by Logan Andrew | FreeWire — Your News, Your Voice
The final sessions of 2025 for the Bucyrus City Council were a marathon of clerical corrections and high-stakes political finger-pointing. What began as a dispute over “administrative bad data” on Tuesday ended with a public fallout over lost jobs and a direct challenge to the Auditor’s office by Thursday night.
Tuesday, Dec. 16: “Out of Control Children” and the Facebook Gavel
The week opened with a regular council session defined by public frustration that went far beyond mere disagreement. Resident Greg White labeled the Council’s conduct as “preschooler behavior,” but it was resident Keith French who delivered the most biting critique regarding an ongoing legal dispute over who controls the city’s Facebook page.
“Realize how ridiculous you all look over this Facebook issue?” French asked the room, noting that an injunction might actually be needed to decide who has admin rights. French concluded by presenting a custom gavel to Council President Kurt Fankhauser, stating it was “appropriate for the city council president to have his own gavel that reflects his service and his behavior.”
Amidst the theater, the primary administrative concern remained a massive backlog of official meeting minutes. Vicki Dishon noted that while dozens of records are missing, the delay stems from drafts being so full of errors that they don’t match audio recordings. This pattern of administrative friction also stalled the 900-series service ordinances, which were referred back to committee for the second time this month.
Thursday, Dec. 18 (Early Evening): The Budget Sprint
The Special Council meetings on Thursday were a race against the clock to pass year-end legislation before Councilman Terry Spiegel had to leave at 6:50 PM.
The session followed a familiar routine: Council voted to suspend its own rules (Rule 113.02) to bypass the 24-hour notice requirement for corrected bills—a move that has become a staple of recent sessions. Vicki Dishon spent the meeting manually dictating dozens of corrections, such as the repeated insertion of the word “unappropriated,” to ensure the bills were legally sound. Despite the hours spent on these meticulous edits, Dishon still cast the lone “No” vote on Ordinance 61-2025, claiming the process was still “too rushed.”
Thursday, Dec. 18 (The Finale): Committee Admonishments and Budget Sparring
The evening concluded with Joint Committee meetings, where the underlying tensions of the term finally reached a breaking point.
- Economic Development (IB-Tech): Law Director Brandon Gobrecht and Councilwoman Clarissa Slater publicly admonished Fankhauser for the scaling back of the IB-Tech expansion. The planned Phase 2 expansion, which would have added 50 jobs, was scrapped after a tax abatement proposal stalled. Gobrecht alleged Fankhauser blocked the process because he was excluded from executive negotiations. Slater went further, claiming Fankhauser “sabotaged” the project specifically to ensure she didn’t get credit for a major win. Fankhauser did not deny the claims.
- Finance (The Transparency Feud): The friction shifted to Auditor Kali Lewis as Fankhauser questioned her on the 2026 budget. Fankhauser later claimed on his “Citizens for a more Transparent Bucyrus” page that Lewis was “withholding critical details” by providing summaries instead of line-item breakdowns.
Auditor Lewis Responds
In response to Fankhauser’s public accusations of “concealment,” Auditor Kali Lewis offered a blunt assessment of the President’s understanding of city finances:
“Mr. Fankhauser has had two years as the City of Bucyrus’ administrative arm of Council, the purse strings of the City. Unfortunately, he has had difficulty understanding his role regarding oversight of the council office and the council office’s finances. That’s fair, it does become complicated. Repeatedly attempting to sign off on Purchase Orders that would draw specific account lines into the negative, leaving those errors for the Auditor’s office to correct / prevent. Though Mr. Fankhauser’s time as Council President is short, if he would like an education on the City’s finances, he is welcome to stop in the Auditor’s Office located at 500 S. Sandusky Ave. I would be happy to discuss the level of control regarding the City’s budget with him.”
Looking Forward
As Kali Lewis reflected on the “chaos” of the year in her final report, the focus now turns to the incoming council. With dozens of sets of minutes still in limbo and a major industrial expansion lost to personal friction, the new leadership faces a steep climb to restore both administrative order and public confidence.
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