By Ken Krall, WXPR News

The Rhinelander  Common Council meeting got off to a rocky start Monday night after Council President George Kirby refused to sit at the council chambers and left the meeting.

The council was already short members for the meeting with Dawn Rog unavailable, Andrew Larson was ill and one seat is vacant.

Kirby’s absence left the council without a quorum. Kirby was in the audience but did not take his spot as the meeting began.

Mayor Chris Frederickson asked Kirby to say why he was not taking his seat…

“On Friday I tried, and was unsuccessful in convincing our City Administrator to place invoices unknown to the council on an agenda item I wanted to discuss for our approval,” Kirby responded. “These bills pertained to the remodeling and furniture in Daniel’s (Guild) office and none of us knew anything about this project.”

At that point, Frederickson stopped Kirby, as the matter was not legally on the agenda for discussion as the council was out of session. There was no agenda item regarding the bills in question on the agenda for last night’s meeting. Frederickson then called Alderperson Larson to see if there was any way he could come in. About 20 minutes later, a very ill-looking Larson took his seat at the table and the meeting continued.

Among the actions taken, the city has received five applications to fill the open District 3 seat vacated by the resignation of Sherrie Belliveau. The city will close the applications for the seat on February 1, hold a special meeting on February 4 for the public to name the candidates and Frederickson will nominate a person to be seated by the first council meeting in February