Editorial: The guise of effective leadership doesn’t inspire trust, respect

By Brandi Makuski

When Portage County law enforcement came together to stage a live active-shooter training at the courthouse last week, every city and county leader and staff member had an opportunity to demonstrate seriousness and respect for the gravity of the scenario.

Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza chose to vacation in Bermuda.

Instead of standing alongside law enforcement, judges, and staff who work with him in that building every day, Wiza told city employees they could skip the live shooter drill conducted in the afternoon of September 24. And he himself missed the entire day-long training, which included classroom work and first aid in the morning, and had been planned for months.

While many city employees did attend, some did not. This was a failure of leadership.

Display of leadership has a trickle-down effect, and the message was pretty clear: if the mayor doesn’t take the Rescue Task Force training seriously, why should anyone else?

County and city staffers noticed. Many walked away with strong feelings about the mayor’s absence. One county employee referred to the mayor’s absence as “such a joke,” another called it, “a slap in the face of the employees here,” while another described the surreal experience of being asked to stand in as “acting mayor” during one scenario — operating from Wiza’s office, marveling at the toys that clutter the space, including a Robocop video arcade machine connected to his Alexa device.

The employee was even shown how to activate it by Wiza’s executive assistant, and was playing the game when she was “shot” by the bad guy. During that training exercise, the “mayor” and everyone in his office were assassinated. The symbolism was hard to miss.

This was not a ceremonial event. It was training designed to save lives in the event of a real attack. By dismissing it, Wiza disrespected not only the officers and first responders who organized the drill but also the city and county employees whose safety depends on it.

And this episode is not an outlier. It is the latest entry in a long list of behavior that reduces the mayor’s office to a stage for entertainment and self-promotion. At September’s council meeting, Wiza ended the evening by stuttering Porky Pig’s “That’s all, folks.” Residents deserve a mayor who respects the chamber, not one who treats it like amateur night.

Wiza has also steered city resources into vanity projects — a pride crosswalk, a “creative” crosswalk downtown, decorative metalwork at the city’s northern entrance, and lockers to help the local homeless population — while public safety, public works, and other core services strain under thin budgets and staff shortages. These are distractions, not priorities.

He has manufactured the illusion of strong governance by leaning on social media, frequently diving into comment sections of news articles to ridicule critics and demand residents supply “better ideas.” The Metro Wire has received numerous complaints from residents who feel belittled by the practice. Civic engagement should not feel like an online brawl with the mayor.

Most troubling, Wiza has openly discounted the role of the press. He is the first Stevens Point mayor to rely not on the press to inform the public, but on social media — where he will surely justify his absence, as he’s justified, or minimized, previous actions to a largely welcoming and supportive base of followers.

Updates from the city are posted quickly to the city’s Facebook page, and then often shared on Wiza’s page, taking eyes away from what little independent reporting is left in Portage County.

Also on the uptick are the number of citizens reaching out not to police, fire, or community development departments, but to Wiza privately via social media or text with a concern about parking, homelessness, or neighborhood issues, leaving no official city record of such communication, or any official number of complaints about a specific issue.

He has even skipped scheduled meetings with reporters without notice. In doing so, he cuts out the public’s right to question its leaders and hear answers free from city spin. That’s not transparency.

Put together, the picture is clear. Instead of demonstrating seriousness, Wiza cracks jokes. Instead of showing up for life-and-death training, he vacations. Instead of building trust, he picks fights on Facebook. Instead of working with the press, he sidelines it.

This is not leadership. It is negligence, vanity, and disrespect.

It is also proof of what some on the council have warned for years: the city needs a professional administrator to manage its affairs responsibly. Alderman Marc Christianson previously proposed the creation of a city administrator position to bring stability, consistency, and professionalism to city government. Wiza’s conduct has underlined exactly why that idea deserves renewed attention — and with a more solid rollout than it was the first time around.

A mayor’s duty is to oversee city officers and represent the community with dignity. For some people, Wiza has failed to meet at least some of those responsibilities. Stevens Point deserves a mayor who shows up when it matters most, respects those who put their lives on the line, and treats the office with the seriousness it requires.

If Mike Wiza cannot — or will not — rise to that standard, the community must ask if he deserves to hold the office at all.