Kronenwetter Residents,
Below is my response to you the People of Kronenwetter, about last September's City Pages article. I believe that my response still just as relevant today as it was five months ago, as it provides valuable background to his new article about the presidential election primary in which the reporter tries to stir the pot on some old, debunked issues invented by my opponents for political purposes..
I am re-posting it here unchanged, for your convenience and information.
I have a separate post dealing with the current CP article on the election primary.
Thanks!
Ken Charneski
Kronenwetter Residents,
In case you have read the recent article about Kronenwetter and are curious, here are the replies that I gave to Mr. Kowalski's questions that he used for that article.
I have other posts at www.kencharneski.com from the March to April election time period, but which are very relevant to what is going on today and involved many of the same actors.
The subject matter touched on here is the tip of the iceberg of what I would call the "true good ol' boys club" which included women of course, and which I believe has existed for at least a decade. I have submitted detailed reports concerning the improper, unethical, seemingly incompetent, and even illegal activities of some of these people to President Voll and the former Village Board. Mr. Straub has likewise pursued matters of the same nature alleged against two former employees.
With the results of the past election, the shielding of these activities is no longer possible. So it is no wonder that some of these same people are also at the core of the group of perpetually vociferous and dishonest "anti-trustee" critics today.
Regarding the recent article. In Mr. Kowalski's email to me, you might notice that he says he cannot find anything that "crosses the line" as being improper in any of my emails, and I will agree with that. However, that did not stop him from publishing an article that was written to make it look like I (and others) acted improperly.
I think Mr. Kowalski quoted my answers fairly enough, considering the nature of his publication.
He was very inaccurate on other points, such as saying that the former Village Administrator was suspended, when he was not.
A good going-through of Kowalski's spin, inaccuracies, and misrepresentations in his article would be a matter for another blog post. I'm just hitting a few points here.
One obvious issue in the article that I do see as needing immediate clarification, (aside from basing the main premise on allegations from some of the least-credible people that I know of) is the last paragraph where Kowalski quotes Duane Gau's comments to me, making it look like I harassed or threatened an employee, when I have had almost no contact with that person in the entire time he has worked here.
Instead, Duane must have been referring to something that either I said to him as administrator, due to a resident's complaint about code enforcement, or it referred to something Mr. Gau himself must have said to that employee about me.
It also may very well have something to do with that employee's perception of things due to ongoing communication with Mr. Randy Fifrick, someone who left the Village under a cloud of scandalous conditions, and continues to be a main source of gossip, false information and defamation against myself and Trustee Straub. This appears to me to be his response of choice against both of us for having reported Fifrick's dishonest and disreputable behavior on a number of occasions in the past.
The quote Kowalski uses at the end of the article is tenuous at best, and though he is not exactly mis-quoting Mr. Gau, he is misrepresenting the context of the email within the thread as a whole.
This gets back to my main point about this entire ongoing attack on Village Board members. If I, for example, ever did anything out of line (I mean in my own communication that someone can point to. Not what someone else has said about me second or third hand) in my duties as an advocate of the public interest, then let's see it so I can respond to it. I requested this numerous times in my response to Kowalski, as you can see.
99% of my communication is written, and Kowalski has it all. So then why, in a very lengthy article, does his only actual written quote in support of his false case consist of what someone else said to me, with no examples from Mr. Kowalski or from my political enemies that he quotes, of anything specific that I myself have said or done?
Kowalski knows this is true, because my email to Gau is in the same thread from which he quotes Gau's statements. Since he has all of my emails, he surely would have quoted me if he had anything negative from me to quote.
Kowalski put the incriminating quote right at the end of the article, because psychologically, that would be the most likely thing that people remember from a long article like that. That is a basic rule of propaganda journalism.
Thanks,
Ken Charneski
Below, I have a short email to Mr. Kowalski, followed by a larger email.
In the larger one, Mr. Kowalskis original comments and questions to me are in black, while my responses to him are in red. Farther down, I pasted his questions from the previous email to which I had already answered in yellow, so I left it that way rather that switching to the red format.
