Part 1 FYI: Von Briesen report; August 2024 original rebuttal

    Be sure to check out my other recent posts as to election matters and my position on village issues.

   With each election there seems to come out of the woodwork a fabricated "new issue" for my enemies on the political left to magnify and dramatize. 

   These people cannot seem to find legitimate Village issues to raise or discuss, or find any fault with my performance as a Village trustee as it applies to Village best interests, so they rely this sort of thing.

   The soup of the day that they are serving up for this election seems to be "the von Briesen Report". This is an issue that has been dealt with and repudiated several times in the past almost 2 years. But here they are again resurrecting a discredited document.  

   I have addressed this issue in two separate posts already;

Chris Voll's and Aaron Myszka's "von Briesen Report" Part 2 - A $65,000 crime against Kronenwetter Taxpayers

 Unbelievable - Chris Voll's "von Briesen Report" Part 1: A Crime Against Kronenwetter Taxpayers

 I have this post, and will have two more short follow-ups on how and when this report has been repudiated by the Village Board.

  Below is my original rebuttal to the "von Briesen Report" as I sent it to the Village Board shortly after the report was conveyed to us by the village attorney in 2024.

   It is a little long, but needed to be in order to at least touch on all the issues of dishonesty and bias found in that report. 

   The Village Administrator at the time the report was being prepared (June/July, 2024) had expressed dismay that this report was even being done. After reviewing the "evidence" being reported on, he said several times that "there is no 'there" there"; meaning that there was no substance to any of it. 

   Many others agree with that assessment.

 The text in red identifies documentation to back up each item as discussed. I can provide these upon request, as full proof of the statements made here.

There are a few updates in [brackets] like this. 

 

 Response to the Ms. Hanneman's Findings and Recommendations

Introduction and Background

    Village clerk Bobbi Birk-LaBarge (LaBarge) is no stranger to making complaints about those with whom she disagrees.
    On December 7th 2022 she complained extensively to Trustee Ken Charneski (Charneski) about "bullying" by the Village treasurer at the time.  At that time, it was committee member Paul Jaeger and 
Trustee Joel Straub who were the "bad guys", along with some of LaBarge's co-workers. They were the focus of Ms. LaBarge's complaints. She even resigned once due to her differences with Roger Habeck, 
as an apparent means to try to get attention and sympathy, because then she rescinded the resignation after she thought Roger would be leaving soon.
   She complained about interim administrator Duane Gau for not having a backbone and standing up for her, as well as accusing him of "making a mockery" of her at staff meetings.
   In January of 2023, LaBarge also complained extensively about Trustee Straub's information requests; going so far as to say that she had to work weekends because his demands were so extensive during the week. Charneski asked her for copies of all of his requests for the previous 60 days, and she could provide only a few.
   More recently, aside from the complaints featured in Ms Hanneman's report we know of the following:
   In  a February 14, 2024 email she complained excessively to the Board about a very mild comment Charneski made  about his election concerns, as part of a response to a reporter's question. She called it 
"retaliation" for her December 14 complaint that had already been dismissed by the Board as insufficient. 
    

   When Leonard Ludi resigned in May of 2024, LaBarge reportedly first tried to organize the staff to threaten a walk-out, blaming Charneski for the resignation. When that idea fizzled, she organized a public ambush-type verbal assault against Charneski at the Village Board meeting of May 13th, consisting of accusations, defamation, and name-calling - anything but facts, and all having no apparent purpose than to somehow vilify Charneski for some perceived wrongdoing.

    LaBarge's orchestrated attack violated numerous rules of employee conduct by all 4 employees, and her own input ended with "It is a painful lesson, and one you are about to learn. You are the trailer park,
Trustee Charneski, and I am going to be your tornado."
     Charneski has apparently now become the "bad guy", ever since he started asking questions about LaBarge's very questionable election procedure, then her Open Records violations.
    Labarge was apparently incensed by the Open Records and Election Commission complaints filed against her, and Ludi's resignation being the tipping point to "put her over the top"with those public input antics. Her current litigation claims are apparently the "tornado" that she mentions. 

    All in all, LaBarge seems to have established a pattern of complaints about numerous things that she finds offensive, and it looks like she has a very low threshold for that. 
    As she has made quite apparent by her public input, the only real malice and retaliation involved in any of this whole scenario, appears to be coming from her.
   
The Failings of the Report
   The von Briesen Report written by Von Briesen & Roper attorney Ann Barry-Hanneman (Hanneman), was instigated by LaBarge with an alleged complaint against Trustee Ken Charneski. The complaint itself has never been seen by Charneski, as the procedure in the Village Employee Handbook requires as one of the first steps in the process. The scope of work that von Briesen has engaged in has also not been revealed to Charneski or apparently anyone else due to "attorney-client privilege".
   According to SCR 20:2.4, Hanneman is not acting as a 3rd-party neutral, as a hearing officer would have if the proper procedure would have been followed (HR-009, grievance procedure) and as the 
Village Board had directed Ludi to do on January 31st. 

