Alex Prochaska, Editorial Intern
The Village of Arena Board of Trustees held a special meeting March 13, that went into closed session to “discuss the continued employment of the current police officers.” Over a dozen Arena residents attended the meeting and many spoke during public comment and voiced their concerns. Confusion abounded as some attendees questioned whether the closed session was legal—and whether the board controls police employment—by citing a past court order. Ultimately, the board passed a motion stating their intention to hold another closed session meeting within the next two weeks, and to invite the police department to it.
Residents who attended the meeting were confused by what they perceived as its secrecy and questioned why the board held a closed session meeting in the first place and what was discussed.
“What was said in closed session stays in closed session,” said Kate Reimann, village president of Arena, in response.
“The residents will be in uproar if our police department is defunded or gone,” offered resident Susan Pustina.
The most vocal attendee during public comment was former village president and board member Paul Pustina. He echoed the concerns of other Arena residents with his comments. He conceded the board has control of the Arena police department’s budget, but he challenged other parts of the board’s authority.
“I’ve been advised the board really does not have the right to determine their employment,” Paul Pustina said, referring to the employment of Arena police officers.
“Another thing really disgusts me. After the police announced they’re going to go part-time, [board member] Mr. [Jim] Doerflinger—from what I understand—was the only [board member] that reached out to [Arena Chief of Police Nicholas Stroik],” Paul Pustina said. In November, Stroik announced he and Sergeant Wyatt Miller decided to be part-time employees, rather than full-time, and intended to take additional positions with the Iowa County Sheriff’s Department.
Stroik said at the time he made the decision for many reasons, including the inability of the village to secure healthcare insurance and that the board had acted disrespectfully toward the police department, which had affected morale.
“There’s been not a board member that has reached out to the police department or sat down, to try to work out their differences,” Paul Pustina claimed in his public comment remarks.
During public comment, while Paul Pustina was first speaking, he was repeatedly interrupted by Kristen Shea, a trustee on the board. Shea was calling into the meeting by phone.
“Kristen, Kristen—let’s allow the public to speak, please. It is public comment,” Reimann said.
Later, Paul Pustina said the board has not spent money responsibly in the last three or four years, during Reimann’s tenure as village president. Paul Pustina criticized Reimann specifically for her handling of projects last February, which culminated in a heated back and forth.
“You did not know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry. You want to get mad at me? I mean—village president—you even asked [the village’s engineer] how much they would be supervising the projects. That tells me that you did not read the contract through. You cut $20,000 from the police budget last year, and you cut another $10,690 this year,” Paul Pustina said.
While Paul Pustina criticized Reimann, they began interrupting each other.
“No, that is telling me I am providing that information to the public, like asking that question,” Reimann said. Then, in response to Paul Pustina’s police budget comments, Reimann yelled: “We’re off topic now! Let me talk!”
Paul Johnson, village attorney for Arena, was present and attempted to put an end to the shouting.
“Hold it, stop, stop right now! This is public comment. All of the members of the public should speak first. All of you people should listen first,” Johnson said to the board. “Screaming doesn’t do anybody any good.”
One of the questions repeatedly raised by those in public comment was whether the board, Police Committee or the Public Safety Committee has jurisdiction and supervision over Arena’s police officers.
After the board subsequently passed a motion to hold another meeting within two weeks—a meeting which the police would be invited to—resident BeccaRaven Uminowicz asked: “Shouldn’t the Public Safety Committee be the ones leading that meeting?”
In response, Melissa Bandell, a trustee on the board, said: “[The Public Safety Committee] is not in charge of the employees. They don’t make the decisions, they’re supposed to make recommendations to the board. That is their role. It is to make recommendations. The board needs to make decisions, not the Public Safety Committee.”
Questioning Bandell’s statement, business owner Candy Parrell said people in the community told her: “That there is a court order from some lawsuit. That our village is required by court order to have an officer in our community at all times.”
The court order in question is former Iowa County Circuit Court Judge William Dyke’s order signed Sept. 12, 2000, in Iowa County Circuit Court cases 99-CV-151 and 99-CV-152.
The court order stems from a 1999 dispute involving the Village of Arena and its attempt to eliminate its police department and zero out the police budget. The court found that the village board, through various actions, attempted to circumvent legal requirements and avoid providing funding for the police department.
As a result, the court ordered the village to adopt a budget for law enforcement purposes and to fund the police department for the year 2000. The village was also required to reinstate Chief Steven Runice as the chief of police. However, the village failed to comply with the initial court order, leading to further legal action.