See what you think. I am open to questions or comments at kcharneski@kronenwetter.org
Brian,
I am putting together some replies to your various comments and questions as time allows.
You could help me out by providing a link to any articles you have already written about this. I would like to see some specific examples that your interviewees have provided as to what all the accusations are about, and exactly what events or behavior that I or other trustees are supposed to be answering to.
Your comments and questions below indicate to me that you are pretty much in the dark, and working off of fallacies, hearsay, gossip and the general kvetching of a small but vociferous group of people who are unhappy with the results of the most recent election. Whether or not there is a legitimate story for you to write about any of this, depends on your nose for facts. I think you are barking up the wrong tree by taking generally unfounded disparagement and accusations (including actual slander and defamation) at face value.
Meanwhile, as I prepare my replies and wait to read your articles, you already have thousands of pages of my emails from your Open Records request, which were provided to you at a cost of about $4,000 to the Village. Why don't you read them? They contain the background and documentation for numerous events of problematic administrative performance, that are necessary for you to understand the issues that you are asking about today.
I will be glad to sit down and fill you in as to explanation or the back story of any of the emails that you obtained and have questions about. I understand that you got hardcopies in your Open Records request, so you could bring specific emails for us to discuss, in the event that we do arrange a meeting.
Thanks for contacting me about this, I'll get back to you with more, when I have more time to write.
Thanks,
Ken Charneski
From: Brian (B.C.) Kowalski <brian.kowalski@mmclocal.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2022 4:56 PM
To: Ken Charneski <kcharneski@kronenwetter.org>
Subject: Re: Story about employees leaving Kronenwetter
Ken,
Brian,
The following replies are my own, and in no way do they represent the views of any other elected official or of village as a whole.
Here are some specifics now that I've gotten a draft started.
In your emails you mentioned the municipal debt balloon payment that was coming due and I know you felt that the village/Downey dropped the ball. I saw your emails and on the surface they made sense (I refinanced myself around that time period), but according to former financial director Alicia Richmond, a financial advisor was needed and for the timing you wanted, it would have had to happen in March/April 2020, during the lockdowns and chaos around the pandemic. And, she says, the municipality ultimately did refinance and obtained a really good rate. Her summary is not accurate or a fair representation of what happened.
I could write pages on this issue, but will try to make it brief. First off, it was not a balloon payment that was due. It was millions of dollars in callable bonds that the Village was paying 2.5 to 5% interest on, and that could have been refinanced at about 1%, costing the Village thousands of dollars a week in unnecessary interest costs.
You have my emails. There are many going back and forth on this issue in the time period starting Sept 30, 2020. Look for one dated Oct 17, 2020 to concerned residents "Rich and Sharon". That single email includes all of the other emails about the bonds up to that point, and in a few minutes you will have the complete story of how it all started.
Also look at the second Oct 2020 Village Board meeting packet where I tried to lay out the facts to the Village Board. That has my crude charts in it that visually lays out the situation.
The March/April time period was when the refinancing process should have been begun, so that it could have been completed by June 1 call dates. The majority of this could easily have been done through emails, and there was plenty of other Village business being done throughout this entire time period, including in-person Board meetings. So the whole Covid excuse doesn't fly.
Contrary to the former treasurer's statements, the Village certainly did have a financial advisor available and on call through all of 2020. In fact, the emails show that he was trying to make an appointment from April through August of 2020, to discuss the Village Debt , and in July he said that he could move very quickly to get the refinancing accomplished. It appears that the Village Administrator ignored those emails and calls.
Here is an excerpt from my 3/29/21 email to the Board about that situation-
"Likewise with the circumstances surrounding the debt handling which involved more than just a matter of ignoring call dates. This also involved firing a financial advisor who had the TID debt modeling worked out in early 2020, and who said way back in July that he could move "very quickly" to get the village refinancing accomplished. He again said on Aug 19 that he could move with "great speed and efficiency" to finish up that modeling, based on "policymaker direction". In other words, Mr D was ready to move on this immediately (July).
This all coming from an advisor that we have been told that we "didn't have".