    For some unknown reason Ludi signed a contract with von Briesen even after he acknowledged the correct procedure directed in Village Policy HR-009. This unauthorized contract had no dollar amount limit, and was made without committee review or Village Board approval as required by Village Ordinance and purchasing policy. In fact the specific instructions of the Village Board, unanimously passed just 2 weeks earlier, was to NOT hire an outside attorney, but to instead follow the procedure in the Employee Handbook (HR-009).
  
   To date (August 24, 2024) the cost of the report is about $50,000 to Kronenwetter taxpayers to simply re-hash events that were already known. Why would Ludi and LaBarge commit the Village to this kind 
of cost, and why wasn't the proper procedure of HR-009 followed instead? LaBarge presumably knew this von Briesen investigation was not authorized, and not part of the procedure in the handbook. She 
says she is the HR director. 
   Ludi did not responded to any attempts to contact him by President Voll or former Administrator Kampfer, at a time when Ludi reportedly maintained communication with LaBarge. 
    
   The report appears to be crafted for the sole purpose of criticizing and condemning Charneski, through the adoption of a "guilt by accusation" standard.
    The report makes repeated accusations of abusive behavior and harassment by Charneski, using cherry-picked examples of emails that were then selectively edited and drenched in hyperpole to give 
the worst impression possible, as well as including several outright false/fictional statements misrepresented as facts.  The report takes the anonymous claims and opinions of unsworn people at 
face value as being a fact, and proceeds from there. 
   Hanneman ignores numerous facts and evidence that one would believe she knew or should have known, and which would have cast a significantly different light on the examples they presented as the 
core evidence for their conclusion.
   For example she all but ignores the main, and very important reason for Charneski's decision to not participate in this unauthorized project, as described in the email to von Briesen (sent to the Board as well), by dismissing it in footnote 1 as "certain conditions and clarifications". She instead focused on the relatively minor reasons of a hostile environment, given by Charneski which was only one of the several factors in finally deciding to decline to participate. 
   By her own admission in the footnote on page one of the report, Hanneman made a determination as to who had "relevant information" and who did not, before even interviewing them. This seems to run contrary to the concept of justice, impartiality, or a fair investigation.
   Hanneman would not interview people such as former trustees Sean Dumais, Tim Shaw, or others that actually had "relevant information" of the past few years, but which might NOT  have been supportive of her client's claims, or which might have been detrimental to what appears to be Hanneman's pre-determined outcome. The report says it is based on interviews with 7 people, but does not say how she chose these people, or if other interviews were held, but later disregarded.
   Mr. Ludi had assured Board members that they would all be interviewed, along with all staff members, but this was certainly not the case. 
 
   The report's conclusions, and even the descriptions of circumstances appear to be highly subjective and based on partial truth at best.
  Hanneman repeatedly use the word "harassment", but she does not even bother to define the word for the purpose of the report.
    The definition from page 8 of the Village Employee Handbook:

    "Harassment includes unwelcome conduct (verbal or physical), actions, words, jokes, or comments based on an individual’s protected status such as gender, sexual orientation, color, race, ethnicity, age, religion, disability, marital status, or any other legally protected characteristic. We will not tolerate harassing conduct that affects job benefits, interferes unreasonably with an employee’s work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment." 

   
    Nothing even approaching this definition appears even in Hanneman's critically judgmental conclusions.

   Hanneman uses the term "representative example" several times in her report. This is very disingenuous since the actual incidents that she brings forth are not representative, which gives the false impression that there are more. Instead, they are the ONLY examples that LaBarge could find or possibly construe to be in a negative light against Charneski. Even to the extent of grasping back to a bit of sarcasm in an email from 2021, and the report's speculative and highly subjective presumptions about two exit interviews.  The other examples cited above, were apparently excluded as not being beneficial to the conclusions of the report.

   Hanneman even included some kind of bizarre "evidence" that consists of an emotion-based opinion letter by Trustee Alex Vedvik, who's email appears to promote a lack of ethics or legal duty in favor of a feel-good but dysfunctionally corrupted village government.

      An article from Psychology Today describes "What is Canceling?" 
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-behind-behavior/202007/what-is-cancel-culture
   It describes perceived violations based on strong negative emotions resulting in efforts to harm or shame the perceived violator.
   The approach that Hanneman uses in her report seems to fit that description perfectly, and with her own emotional or personal biases obscuring any pretense to objectivity. Behind the scenes, the attack 
appears to be based on a disdain for Charneski's conservative values of truth, accountability, and respect for taxpayer funds, much more so that on any true evidence approaching "harrassment" of any individual. 

