JANESVILLE—With a few months left in his current term on the Janesville City Council, longtime council member Douglas Marklein announced this week that he intends to take at least a month off council action to deal with health problems.
In a brief announcement during Monday’s regular city council meeting, Marklein told council members that he plans to undergo a medical procedure to treat what he said is liver cancer.
Marklein did not give specific details about the status of his health, but in a brief phone interview with The Gazette on Tuesday, the local builder and 10-year member of the city council said he has a procedure planned later this week to deal with his illness and that he’ll need to take some time off afterward.
“I don’t think I’ll be in any shape for about a month, and then after that is a wait and see. When the doctors give me the green light, I’ll come back to the council,” he said “I’m hoping I can hit two or three meetings before my term ends (in April) and be there in person. It all depends on how things go.”
Marklein said when he was reelected in 2021 that he would likely not run for another term on the council. At the time, he said he told family he wanted to set a 10-year limit on his involvement on the city’s main elected governing body.
Marklein earlier this month filed papers for noncandidacy in the April election in which four city council seats are coming open.
Council members Michael Jackson, David Marshick and Heather Miller all have filed papers to run for reelection in April alongside Janesville residents Richard Neeno and Spencer Zimmerman.
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