Instead of Mr D getting that requested direction from the village, he got fired for reasons that are still uncertain. Instead of the village getting "great speed and efficiency" in cutting our interest losses and refinancing the already overdue debt, we got a strong recommendation from staff for a new financial advisor based in part on a false claim.
Worst of all, the new advisor provided vastly inferior service compared to that which we had gotten from the fired advisor. Service that added months of delay and thousands of additional dollars of cost to the process. This again, cannot objectively be called a "mistake", but a series of conscious decisions and statements that we still haven't gotten to the bottom of."
Mr. Downey responded to the FA's emails by firing the advisor without informing the Board, and I don't see where he had the authority to do that, but he did, and for no valid reason.
The new financial advisor was recommended by Ms Richmond. The emails I later got, strongly indicate to me that she was close friends with the representative of the new company, but I don't see where she ever disclosed that information with her recommendation of that company to the APC committee, or to the Village Board.
On pages 361 and 362 of the August 2020 APC meeting packet, we see that aside from a short term note payable in April of 2021, neither the administrator or the treasurer had any intention at all of refinancing anything until 2022. That would have additionally cost the Village about $750,000 in unnecessary interest, had the committee not moved forward with refinancing. The new financial advisor personally recommended by the new treasurer and hired in August, also showed no interest in refinancing anything until I raised the alarm and got the ball rolling with APC in October. Then, with the obvious advantage of refinancing staring them in the face, the advisors basically had no choice but to follow along.
So yes, the refinancing was accomplished at "a really good rate" as she said, but only due to persistence by myself, supported by the APC committee to get it all going and accomplished. Even then, we had a struggle to get this done, and it appeared to me that we had more staff resistance than support in the effort. It is all there for you to see in my emails from October 2020 to late January 2021.
By the time the debt refinancing took effect at the lower rates, the total cost of financial negligence to the Village Taxpayers was around $180,000.
The other specific item that pertains to you was a former employee saying you were smart and great at catching errors, Errors were abundant and most often they came to me; I didn't go looking for them. They were usually disappointingly obvious. I mean, when a village officer says "the committee meeting is on this date and at this time, but I'm not going to post it for public notice", it doesn't take a genius to say "hey, that's illegal". What am I supposed to do, become party to it by saying nothing? but also felt you contributed to the culture that caused employees to leave.
Again, we have a vague accusation. How was I supposed to have contributed to any of what is being accused? Am I supposed to turn a blind eye to potential incompetence, dishonesty, and even statute violations if I see them? Who specifically is it that has left because of my simple inquiries? Tell me that, and then I can respond.
Beyond that, in my interviews the main theme that emerged was less about it being about any particular incident and more to do with the idea of getting barrages of emails from multiple board members Again, who and when? This vagueness leaves nothing to answer. and feeling like every single decision was questioned, and that everyone felt like they had to walk on eggshells. They described emails coming at all hours of the night and nitpicking minor issues. As always, no examples. You have my emails, tell me what you are even talking about. There is nothing in them that fits what you are describing. Better yet, do a PIR for all emails to Ms R., to verify or refute her statements.
In another case where she made similar accusations like this, I documented the fact that the basis for those claims did not exist. It was basically fiction. You have those emails from December 2020 as well.Richmond didn't even want to tell me where she ended up working next, for fear Kronenwetter board members would find her. From the emails I read from you specifically, again, which ones? they seemed highly critical and perhaps excessive in volume but not necessarily crossing the line as unprofessional or inappropriate. So what is your point? That I should not, on behalf of the taxpayers, be critical of costly gross negligence? But that said, this is a time when employers for years have been bending over backwards to try to keep employees.
Also, I give you credit for going to that meeting at the park a few Wednesdays ago, since it seemed like a pretty hostile crowd. I know you said you feel it's just people mad about the election, but I haven't seen a citizen group form around general discontent toward a board in my career yet, despite plenty of contentious elections. There have been a lot of accusations thrown about but for this story I am really focusing on the employee exodus, because it's beyond anything I've yet seen in local government. I'm also hearing criticism from people of left and right political leanings, so there doesn't seem to be a partisan bent to it. I do not mind hostility or criticism if it is well founded. With the crowd at that meeting it was not, and has not been well founded, or even "founded" at all, ever since they started this smear campaign before the most recent election.
