17.13 Removal of village, town, town sanitary district, school district, and technical college officers. Officers of towns, town sanitary districts, villages, school districts, and technical college districts may be removed as follows:
(1) Appointive officers. Except as provided in s. 60.30 (1e) (c) and (f), any appointive village, town, town sanitary district, school district and technical college district officer, by the officer or body that appointed him or her, at pleasure. Removal of any such officer by a body shall be by a majority vote of all the members thereof.
(2) Elective village officers. Any elective village officer by a majority vote of all the members of the village board, because of continued physical inability to perform the duties of office or gross neglect of duty.
(3) All officers. Any village, town, town sanitary district, school district or technical college district officer, elective or appointive, including those embraced within subs. (1) and (2), by the judge of the circuit court of the circuit wherein the village, town, town sanitary district, school district or technical college district is situated, for cause.
History: 1971 c. 154; 1977 c. 449; 1983 a. 532; 1993 a. 399; 1995 a. 34, 225; 1999 a. 9; 2007 a. 20.
If a statute provides that a public officer, including VTAE (technical college) board members, serves at pleasure but is appointed for a term, the officer may be summarily dismissed during the term. 62 Atty. Gen. 97.
A town board was restrained from discharging its police chief until the issue of impermissible consideration of the chief's political activities was resolved. Kuhlmann v. Bloomfield Township, 521 F. Supp. 1242 (1981).