   Hanneman cites no law, rule, or even cultural norm that Charneski might have violated.

 
Examples in the Report
    Aside from LaBarge's narrative of some kind of "attitude change" by Charneski in March of 2023, the examples presented by Hanneman center around the incidents of  September 6, October 9, November 14, November 28, a  page-long "complaint" of December 14 2023, and emails to Leonard Ludi and others in April 2024, and  even Mr. Vedvik's opinion email.
   
    Those examples will be addressed in this document, showing facts that Hanneman chose to completely ignore or skew in her investigation.
 

 

 March 2023

   LaBarge's story that a simple information request by Alex Vedvik in March of 2023 just seemed to "change" Charneski from a friendly, helpful and informative elected official, into some kind of creepy 
narcisist, is just plain absurd.
   That fulfillment of  that request may have had issues tied to it, but nothing particularly noteworthy other than to show a favoritism when his request for Sean Dumais' personal resume was fulfilled within
a few minutes, while other PIR's were taking days. Information in that resume was then used by Vedvik as a source for derogatory public input against the Board accepting Dumais' offer of pro bono management services to help the Village out of a bind. 
   LaBarge's story seems to be a red herring to divert attention away from the likely reality, which is that it was LaBarge's attitude that changed significantly, not Charneski's. This took place in late March/early April  when Charneski began asking questions due to a Republican poll worker's complaint that he was unexplainably never called to work the elections.
   LaBarge's answers just raised more questions which were never answered, and which led to Charneski's final request for cooperation on October 24, 2023, and LaBarge's suggestion that he file a complaint; which he did.

    [Update: The WEC published findings in February 2026 of probable cause that LaBarge had violated numerous election laws, just as Charneski had tried to explain to her.]

 September 6 Email Example 
   Hanneman ignores the fact that initially this email thread started with Charneski's simple question: "Was there confirmation from Mr. Kempfer for the interviews?" 
   That email was not responded to, apparently due to interim administrator Manley's "policy" that every inquiry must be treated as a Public Information Request. So Charneski re-framed the question into a PIR form. 
    Hanneman refers to this as an "open records request" on page 7 of the report, ignoring the fact that it was originally a simple yes or no question.
   Given the circumstances of all of the asinine back-and-forth formalities (harassment) required by Manley and LaBarge, it appears that Charneski remained exceptionally civil with his lighthearted 
question "Wouldn't a simple "yes" to my original question have been much easier?" 
   LaBarge later acknowledges that she understood the original question but somehow didn't have time to reply. Yet, she had time to waste on lengthy back-and-forth nonsense. 
    Hanneman finds Charneski's comments to be somehow harassing or unprofessional, but gives LaBarge a free pass on her behavior.
   Hanneman also ignores the follow up email that LaBarge sent, which led to Charneski's full explanation of how inefficient Manley's policy was. Perhaps that is why they quit playing that game, as after that, simple questions were answered as a person might reasonably expect, without a PIR.
   See attached Folder "September November 2023" for emails 
  

October 9 Email to Jennifer Poyer
   On October 6 Poyer sent an email to the Board discussing what she was "pushing" in the newsletter. 
On October 7, Charneski got a complaint stating:

    "The park is incorrectly printed as Sunset Park (page 2 of newsletter) instead of Buska Park. 
Why?"

     This was one of numerous complaints along these lines in the previous 15 months since the the park name was changed. Social media posts reportedly encouraging such "resistance" to the name change by
using the old "Sunset Park" name.  Charneski responded directly to Poyer's October 6th email.
   The email explained the situation, and it was made clear that no accusations were being made of any intentional wrongdoing, and the wrong name was referred to in that email as an error, and that care 
should be taken in the future.
   Poyer replied with a flustered apology, and when Charneski saw how she had taken it, he then replied to her and everyone else copied in the original email, with clarification of his intent, and an apology.  
   He bumped into her on October 20 and apologized again in person, and had a friendly discussion, followed up by an email.
   Of course, Hanneman disregarded all of this in her report, and instead focused on LaBarge's complaint about the incident to administrator Manley and President Voll, and acting as if Charneski was unconcerned about the complaint, when it was never even made known to him by Voll or Manley.

 November 14 "Bill 514" Email
    In this case, LaBarge sent an email not only to the Village Board, but to all staff members, with her comments about how important this bill was. Charneski asked her very straightforward, polite questions, she got defensive and ended in an unprofessional huff. 
   These emails speak for themselves, in that LaBarge's behavior in sending the email with inaccurate, random comments, and in responding poorly to questions, was unjustified. Yet Hanneman again chose to find fault with Charneski, and none with LaBarge. 

