Reader favors keeping Dayton’s elected officials
On March 23, 2015. there was a letter to the editor concerning both the Dayton town clerk and treasurer positions, which were up for reelection. The letter’s headline read, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The point then was: Why would we the residents of Dayton want to replace two very competent and experienced employees with folks who will be new to the job, need training and have no experience. The two incumbent candidates won the election and retained their positions.
Recently, the Waupaca County Post had an article notifying us that on April 19 at the annual town meeting, Dayton residents voted to eliminate the positions of the town clerk and the town treasurer by a vote of 37 to 15. Note that at the election mentioned previously there were over 800 vote cast.
Obviously the annual meeting was not very well advertised. I’m sure it was done legally but kept very quiet because there was such a small turnout. An interesting but disturbing fact should be noted.
The new hired full-time position combining the elected positions of clerk and treasurer into one paid full-time position would create an additional $55,000 annual cost to running the town of Dayton – $31,000 in wages, $10,000 in benefits and, because the two jobs are with one person, state law requires that a professional audit be taken annually. The usual fee is about $15,000.
Petitions were circulated seeking to overturn the decision to replace two elected officials with a single employee. The petition needed 136 valid signatures and 219 were collected. I believe that every Dayton voter who has an opinion on this issue should attend this special meeting on June 8.
Please attend this meeting. Watch for notices in the Waupaca County Post announcing where the meeting will be held.
Chuck Krueger
Dayton