The court found the village in contempt for failing to comply with the initial order and imposed penalties, including financial compensation to Runice for salary loss and attorney fees. Additionally, the court ordered the village to reestablish a police department and reinstate a three-person citizen committee to oversee law enforcement responsibilities.
The court emphasized the importance of providing independent, fair and impartial police services and warned the village against further attempts to circumvent its obligations. Failure to comply with the court order would result in financial penalties. The court concluded that compliance with the order rested with the village, and failure to do so would result in consequences.
Read the 2000 court order here:
In response, Bandell said: “We are not required under state statute to have police, we choose to have police.”
Bandell appears to be referring to Wisconsin state statute § 61.65(1)(a), which says: “each village with a population of 5,000 or more shall, and each village with a population of under 5,000 may, provide police protection services by one of the following methods…”—the statute then goes on to describe acceptable methods, including “Creating its own police department” or “Contracting for police protective services” with another government body. Johnson agreed with Bandell’s statements, effectively mooting the issue of the court order.
Legal Analysis on the Judge Dyke Court Order
Arena is not required to establish a police department, nor is it required to provide for police services by contracting with a county or municipality. Larger towns and villages are required to arrange for some kind of policing, but Arena is way too small. It obviously has provided for a police department, and there are various advantages to this. It can, for example, enforce its own ordinances. Without providing for this in law, the county sheriff, for example, would not have the power or duty to enforce Arena ordinances. A sheriff has various implied powers which, I assume, would include gathering up a posse and riding out after some outlaws, but local ordinances are not part of a sheriff’s natural purview.
Another obvious advantage is the ability to direct and control the police, to provide for police policies, personnel decisions, budget, and priorities. These decisions do not all necessarily rest with the village board, however. I understand there is a widespread notion that a 24-year-old court order shifted most of the village’s authority to a police committee. While not impossible, I have seen no evidence that this is actually true.
Generally speaking, Wisconsin village boards have broad general powers over administration and policymaking for their villages. They can make ordinances for the health, security, welfare and morals of the village unless those powers are explicitly limited or exclusively assigned elsewhere. If you wanted to find out whether the village board could ban pet ferrets, for example, you would not look for a specific state statute allowing the village to do this, but look for some restriction against it.
In the case of police, the village board exercises most of the authority over how a village police department is recruited, trained, equipped, and guided, but that there are some limitations. One of the issues in the 24-year-old case was that some powers are assigned under state law to the police chief, and there are limitations on how the village may remove a police chief. State law also requires something akin to a police committee, to consider issues like the discipline of particular officers. The police committee also has the power to block reductions in an existing police budget. And Arena has created a public safety committee, which has very limited actual powers and now serves mostly to interact directly with the police on the village board’s behalf, and advise the board.
The court order does not say anything about changing the overall allocation of village responsibilities between the board and the police committee. It does operate within an understanding, however, that the village cannot usurp powers it does not have, or abuse the ones it has in order to get around the limitations built into the law. While the village can opt not to have police, it cannot eliminate the police committee and zero out the police budget in order to get rid of the chief.
It appears that Arena has operated since the order as though it effectively set forth novel and permanent limitations on the powers of the village board. Again, I cannot entirely rule it out based on what I’ve seen, but such a state of affairs is unlikely. The court order did not suggest that the court was maintaining its oversight of the agreement between the parties in that case, or that any party had ongoing duties other than what had been set out in the existing law. The village was required to reinstate the police committee but had it intended to require the village to keep it until further notice, it would probably have said so, because otherwise, that is not the law, and the village could still decide to not have police at all anymore. It could be that the agreement in that case called for a fundamental change, but it appears to me that the immediate conditions that followed the issuance of the order are simply being maintained through habit and bureaucratic inertia.
Before the village board gathered in closed session to consider the “continued employment of the current police officers” I had concluded that this probably could be done legitimately in principle. The meeting notice identified a statutory exemption from the requirement that all meetings be held in open session that was based on considering the employment of personnel for whom it has responsibility or over whom it exercises jurisdiction. Had the village wanted to discuss terminating officers for disciplinary reasons, this would have required the use of a different exception, which provides for employees to receive certain protections of their rights. But this would not apply to considering changes in budgets or positions so that some officers might be laid off.
It also would have required the session be held and any action taken by the police committee, not the board. But since the village board has some responsibility over the police, including providing them with a budget and performance goals, it would be reasonable for the board to consider how to use those powers, and that might depend on having information regarding how the current police officers operate.
The exemption does not apply to considerations of general policy but typically only when it is considering particular individual officers. But again, there is, I think, a narrow path of legal acceptability where the board needs to gather and consider potentially sensitive information regarding individual officers in order to make general policy.
