Two vie for Wausau City Council District 4
But only one candidate would agree to a phone interview
Two candidates vie for Wausau City Council’s Fourth District: Tom Neal, who is seeking his sixth term, and Vylius Leskys, who is challenging the seat for the second time.
Only Neal would agree to a phone interview. Leskys would only answer a questionnaire, but The Wausonian aims to be as fair as possible in how this publication conducts election previews, which means all races in a category are conducted the same way.
That was explained to Leskys, who was given multiple opportunities to answer phone interview questions. Each time Leskys politely turned down the interview.
Tom Neal (I)
Neal is a retired marketing professional who is seeking his sixth term in office. Neal stepped away in 2022 when he expected to move to Milwaukee. When that move never materialized, he stepped back in and was elected to the city council again in 2024.
Neal says his top priority is finding ways to attract and retain younger populations. Without a vibrant young population, Neal told The Wausonian, Wausau doesn’t have much of a future. Neal’s other top priorities include continuing to add quality of life to Wausau to ensure the city is a place young people will want to live. That includes walkability and bikeability and outdoor recreation (he points to the RiverLife development as an example of that kind of quality of life increase) and entertainment. And, Neal says, he’d really like to see more expansion of the city’s economic base, including bringing more business to town. That helps spread out the tax burden so fewer residents aren’t hit with higher tax bills.
We’ve been asking candidates what they like and dislike about the city that they’ve seen recently. Neal said he felt like Wausau has been moving at a snail’s pace, and that he wanted to see the city market itself much better.
On the positive, he called out the city’s efforts to address PFAS in the city’s drinking water, and added downtown vitality stemming from new developments such as the Foundry on Third apartment complex and the upcoming transformation of the office building at 11 Scott Street into apartments. That’s vital for keeping downtown vibrant in the face of declining office demand.
Neal says he eschews the rhetoric of lower taxes and less spending, since those promises always fall flat in the face of the reality of city finances. He cites his years of experience on the council, which means he won’t have the learning curve that comes with being a new council member, and his dedication to the residents he serves even outside of city politics as reasons to vote for him.
Vylius Leskys
Although Leskys didn’t agree to an interview, we want to give voters a brief summary of him. Leskys is a U.S. Army Green Beret Colonel, an attorney who works pro bono for disabled veterans and serves on the city’s police and fire commission.
Leskys ran against Neal and Deb Weiss for District 4 in 2024, triggering a primary. But Leskys told representatives of The Wausonian prior to our previews in 2024 that he could no longer run, and that he no longer considered himself a candidate.
Leskys in a letter to the editor in another publication cited a need for better fiscal management of the city’s finances, as evidenced by the city’s tax rate that is higher that is twice the national average, criticism of how the city buys and sells property for development and uses TIF Districts, and rising city debt as the reasons he is running this cycle.