As you are aware, I have consistently asked for specifics, so I can address them as I did at the meeting. You must have seen me there ask Kate about the "bullying" or "hostile behavior" that she has witnessed. She did not witness anything. All she could say is that "she talked to other people". So it is all hearsay, just as you are gathering. I have no doubt that Ms R dislikes me immensely because of my work, but apparently even she could not give you a single concrete example of what your story seems to be about. I replied head-on with facts to other assertions at that meeting, and they had no answer.
You are writing a story based on inuendo and gossip that has as it's source a very small number of highly partisan actors. One couple in particular that have not settled just for complaining, but have lied outright and slandered me maliciously. This is a hundred-year-old Communist political tactic. - When you have no facts to support a cause simply demonize the opposition personally, excessively, and repeatedly.
Replies to your other questions are farther down in yellow
Anyway, this is your chance to have your say, push back against what others are saying and add your voice to the mix. I think I have provided you plenty to respond to, and I expect answers in your next email.
Thank you,
Brian
PS I did not request hard copies, but received the emails electronically, in probably the worst format/organization I have ever seen. There are more than 100 files and many of them are highly repetitive, there is no chronology to them, and often they narrow to a single line of text running down the screen. I've included a screenshot so you can see for yourself.
Yes, I have gotten similar garbage in some of my PIR requests, and a number of times no fulfillment at all. There is no excuse for what you sent in that screen shot.
By the way, I recognize that screen shot as part of a series of emails that lays out what I believe to be a true case of ethics violation providing legal free legal advice to a private party at taxpayers' expense. I documented it and complained about extensively to Downey, Mr Voll, and to the Board.
Wisconsin has weak requirements for PIR fulfillment compared to some states. I am still looking into the excessive cost associated with your request. My own PIR's about these costs were not fulfilled by the old administrator.
I’ve spoken to multiple former employees, reviewed meeting recordings, even job interview videos in the case of the former administrator. All former employees How many would that be? I’ve interviewed say that the board’s behavior toward them is the reason they left. They cited feeling harassed, nitpicked, and barraged with requests that were personal in nature. Can you cite some specific examples? Working days in the village were followed by meetings several hours long, including issues that were already voted on being rehashed. Attending meetings is required is in their job descriptions. This is nothing that should be a cause for complaints. Officials at a meeting discussing issues, or revisiting others based on new information is a duty called "due diligence". Elected officials cannot curtail their duties just for the convenience of the staff. One told me they were afraid to take a day off without getting a scalding email about not answering board members quickly enough. And one didn’t want to tell me where she moved for fear of harassment. Do you find these claims to be credible? Do you have specific examples here? Without evidence, these anonymous claims are absurd. If any of this was true, it would have been the Village Administrator's duty to report such issues to the Board in a timely manner so they could be dealt with. Any and all of this could be verified or debunked with an email search to find these alleged scalding emails.
From reading through emails, it seems the former administrator Richard Downey got the brunt of the criticism. To be fair, former employees had mixed feelings about Downey’s leadership abilities, but everyone felt he treated them with respect. If you read the emails, then you know there was very good reason for criticism. So what is your point? Which of those criticisms do you find to be unfounded? The feelings about the administrator's low management abilities was pretty much unanimous among the staff, and I think understated.
It is ironic that trustees are now suddenly blamed for employees leaving. These current complainers that you refer to were some of the same people who were coming to me for help with the "office politics" and poor management problem 3 years ago. I brought forth the 360 review concept as part of the administrator's annual review, so staff had a chance to voice their concerns. I believe that people tend to leave when they realize that their supervisor is not qualified to supervise, and when top management won't do anything to correct the problem. The current Village Board is doing much better at that.
