Open thread: Wausau gets named trashiest WI city and least food trendy, reports say

Have your say in our monthly open forum for May

Yes, it’s one of those top X lists, and this one is negative. It’s a list put together by Minnesota Now listing the top trashiest cities in Wisconsin. Spoiler alert: They ranked Wausau No. 1.

And then another list we popped up on — Wisconsin Public Radio reports on a Chicago firm saying Wausau and La Crosse have the least trendiest food scene.

Before we dive into the details, it’s important to point out that this first one is all a marketing stunt. A website dedicated to Minnesota calling out Wisconsin cities will get residents in this state to react angrily, sending around the site, thereby promoting it. It’s sort of like the positive lists, which also count on being shared by people proud to see their hometown included.

It’s pure clickbait garbage and can be ignored.

The analytics firm’s reports shared via WPR at least is based in hard data. In Minneapolis, you’d need to eat at 29 different places to cover 90% of the cuisine offerings; in Wausau, that number is only 11.

The former is basically nonsense and can be ignored. The latter points to an area where Wausau could stand to improve a little. The continued absence of Indian food baffles me, because everyone I know loves it.

Down below, I will ask you your opinion, dear reader. But first…

A busy month of stories

The Wausonian covered a number of stories last month. Maybe the most high-profile was the Wausau East Band Teacher scandal. Many of those stories were this month, but the whole thing kicked off in late April:

We also covered the details of a drunken driving arrest of a sitting city council member:

And The Wausonian unearthed the arrest of a Kronenwetter Board Member for unpaid child support (Other outlets followed up but didn’t bother crediting us for breaking the story):

We also did a deep dive into spending in the Wausau School Board race, broke news that the police swept homeless encampments and that the sweeps were part of a new policy of keeping those encampments out of downtown Wausau, followed up on another ethics complaint against conservative school board candidates, and discussed a New York Times feature that included Wausau.

Have your say

The accusations of a Wausau East Band Teacher lobbing racial slurs and homophobic comments at a student blew up starting last month. Then a series of posts from an account purporting to be from other band students refuted many of those claims (The Wausonian verified that the account is connected to at least some band students at Wausau East).

Meanwhile, the situation is sticky. The district launched its own investigation, but isn’t able to share that with the school board, or with the public. The Department of Public Instruction launched its own investigation, and supposedly the board itself did or will as well. (They took no official action on it, though the district said it is planning to. A meeting for Monday night was scheduled that included some language that could have allowed for it but was canceled.)

A couple of students at a recent school board meeting defended Perkins, but many more said they had experienced some form of racism at Wausau schools.

What do you think about this situation?

Also, as a secondary comment, what kind of restaurant does Wausau desperately need? Feel free to comment on both, open to all levels of subscribers.

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