Letter: Whiting trustees should be embarrassed

To the Editor-

After hearing of your most recent village board meeting and then reading it in the wire, I am honestly hopeful that you are embarrassed by your behavior.

A leader, President (Paul) Stroik, for you to let the verbal harassment yelling, and personal insults by Coates (Trustee Cecil Coates) and Lutz (Trustee Kevin Lutz) to preside is disgraceful. Coates and Lutz are liabilities to this board who behave in a manner that is intolerable.

As a leader myself, I am embarrassed for you Stroik. Personally I do not blame Lasecki (Trustee Susan Lasecki) for leaving her post last week. It’s Stroik who lost control of the meeting and was willing to let the harassment and verbal abuse continue. For many, the passion is gone. Village duties are an obligation, a job, etc. Few on the board have true passion, of those few Lasecki and Kruit have the most passion.

Stroik clearly and admittedly does not want the president role, if you in fact only wanted this position for a year and win by write-in only, give the position to your heir apparent…enjoy your days doing whatever it is you’d rather be doing. I am dumbfounded why Stroik would produce a meeting agenda that did not outline the formal request by Trustee Lasecki.

Clearly, Stroik has animosity and disdain towards Lasecki which provoked his inaccurate agenda. The good ole’ boys don’t like someone (especially a female) who has ideas. Meeting rules only apply when It’s favorable for the good ole’ boys (Lutz, Coates, and Stroik) Year after year nothing is done via this board.

How has Whiting become a better place since Stroik’s leadership? What amenities do you provide, and which have been enhanced? Wasn’t it Lasecki who was instrumental in the trash/recycling change? I was at that meeting. Lutz, I believe, was against enhanced services at similar cost. Whiting does not have a community, it’s the young folks who should take over and provide “community.”

Citing the inability to fill board and committee seats is a fallacy, it’s the inactive board and lack of process that results in your vacancies. Stevens Point and Plover both have Facebook pages, things like the dump, agendas, meeting minutes, notices of vacancies, and requests to fill board/committee seats are posted. Where does Whiting post this activity, and why isn’t Whiting active on Facebook? Hell, our POTUS is on Twitter stating lies most of the time, the least Whiting could do is post facts.

I find this statement interesting: “[My wife] has a true passion for public service,” Kevin Lutz continued, adding that Jenny Lutz currently works for the UWSP police department and has worked in several other municipal departments across the county. “There was an unfilled position on the plan commission for a long time. We put it in the newsletter; we put it on the website, we got nothing. SoJenny says, ‘I’d be interested,’ and she contacted Paul (Stroik). He appointed her; there is no nepotism.”

Lutz has a higher position/rank within the village. This certainly is nepotism. The board incumbents want to do as little as possible, it’s your job to do the heavy lifting. Throughout history, it’s inventors, those with ideas and those not afraid to make change who have prospered.

I ask you as elected officials to be open-minded, less condescending, don’t be hypocrites, be honest, and perform your positions for the community, not for your cronies whom mostly filled the seats last week but for the 1,685 residents who were not at last weeks meeting…lastly be open-minded!

The board has many great ideas, unfortunately, the failed leadership stalls the positive change and this article is representative. Stroik, Lutz, and Coates need to take a long hard look at their behavior and how they treat people. I’m not going to get into an email debate with any of you so don’t respond—my intentions are to increase your awareness of your unprofessional behavior so it does not go unrecognized, especially how women are treated in your organization.

Shawn Shawnski
Whiting