By Kim McDarison

The Whitewater Unified School District has issued a public statement regarding its Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center contractual negotiations with the Whitewater Common Council.

Within its statement, the school board noted that during its Monday school board meeting, it “learned of proposed changes to prior publicly negotiated agreements with the City of Whitewater Common Council regarding operations expenses of the Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center.”

As part of its statement, the district wrote: “In joint meetings of the WUSD (Whitewater Unified School District) Board and the City of Whitewater Common Council, the boards agreed to operations and capital funding responsibilities. Specifically, it was openly agreed that the common council would be responsible for operational surplus/deficits and the WUSD would add additional funding towards capital maintenance.”

“The board is disappointed to learn that the city is trying to make material changes to provisions that both boards had agreed upon,” WUSD Board of Education President Larry Kachel was quoted as saying in the statement.

“The board is seriously considering seeking arbitration after the new year should the City of Whitewater Common Council be unwilling or unable to meet with representatives of the WUSD School Board before that time,” the statement read. 

Responding to questions posed by WhitewaterWise, Whitewater City Manager John Weidl said that he was first made aware of the district’s statement when he found a copy “sitting with my (Tuesday common council) agenda packet materials at the dais.”

He noted that the council president, upon seeing the distributed statement, asked about its appropriateness as a handout.

Weidl said he told the council president that handing the statement out without it undergoing the appropriate process for inclusion on a council meeting agenda would be a violation of the city’s transparency ordinance.

Said Weidl: “I further explained that I would have the city clerk enter a copy of what was received into the public record at the next available opportunity.”

Weidl added, that, to “everyone’s credit, the paper copies were collected and given to the clerk.”

In response to the statement, Weidl issued on Thursday a memo to members of the city’s common council, noting that the intention of the memo was to “clarify his stance and actions taken in this matter.”

Additionally, he wrote: “In this context, it’s important to address recent actions by the school board president. Recently, there were attempts to engage in individual discussions with members of the city’s elected body, outside formal public meetings. When the appropriateness of these private discussions was questioned via email by the city manager, efforts were redirected … toward a public strategy. This public approach, however, appears to misrepresent the sequence of events and the nature of the changes proposed to the WAFC (Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center) agreement.”

Weidl next offered a sequence of events regarding the negotiation of the aquatic center contract, noting that in October, when the two boards — the school district and the council — met jointly, the council unanimously voted to approve a version of the aquatic center contract.

“In contrast,” Weidl wrote, “the school board did not, and their president indicated that any modifications from the WUSD would be minor.”

As earlier reported by WhitewaterWise, during the October meeting, following negotiations revolving around aquatic center parking lot snow removal, City Council President Jim Allen, addressing Kachel, said: “Can we ask that at this time you don’t have any foreseen changes when you’re going to come back again?” 

School board member Stephanie Hicks, responding to Allen, said: “I think at this point it’s just between the two lawyers in particular. None of the district, itself, would be asking or trying to change; I think it would just be between the two lawyers.” 

Weidl next cited within his response on Thursday to the district’s statement a memo from the city’s legal council Christopher Smith of von Briesen and Roper, whom, he said, “clearly outlined” in his memo to council, included in the Nov. 7 meeting packet, “the changes subsequently made by the WUSD,” which, Smith stated in his memo “were not minor, but substantive.”

Weidl, in his response to the district’s statement and quoting from the attorney’s memo to council, wrote: “My recommendation is to come to a fair agreement regarding the scheduling and use of the WAFC, with either party paying for any operational cost overruns it may cause.”

Weidl wrote: “With the city having agreed in its approved document to absorb any financial overages, any further modifications need to be met with additional resources or additional concessions, as outlined in Mr. Smith’s publicly available document to the city council. In short, the public and WUSD had this information long before the most recent statement by WUSD.

“The city council, after openly reviewing Mr. Smith’s memo, convened in a closed session on Nov. 7 and directed Mr. Smith to engage in negotiations addressing these material discrepancies. This step underlines our commitment to professional, legal mediation, and our responsibility to the city and its taxpayers. It was during this process that the school board president began to approach individual members of the city’s governing body to discuss portions of the negotiations that were discussed in respective closed sessions as well as items that only would have been carried forward by Mr. Smith to the legal representatives of WUSD.”

In November, WhitewaterWise reported that upon receiving a modified version and on the advice of its attorney, the Whitewater Common Council withheld its approval of the most recent draft of the proposed Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center operational and lease agreement, sending it back to the Whitewater Unified School District Board of Education for further negotiation.

The decision came after the council met on Nov. 7 in closed session to discuss the modified draft.

Information within the meeting’s open session packet included a letter received by Weidl on Nov. 1, from von Briesen and Roper Firm attorney Christopher Smith. In his capacity as contracted counsel representing the city, Smith wrote that the version of the contract he had most recently received contained two changes made from the previously authorized draft, which had been agreed upon by the two bodies — the council and the school board — describing the changes as “substantive.”

In his letter, Smith advised that the draft be brought back to the common council for further review, adding that, in his opinion, “incorporating the (district’s) proposed modification(s) would change the agreement to the point that executing it would be beyond the scope of the authority granted by the common council.”

Within his letter, Smith wrote that the district had “inserted language (into the previously approved draft) that would give it broad discretion over (the Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center’s) scheduling.”

Additionally, he wrote: “This insertion, coupled with their addition of separate language that would require the city to pay for any excesses in operation cost, presents a problem. Practically, this arrangement would allow (the school district) to schedule use of the (aquatic center), which could increase operation costs beyond what (the district) has agreed to contribute, leaving the city to pay for those costs.”

Within his letter, Smith recommended that, moving forward, a “best path toward final agreement” would be achieved by allowing him to “directly engage” with the district’s attorney “to negotiate the remaining issues.”

An earlier story, including the full timeline to-date regarding the aquatic center negotiation process, is here: https://whitewaterwise.com/following-attorneys-recommend-council-sends-unapproved-aquatic-center-operational-lease-agreement-back-to-school-district/.

The full 49-page response, including the memo to council from its attorney, presented by Weidl following receipt of the school district’s statement, dated Dec. 19, and shared with WhitewaterWise Thursday, Dec. 21, by city officials, is here: http://whitewaterwise.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/City-Managers-Office-Remains-Committed-to-WAFC.pdf.