Statements by village board members now suggest that the board acted in a manner that was consistent with all these requirements. My only complaint, and it is not a huge one, is that the board had to explain what it was doing after the fact. That suggests that the official notice of the closed meeting did not do a good job of letting people know that this is what the board intended to consider. It was required to make the reason for the closed session clear, and in this case it did not.
—Gary Ernest Grass, esq., Legal Editor
Susan Pustina echoed the concern of several residents who said there has been a lack of communication between the board, the public and Arena’s Public Safety Committee.
Tami Erspamer, a board trustee, asked Susan Pustina if they had ever been a board member. Susan Pustina said yes, she had served on a different board.
“I actually want to volunteer. I’ve asked to be on committees and no one’s answered my emails,” Susan Pustina said.
The concern regarding lack of communication between the board and the Public Safety Committee resulted in an argument between Courtney Norton—former EMS director for Arena and current chair of the Public Safety Committee—and Reimann. Norton said the board does not typically invite the Public Safety Committee to board meetings. Reimann disagreed.
“We had two board members that reached out to the chair for public safety. I, too, texted this individual—texted Courtney—to attend our meeting in March. But I had no response,” Reimann said. “So it’s not that the board is not reaching out. The board is reaching out, but we’re not getting any response.”
Reimann and Norton then argued about a text Reimann sent Norton. Reimann said the text was inviting Norton to attend a meeting. Norton argued the text was a request for a written report and was not an invitation. Paul Pustina shared his concurrence with Norton’s interpretation of the text. Candy Parrell indicated she agreed with Reimann that the text had been an invitation.
Board member Brittany Carney said she had also been fielding concerns from residents about communication issues.
“So I just thought it was so necessary to come together and have a discussion and figure out how we connect these bridges because I feel in the dark completely,” Carney said. “And I want to know what’s going on as a resident myself, I want to know, I want a path forward as well. I want a [police] schedule of some sort. I want something and I want communication.”
Bandell, who along with Carney called the special meeting, echoed the sentiment.
“I asked for a meeting for a path forward for [our] community tonight. That’s why we’re having this meeting. We need a path forward. We absolutely do. And I think that our police have provided very, very valuable service that’s been said by our residents here. That is very true. They have served our community a long time,” Bandell said. “I asked for this meeting because I’ve had a lot of complaints from residents that this current arrangement is not working. I’ve had people say to me, they feel abandoned, and we absolutely need a path forward. We asked for attorney advice tonight because—well, I’ll just straight up tell you—I have no intention of zeroing out a police budget. I have no intention of doing some of the things that we’re doing historically. But we as a community need a path forward and needed guidance on how to move this community forward.”
Along with concerns and criticisms, members of the public also proposed solutions and made their wishes known.
“What can we afford? Let’s work backwards from there. If we can afford two police officers with benefits—the two we had—I have no problem with those guys at all. They did a great job. But to retain a good officer, you’re gonna have to give him or her a decent pay package. They need to feel like they’re wanted. Not ‘it’s just a job,’” said business owner Nathan Parrell during public comment.
“Currently, we cannot offer health insurance. We just absolutely can’t afford it,” Reimann said in response. She then asked residents in attendance if they want Arena officers to have health insurance. Attendees overwhelmingly said yes. Then Reimann said there was a referendum a couple years ago to give public employees health insurance.
“It was voted down. So does our community want to retain good employees? It’s gonna cost money,” Reimann said.
Johnson weighed in with advice to the board and the residents in attendance.
“Issue number one is you have an immediate situation where you have police protection and police coverage that needs to be provided. Right now, today, you also have a longer term situation, which you’ve all been talking about … In a perfect world, the village board has to meet with the officers to figure out what’s going to happen right now. Because you have a … gap … You also have a situation where you now know that your two full time officers … changed their status. And you now need as a community, as a board … you now need to decide what’s next. And you have a lot of different choices …”
Johnson continued, encouraging the board to consider cost. He also encouraged the Public Safety Committee to work with the board and offer to do the heavy lifting to hold public forums with the community and the police and report back to the board.
“In a perfect government system that’s how this would work. Committee makes recommendations to the board. Board makes decisions. That would be a really good thing,” Johnson said. “But there seems to be [a] disconnect between the board and the officers, there seems to be [a] disconnect between the committee and the board. That’s not uncommon these days. Unfortunately, that’s very common. … I think you’ve all identified what the problem is. Communication and public meetings … nothing happens in a day. Just start working on [it].”
