Merrill Residents Seek Recalls Of City Council Members

Residents in the Northwoods city of Merrill are trying to fight City Hall. On Friday, May 24, the city clerk there certified their petitions to recall four common council members.

At issue is a property tax hike residents saw earlier this year, exacerbated by an error by the city’s finance director that initially made residents’ tax bills look even worse. But recall organizer Mark Bares said the effort has become about multiple issues to do with local government in the city of about 9,000 people.

“I think people are upset for a number of different reasons,” Bares said. “The tax increase was just the thing that pushed it over the edge.”

Bares, who owns the local bowling alley Les & Jim’s, was one of the leaders of the effort to recall five of Merrill’s eight Common Council members, including Council president Rob Norton. He said he didn’t start out organizing for recalls.

“(A recall) really should be the last resort, but we really felt that we weren’t being heard,” Bares said.

The residents asked for fewer closed sessions in public meetings, an audit of city funds and other changes.

For Norton, the recallers’ reasons seemed unfocused. He said the petitions were “very general, very vague on why they are doing this,” and he said recall elections would be bad for the city.

“Having a recall, removing us from office before the next election would be better for them,” Norton said. “It’s not going to be better for the city.”

The recall group turned in their petitions in late April, but Norton and the other Council members challenged their validity. They contended it wasn’t legal for the group to put their reasons for wanting a recall on the back of the page.

That argument didn’t sway City Clerk Bill Heideman, who decided that four of the five recall petitions were valid. In the case of the fifth petition, he found invalid signatures. Recallers will have five days to submit corrections.

Next, the officials can challenge that decision with the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

But Bares worries about the message a long, drawn-out battle will send to residents.

“If it gets dragged on, nobody likes that,” he said. “The process should move forward, let the people have their voice, and move on.”