Column: Where have all the leaders gone?

Editor’s Note: DA Molepske determined the state statute did not provide clarity of the issue referenced below, but he did forward the complaint to the Department of Justice. 

By Mike Somers

For those of you who have logged a few years as I have, you may remember a song from our youth written by Pete Seeger and made famous by the Kingston Trio, “Where have All The Flowers Gone.”

As we make our resolutions for the new year in 2022, my resolution is to change the lyrics in this song and ask community members, “Where Have All Our Leaders Gone?” and, together, do something about it.

How many times lately have you heard the phrase, “In these challenging times,” If you are like me, you are absolutely sick of hearing phrases like these which continue to be an excuse for the constant upheaval of our lives. In that tone, I want to be the protagonist amongst all the local antagonists who have literally become the enemy of our local people but still dare to call themselves “community leaders” (I can feel the hate mail coming already).

Leadership, or the lack thereof, here in our local community is where my biggest beef is. So-called elected leaders on the Stevens Point Board of Education had an opportunity to demonstrate their leadership in 2021 by deciding, as a body, what COVID protocols it would adopt.

What did they do? They punted that important piece of leadership decision-making to the school superintendent. The superintendent, they said could make decisions quicker.

Funny how the Board members felt it was too hard to regularly meet, discuss, listen to parents, and make the hard decisions on COVID. Amherst, Mosinee, Wausau, and other school boards were able to accomplish this. I recall a Disney Pixar movie line from It’s a Bug’s Life: “Leadership is Hard.”

I suggest that if this school board wants to call themselves leaders, they had better quit acting like the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz and find some courage to make the hard decisions. Where have our leaders gone?

It does not stop there. Once in the school superintendent’s hands, COVID protocol recommendations were not developed by school administrators but instead copied from references in a number of government agency websites.

Really? Among all of the Ph.D.’s and other highly educated individuals that this school district employs, there was no one who could critically think about the situation and develop a local policy for local schools. Anyone can link to a government web page. Remember that “leadership is hard.”

But I wanted to give our “school leaders” the benefit of the doubt, so I went down the list of the COVID protocol links and references in their orders to parents and staff.

First, to the Portage County Health and Human Services website, where a five-page resolution by the county health office “recommends” face-covering protocols which are all referenced to the CDC (federal agency-centers for disease control) recommendations.

Here is how this works. School Board to school administrator to Portage County health officer to the CDC. Sounds to me like a classic case of “passing the buck.” I thought President Harry Truman told us that, as a leader, “the buck stops here.” Apparently, that isn’t being taught in our school history classes anymore.

Wait, there is more. The district’s COVID protocols list the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and the Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) as sources also. Self-proclaimed leaders at DPI and DHS, despite their overabundance of highly paid and highly educated experts, failed to do what the taxpayers expect them to do, “critically think.” Sounds like a broken record, doesn’t it? DPI and DHS could not write their own recommendations, so they referred everything back to, you guessed it, the CDC. Leaders?

Not one leader in any of the organizations mentioned here can make hard decisions, take accountability, demonstrate competence in their roles/positions or retain the trust of their community. And they want us to call them leaders?

It doesn’t stop there. When local parents and community members were illegally shut out of several Stevens Point Board of Education meetings in 2021, they took their complaints to the local district attorney so charges could be filed for violations of Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law.

Our local head prosecutor had the opportunity to show his leadership, but instead decided not to decide and kicked the can down the road to the state attorney general’s office. Leader? Not. We would be well advised to remember this when voting for judge this spring.

Do our so-called local leaders really work for us? Slamming the Bus. 51 road diet down city residents’ and businesses’ throats by the city council, a closed school board meeting, and the district attorney’s disregard for state law are only a few examples showing us how local leadership has disappeared.

I am reminded of a quote (by an unknown author) that I recently came across, “When leaders don’t find the way, find new leaders.”

We have an unprecedented number of new faces stepping up to the plate for local elected offices this spring. Let’s start 2022 with a resolution to elect new and true leaders for our community.

Mike Somers is semi-retired and lives with his wife in Custer. 

We are seeking a liberal columnist. Anyone with interest should email [email protected].