After the meeting, Valley Sentinel reached out via email to Reimann and Stroik for comment. They did not respond as of press time. Should they respond we will update this story here online.
We also reached out by email to several residents who had been in attendance to get their thoughts after the meeting.
BeccaRaven Uminowicz Letter to the Editor
Dear Editor,
On March 13, 2024, I attended the special meeting of the Village of Arena Board, drawn by the agenda’s focus on the state of the Arena Police Department—a matter of concern within our community. I was confused that the board opted to have a closed session. This decision felt particularly disconcerting given the ongoing dialogue among residents about the transition of our police force from full-time to part-time. This shift, attributed to disrespect, budget constraints, and disparities in compensation adjustments compared to other village employees.
I had hoped that the Village Board would seize the opportunity presented by the special meeting to openly discuss the underlying reasons behind the concerning state of the Arena Police Department. The apparent communication breakdown between the trustees, the Police Department, and the Public Safety Committee represents a significant missed opportunity for transparency. Opting for a closed session under Wisconsin Statutes 19.85 (1)(c) to discuss “the continued employment of the current police officers” with the village attorney, without first addressing the broader issues, sidesteps a crucial moment of potential clarity and understanding for the residents of the village. This move leaves one to ponder the extent of the Board’s transparency regarding its dealings and the true nature of the challenges being faced.
As an active participant in the Arena Community Team (ACT) meetings, which serve as a platform for residents to voice their concerns and visions for the future of our village, I have witnessed the recurring theme of inadequate communication. Despite our invitations, the Village Board’s engagement with the ACT has been minimal, with only one trustee attending a session. These meetings have underscored the village’s dire need for stronger leadership and a commitment to transparent dialogue.
The jurisdiction over the Arena Police Department remains a source of confusion, a matter that demands clarification. The Board’s recent decision to schedule another closed session, promising an invitation to the police officers but not to the Public Safety Committee misses the mark. Indeed, a more constructive approach to addressing the concerns surrounding the Arena Police Department would be for the Public Safety Committee to facilitate a comprehensive meeting. This gathering should aim to directly confront and begin the healing process regarding the underlying issues. By involving all stakeholders—police officers, village trustees, and, importantly, the residents—such a meeting could foster a transparent, inclusive dialogue. This strategy would not only clarify the situation for everyone involved but also lay the groundwork for rebuilding trust, enhancing communication, and collaboratively developing solutions to strengthen the community’s safety and well-being. It’s time for a collective effort to repair the cracks that have emerged, ensuring a future where the governance of Arena aligns with the values and needs of its residents.
BeccaRaven Uminowicz
Arena, Wisconsin
Susan Pustina said she felt the meeting agenda was unclear and attended because she was worried the board intended to terminate the current police officers.
“I feel the Board has been treating the officers with disrespect and the communication between the Board & Police is suffering,” said Susan Pustina, again expressing concern regarding the 2000 court order and the disagreement over which body has jurisdiction over the police. “I do not trust our Board with making decisions about public safety.”
Her suggestion? “Talk to your neighbors, ask questions, get involved, pay attention, attend the Village Board meetings and attend [Arena Community Team] meetings.”
Residents including Uminowicz and Susan Pustina have been organizing community forums for residents they call the Arena Community Team (ACT) to discuss issues facing the community. They are holding their next meeting on March 26 from 6:00-7:30 pm at the Arena VFW (514 Willow St, Arena).
Ann Sackett, another resident that was in attendance and who was a party in one of the cases that led to Judge Dyke’s order, had similar concerns when asked if she trusted the current Board to make decisions regarding public safety.
“No, I do not trust them,” Sackett said. “Their lack of transparency, lack of leadership and disregard for the taxpayers.”
Paul Pustina said he was concerned by how much the village spent on holding the meeting, specifically on board member wages and attorney fees.
“Just because they refused to sit down and hold discussions with the Public Safety Committee and [police department],” he said. “I believe it was a definite attempt to fire the officers. The language on the agenda indicated it and there’s no going around that.”
Bandell, Shea and Erspamer’s terms of office end this year. Only Bandell is seeking reelection. Bandell, Uminowicz, former trustee and village president Matthew Schroeder and Paul Pustina are all running as candidates, with the top three vote-getters filling the three positions on the board in the upcoming April 2 election.
“The one thing they cannot take away from us is the ability to vote them out of office,” Sackett concluded.
This story has been updated to reflect that Erspamer was the board member that asked Susan Pustina her previous board experience.
The Arena Village Board has called a special meeting March 27, that is set to go into closed session: “Specifically, to confer with Chief Stroik and Sgt. Miller concerning future compensation and work performance duties.”
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