And now citizens are gathering on their own regularly because they apparently are so fed up with village board members’ behavior.I disagree. My observation is that the central clique of this small group is fed up with losing the election, and are venting that anger through false accusations and demonization of the election winners.. Again, where are specific examples of "Board Members' behavior, so they can be addressed? In my opinion, the core of the group consists of highly partisan people who, due to the philosophy of the left, or to personal animosity have chosen complaints and vilification as a political tactic. You may find other people involved, but only because their genuine concern was aroused by repeated false claims. They are now circulating a petition to try to instate some kind of ethics commission in the village. I’ve been a reporter for two decades and while I’ve seen plenty of citizen groups formed, this is the first time I saw a group form just around discontent with a governing body in general. Yes, exactly. It is just general complaining and slander with very little if any focus or substance to support it. The tactic is what I'll call organized vociferous gang-defamation. The "ethics" thing is just a public relations stunt,that they are spinning off of their smear campaign, in my opinion.
Where was their concern a year ago, when the real violations were happening and I was trying to get some accountability for?
As a board member, I would like to ask you the following questions. You can respond via email, or we can set up a time to talk on the phone as well. Please let me know your preference.
Are you concerned about the board’s apparent effect on Kronenwetter keeping employees, What effect are you talking about? Exactly what and when has any Board member done to cause whatever effect you are talking about? Your question is apparently based on a false assumption and hearsay. and the village’s ability to function going forward? The new staff is doing fine. Better than ever, actually. The new "can do" office culture is quite refreshing. In one meeting the finance director said he wasn’t able to pay a certain bill because nobody was left who knew how to log into the portal. No one left without giving two weeks' notice, so there was time to transfer any of that kind of knowledge. If that was not done, then that would be the former Village Administrator's failure. All of this should have been established in a written standard operating procedure long ago.
Are you concerned about recruitment? Kronenwetter is starting to get a reputation as a not-so-great place to work IF this would be the case, it would be due to the vociferous defamers mentioned above, who were given a soap box by the media. It would not be due to the current work environment. The main recruitment problem that I see is keeping up with skyrocketing pay scales of everyone else. at a time when employees are already scarce.
What do you think about the idea of an ethics commission? Should there be one? Any suggestions for how it should be formed if one was formed? The last ethics code and the implementation of it was a disaster. I have a complete report on that issue that I offered to this group at their meeting. Not a single one of them was interested in getting a copy of the report.
I would say that those involved in the last Ethics Code are not qualified to participate in anything involving ethics, yet some of those same actors are now behind this idea of a new ethics board.
Any true ethics case would be covered under Wisconsin statutes.
This vociferous group appears to me to be more concerned with regulating speech and debate among public officials, and imposing the group's idea of political correctness, than they really are with ethics. It is all done under the false guise of "ethics", because that sounds much better with the public.
The only possibility I see, is to refer any ethics case to a remote service that can judge it based on facts only; not on a personal or political basis. And again, the most logical means would be to just press charges under State statutes.
Personal attacks seem to come up in meetings. I’ve heard the village president’s wife called “Holly Volley” If you heard this said, then you also heard the objection by Mr. Voll, and the follow up explanation and apology for the misunderstanding. Is this the best example of a "personal attack" that you have? As you already know, these things were very rare, and the main two trustees that I remember starting anything like that, are now off the Board. and another person was told in a committee meeting something along the lines of that his head should be held underwater until the bubbles stop. You apparently don't know what you are talking about here. Perhaps if you get your facts straight, I can reply. Ask your sources if they even know what they are talking about. Is that appropriate conduct for a village’s board, and should more be done to ensure decorum? As I said, such incidents are rare. Trustee Straub tried to get "eliminating ad hominem attacks" put on the agenda for Board action. Trustee Lesniak adamantly opposed Straub's idea. Lesniak is now part of the clique that is raising false issues about Board "decorum" after he was one of the main perpetrators.
Downey in his interview with Williamstown told them he was told to basically shut up and speak when spoken to. That may be what he said, but that is not what was told to him. What is/should the role of an administrator play in the village, in meetings? What should staff’s role in general be? Elected officials have a duty to the public to fulfill in accordance with their oath of office. Staff should respect the obligation to the public by providing support in having those duties carried out in an efficient and fully informed manner.
If you need more info, let me know.
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