are “about eight more months left” of that testing.

Among other highlights of the meeting, the council:

• Approved a recommendation from the Plan Commission, from its two-minute special meeting earlier that afternoon, to accept the certified survey map request to re-divide owner T and H Holdings LLC’s two parcels along Navajo Road into three parcels to make them available for sale.

• Approved a cooperative service agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, for assistance with the control of beaver and beaver-related structures within the city of Rhinelander. “This is the same agreement we sign every year for beaver control with the DNR,” said Reagan. “It’s gone up $100, from $1,500 to $1,600.”

• Approved an open intoxicants permit application for the Hodag All-Class Reunion on August 8, 2026. 

The next regular meeting of the Rhinelander common council will be Monday, March 23, at 6 p.m. at Rhinelander City Hall.

Ardith Carlton may be reached at [email protected].