(Un)Ethics in Kronenwetter- Why was this report hidden from the public?

Update:  The information below was posted before the May 22, 2023 Village Board meeting. At that meeting President Voll delayed discussion on the issue, citing his personal confusion as to what this agenda item was to address.

    I was prepared to present my reasons for clearing this issue off the Board's radar, and I believe Mr Vedvik was ready to discuss the issue as well, but as a courtesy to President Voll, we agreed to delay discussion and repost the item on the next Board meeting agenda so Voll could have time to get his act together.

Below is the original post from May 22:

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   A group of about 8-10 core members apparently calling themselves "Concerned Citizens for a Better Kronenwetter" (CCBK) has made many vague and unsubstantiated claims, innuendo, and accusations of ethics violations against the Village Board for the past year or so, about ethics violations. 

   CCBK and it's apparent founder Alex Vedvik have focused their efforts on insisting that the Village Board  approve the creation of an ad-hoc committee to develop a code of ethics and a means of enforcing that code. 

   Some of the politics and hypocrisy of that effort is covered in my other article on this site: "Ethics in Kronenwetter - the Real issues"

   The CCBK group claimed to have pure and unbiased motives, and that the effort was not a "witch hunt" based on personal animosity or political differences.  However, when the Village APC committee and the Village Board approved the formation of this ad-hoc committee contingent on conditions meant to insure neutrality in the project, there was a sudden lack of interest by CCBK, and a shortage of volunteers to fill the 7-member ad-hoc committee. This shortage constitute a "lack of interest" that both the APC and Village Board had pre-determined would put an end to the matter. 

   So now, Alex Vedvik has again requested a discussion at the Village Board level on changing the terms for the formation of an ad-hoc ethics committee and I challenged the need for this agenda item for several reasons which I will explain here.

   The report below was submitted to the Village Clerk to be in the May 22 Village Board meeting packet material, as reasons why Mr. Vedvik should not waste the Board's time by re-hashing a failed issue.

   For reasons unknown, President Voll instructed the Clerk to omit this report from the meeting packet, and thus from the public view. 

   I think it contains information that may be of interest to the public, so I'm posting it here.

The following is what I submitted for the packet:

Summary of action taken so far.

This issue has been beat to death over the past year. The Village Board assigned the issue to the Administrative Policy Committee (APC), which considered the subject over several meetings, took public input, and held an open forum to provide free access for proponents of the matter to express why this new code and/or ad-hoc committee was needed.

Legitimate, concrete examples of the claimed, rampant ethics violations have not been provided, though there have been many repeated broad, undefined accusations.

Proponents of a new ethics code claimed this was not a “witch hunt” based on personal animosity, or politically motivated, or meant to be biased in any way.

It seems that once clearly defined questions were asked, the only rational, articulated reason to establish an ethics code/enforcement commission, was to have a mechanism to a local means of dealing with such complaints, rather than filing complaints with the police as many communities do.

In the end, APC recommended to the Village Board to create the opportunity for Village residents to apply to be part of a 7-member ad-hoc ethics committee, but it did so with stipulations meant to insure that the members would be neutral, rational, and unbiased people without political motivation or personal animosity. If less than 7 people applied for the ad-hoc positions, the issue would be considered closed due to a lack of interest.

The Village Board approved the motion unanimously.

Current agenda item

Since the issue of creating an unbiased ethics committee has been closed due to lack of applicants, Trustee Vedvik wants to now bring to the Board agenda an item to disregard the safeguards that APC and the Board voted for.

He apparently would like to open the door for an ad-hoc committee made up of anyone, regardless of whether or not they have personal animosity, political agenda, or other axes to grind.

The Village Board should not allow itself to be a party to an abuse of procedure that allows one or two highly partisan trustees representing a tiny group of disgruntled activists, to ignore and override what has already just been acted on by the Board.

The safeguard provisions that the Board approved, are there for a good reason. That is to prevent anything like the disaster of the previous ethics code/ethics commission from happening again.

History of the previous Ethics Code

What I summarize here is, is more highly detailed in my March 4, 2020 email report to President Voll. That report is available to anyone who requests it.

I also have a report called “Ethics in Kronenwetter - the Real Issues” at kencharneski.com, that lays out my support for true ethics and an honest government, along with the hypocrisy and danger of what the activists are trying to impose upon the Village.

Here are some of the problems with the former ethics code experience:

• It was created as a political tool to target one trustee for removal from the Board, who's only “unethical” behavior was to also be a member of the Kronenwetter fire department.

• President Geraldine Kowalski requested this Chapter 54 Ethics Code to be created and brought to the Board. Trustees Ken Pozorski and Dan Lesniak, as well as Administrator Richard Downey all took a hard line toward adoption and enforcement of the code. It passed on a 3-2 vote.

• The unfortunate trustee targeted by this politically motivated effort, had no choice but to resign.

• For the next 5 years, the Village Administrator Richard Downey chose to entirely disregard the mandatory duties placed on him by Chapter 54. This involved dozens of violations of the Ethics Code on his part, as well as numerous instances of criminal misconduct.

• In 2019, upon my discovery of Downey's habitual non-compliance, he admitted both verbally and in writing, to knowingly ignoring the duty requirements that Chapter 54 placed on him.

• In 2019, the Village had no Ethics Committee to enforce the Code, because Downey never posted to the public the need for volunteers for these positions.

• Due to the engineered “lack of public interest”, Downey personally selected the candidates for the Ethics Committee, which President Voll then appointed.

• Once the Ethics Committee was in place, Downey told them of his five years of willful Code violations.

• The Ethics Committee did not raise a single question in light of this information, but instead disregarded it without a comment. In effect showing blatant favoritism by giving a free pass to the person selected them to be on the committee, and violating their own oath of office in the process.

• The Ethics Committee went on to create their own rules of procedure, which included accepting hearsay evidence; another red flag.

• They then wanted full autonomy as a commission to enforce their decisions rather than as a mere committee making recommendations to the Board.

• Seeing how quickly the process and concept of a local ethics code and enforcement had quickly become corrupted, I wrote a report on it to APC. I outlined the problems, and gave a choice of either revising the Code, or eliminating it altogether.

• Both the APC and the Village Board voted to eliminate Chapter 54 entirely.

So that is a snapshot history of the many blatantly unethical, self-serving, and illegal twists and turns that the previous Ethics Code took.

That is why currently, APC made the specific recommendations to keep the corrupting influence of personal biases and favoritism out of the process of any effort to establish an ethics code and/or procedure.

Given the similarities of political behavior, personal animosity, and even some of the same players being involved between the old ethics code and proposed new code, I think it is the height of irresponsibility to let this matter continue for another round after its initial failure.

After there was not enough interest in creating an honest, unbiased, ethical, ethics ad-hoc committee, why should this Village settle for any less than that, just to appease the childish petulance of one trustee and his little band of political cohorts?

We have a Village Board elected by the People of this Village. The goal of the activists however , is to form a commission to act as prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner with authority over all Village officials. In effect, circumventing the current elected process with a new system of overseers, very similar to that in China.

While they wish to sit in judgment of other's behavior based on vague and capricious standards, they have rejected the idea that they too, should be held to a similar standard of conduct. In other words, my question would be - “Who will watch these watchers?”

According to them – no one.

I think we need to keep the Madison-style politics out of our Village and adhere to the common sense integrity and standards of the vast majority of the residents that we represent.

Thanks,

Ken Charneski