Lake Geneva Weighs Path to Change How City Attorney Is Selected

Charter ordinance history, referendums, and legal hurdles frame City Council discussion

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin — City officials are revisiting a long‑running and legally complex question: whether the city’s attorney should continue to be elected by voters or return to an appointed position.

At a recent Committee of the Whole meeting on January 6,2026, members heard a detailed historical and legal briefing outlining how Lake Geneva arrived at its current system, what state law requires to change it, and the potential consequences of either approach. The discussion traced the issue back more than a century, through court cases, charter ordinances, protest petitions, and referendums that still shape the city’s options today.

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Sidebar: A Brief Timeline of Lake Geneva’s City Attorney

• 1912 — City Council votes to appoint a city attorney. Confusion over ballots leads to altered minutes and a second vote.
• 1914 — Wisconsin Supreme Court rules that the candidate receiving the most votes in 1912, H. A. Burdick, was lawfully selected, affirming the city’s authority to appoint the city attorney under its charter.
• 1939 — State statute establishes referendum requirements if certain offices were elected on or before this year.
• Early 1940s — Lake Geneva adopts Charter Ordinance No. 194 to change the city attorney from an appointed to an elected position. A protest petition forces the issue toward a referendum.
• 1944 (April Election) — Voters approve the referendum, formally making the city attorney an elected office.
• Post‑1944 — Litigation follows over who lawfully holds the office; courts ultimately affirm Burdick’s position under the new framework.
• 2006 — Voters reject a proposal to return the city attorney to an appointed position.
• 2026 — City Council again examines legal pathways, timing, and implications of changing how the city attorney is selected.

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Changing the City Attorney From an Elected Position to an Appointed Position

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Presentation by City Attorney Dan Draper

In order for me to establish how we change from an elected position to an appointed position, one of the things I had to determine was whether or not we operate under a charter ordinance for that provision or whether it’s simply under our municipal ordinances.

So I had to do a little history, check into the history of the position. And believe it or not, we have a case going back to 1914 in the Supreme Court of Wisconsin involving the city attorney’s office here in the city of Lake Geneva.

And the case very basically stated, and what it provided to me was the fact that the city of Lake Geneva operated under a special charter and adopted a general charter, in which case they elected the alderman and they appointed the city attorney.

So back in 1914, the city attorney was appointed. And in this particular case, it became a case because what happened was the city council conducted a meeting back in 1912 to appoint the city attorney, and there were three individuals who were involved in the action.

One was a gentleman by the name of H. A. Burdick, and you’ll hear that name over and over, because he continues back in the 1940s. But in 1912, there was an election by the city council to appoint the city attorney, and it went three votes for Mr. Burdick, three votes, one vote for another individual and one vote for another individual. That was both on what was called an informal ballot and then a formal ballot was adopted.

Well, the city council at that time did not believe that they had selected a city attorney at that time. So they went and they changed the minutes. They abolished the minutes and they held another election.

In another election, Mr. Terrell was elected as the city attorney.

Mr. Burdick brought an action in circuit court that eventually got to Supreme Court.

And what happened was the Supreme Court said, well, I’m sorry, but your process said that the one getting the most votes was the one who was the city attorney. So Mr. Burdick was named as the city attorney.

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Developments in the 1940s

Fast forward to 1994, and I wanted to get confirmation. I checked the regional news. There’s all sorts of articles in the regional news about it. But in there, they specifically recite that in chapter, they adopted a charter ordinance 194 to make the appointed city attorney an elected position.

Once again, this didn’t go very easily as what either.

And the reason it was important to me because there’s a state statute that says if the position was elected in 1939 or before, then you had to have a referendum to change the position.

So I really did my research to find out whether or not there was any elected city attorneys before 1939. But instead, I found that there was actually a charter ordinance that was adopted, charter ordinance number 194, which made it an elected position.

What happened was they wanted to have a special election on it. And the resolution to have a special election for a referendum, because what happened was originally they adopted the charter ordinance and they had to have two-thirds vote. They got the two-thirds vote.

There was then a protest petition filed, where under current statute at 7% of the people who voted for governor can bring a protest petition.

So a protest petition was brought, and they wanted to have a special election. But the resolution to have the special election failed.

So in the meantime, they appointed another city attorney to serve in that position.

And then in 1944, they, during the April elections, they passed the referendum to make it an elected position.

So under that charter ordinance, he was elected.

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Subsequent Litigation and Outcome

 

However, there was a dispute that arose between the person who previously held it because he was appointed and then Mr. Burdick, who was also appointed after 1944, after the referendum was passed.

There was a lawsuit about that. And eventually the circuit court determined that Mr. Burdick was the rightful appointee for the position.

And after 1944, it’s been an elected position since then.

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Current Legal Framework and Options

So that’s a little history of what I had to go through to find out whether or not it was a charter ordinance or not, and what the process was to be able to change our process for selecting the city attorney.

So what I presented to you is a memorandum that’s up there.

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And basically there’s three ways that you can change a charter ordinance.

The first is a very complicated process, probably not a process you’d want to do.

The second process would be to pass a charter ordinance and it requires two-thirds vote of the city council and pass that ordinance making it an appointed position. Then you’d wait 60 days before it went into place for any protest petition to be filed.

The third way is to basically put it directly as an initiative to the voters, set it up for a referendum.

So once again, you’d pass a resolution to, or you’d pass the charter ordinance, you’d then pass a resolution to submit it to the voters for a referendum.

So that’s the third way.

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Timing Considerations

So I gave you some examples of what the charter ordinance would look like if that’s the desire you want to do.

I brought it forward to you in a rather quick manner because January 27th is the cutoff date to be able to put any referendum on the ballots for the April election.

It doesn’t mean it can’t be done in the November election.

So I’m not trying to say you have to do it now, otherwise it’ll never get done. But I just wanted to bring these ideas forward.

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Advantages and Disadvantages

There’s advantages to having an elected city attorney, and I highlighted those for you.

There’s disadvantage to having an elected city attorney. And one of the pressing points we have here in the city of Lake Geneva and any small rural areas is finding a city attorney who has municipal law background that can do the work.

The appointed position, there’s belief that appointed city attorneys might align more with the city council and not with the voters.

An elected city attorney can be removed directly by the voters. An appointed city attorney cannot.

I’ve listed a number of different things that you may want to consider.

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Additional Considerations

So I just wanted to put this presentation together for you.

“I will tell you right now, this is my last two years that I will be serving.“
City Attorney Dan Draper

Esposito brought up a point about hiring different firms for different things. We already have that provision within our ordinances.

City Council always has the ability to hire different people with different specialties.

But the city attorney is a city officer.

So it has to be someone who’s appointed as a city attorney because it’s a city officer listed under the city statutes.

But there are means to be able to hire specialists.

I looked at the village of Fontana’s ordinances to figure out how they do that because they have one attorney who does the municipal work, basically the zoning and city council work.

And then they have another attorney who basically does the municipal prosecutions.

It’s from the same firm, but there’s an ability to appoint different people to do different tasks.

Because under our ordinance, they can appoint deputy city, you know, deputy attorneys to be compensated according to what the council wants.

Just I throw caution out there because I know citizens are going, I’m not going to like having a change.

Because I know in 2006, they were not in favor of having it as an appointed position.

I think the more that the citizens can be aware of the thought process that we’re going through, I don’t think you’d want to put it on for something to be voted on within the next three weeks.

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Council Discussion

Fesenmaier:
Right, and what prohibits a resolution being placed in the fall at election time?

Draaper:
Nothing.