  See attached Folder "September November 2023" for emails

November 28 Board of Appeals emails
      This email exchange started when Charneski opened his email one morning to find an unexplained, a quasi-legal definition of a Board of Appeals, with a "legally privileged" disclaimer at the bottom of the email.
   A little perplexed, Charneski replied with advice intended to be helpful to LaBarge in the future. That email chain also speaks for itself as to LaBarge's immediately snippy reply and unacceptable and unexplainable tirade. Even President Voll could only speculate as to why LaBarge reacted the way she did.
   Charneski's reply and questions (in red) to LaBarge's sudden, explosive diatribe, are completely disregarded by Hanneman, and once again she accuses Charneski of the worst of intentions and character.
   See the entire email thread in attached Folder "September November 2023"
   
December 14, 2023 "complaint"
      The Hanneman report accuses Charneski of "harassment and retaliation", but where is the harassment that she speaks of,  and what would the "retaliation" be for? The story seems to indicate that there was retaliation for LaBarge's December 14 complaint, which is an absurdity.
    The complaint speaks for itself, and discredits itself by what appears to be excessive, erratic, and unfounded statements, showing a profound lack of understanding of her role as clerk, and the roles of elected officials. 
   According to the Village attorney and  Policy HR-009 this "complaint" did not even meet the standards of a bona fide complaint.  It was also unsigned like all the other complaints she sent.
   Why would anyone bother to "retaliate" for something like this? 
   Trustee Tim Shaw spoke with the Weston Clerk about LaBarge's references in the complaint, and found out that they were nearly all untrue. Reporter Brian Kowalski did essentially the same thing, 
referring to Charneski's emails as "polite". 
   Charneski thoroughly rebutted and questioned the accusations in LaBarg's alleged complaint, and later sent it to Leonard Ludi on February 1, 2024. Presumably that should have been forwarded to both LaBarge and to von Briesen as part of the investigation.
   Hanneman again gives full credibility to LaBarge's accusations in that complaint, while finding complete fault with Charneski, even putting forth the lie that Charneski disregarded all of the complaints. 
   The truth is, that Hanneman knows that Charneski emailed President Voll with strong recommendations to look into the this complaint and the previous one, to get the facts on what she was actually talking about. 
   Trustees Shaw and Dumais also urged Voll to get this looked into. Hanneman does not have a single word to say about Voll's, Manley's, Mahoney's, or attorney Turonie's failure to respond to complaints that Charneski had never even seen.
 

Alex Vedvik's Opinion Email
   It is just that - opinion. The fact that Hanneman even focuses on it as any kind of "evidence" seems to be an indication of how little she had to work with in the apparent effort to smear Charneski. 
   Hannemen never mentions Charneski's rebuttal of Vedvik's email.

  See attached email "Vedvik complete thread"
 

Oath of Office Issue
   The issue is simple. This appears to be part of LaBarge's alleged political activism that included a TV interview with her suggesting that voters get some "new faces and new ideas" on the Village Board.  
For no rational reasons, she refused to administer Charneski's oath of office. She insisted that he sign a made-up oath that said he was appointed rather than elected. 
   When Charneski provided an oath taken directly from the statute, LaBarge slandered Charneski by telling the County Clerk that Charneski "made up his own oath" and refused to sign the official oath that "the Village has always used".  In actual fact, LaBarge's made-up oath has no record of ever having been used. All previous oaths have been substantially the same as the one that Charneski signed but LaBarge refused to accept. 
   Charneski's answer to Wegner's question as to whether or not he thought LaBarge was doing this deliberately, was based on her irrational refusal to accept his signed oath.
   Charneski sent Leonard Ludi an email fully explaining LaBarge's apparently intentional failure to perform her duty, the seriousness of that refusal, and asking Ludi to impress the concept of duty to 
LaBarge. He sent a second email the next day, after LaBarge did the same thing again, this time with Pete Wegner as a witness to the whole thing.
   Ludi must have ignored the requests, because almost two weeks later Charneski had to complain about yet another basic failure in LaBarge's performance in not issuing a certificate of election, and at that time making a passing comment about Ludi's poor management.
   Hanneman treated this comment as a "threat" against Ludi and again condemns Charneski for doing his job, while she gives the alleged illegality, incompetence and disrespect of Ludi and LaBarge a free 
pass.
  See the attached Folder "Ludi Oath" for the emails  

Other Unfounded Criticism
   The false theme of excessive information requests or anything along those lines, seems to be a bit ridiculous. In the past year or so, the average actual PIR's from Charneski is about 3-4 per month. 
   Wisconsin statute 19.31 states:

"Further, providing persons with such information is declared to be an essential function of a representative government and an integral part of the routine duties of officers and employees whose responsibility it is to provide such information." 

   For the Village Clerk or other staff to complain about being expected to do the routine duties of her job, seems more like harassment against Charneski, than by him.


    Hanneman's apparent support for such complaints as a means to attack Charneski, seems to be a disregard for her lawyer's oath, and a shame to the integrity of the legal profession in general.  

Fear     
  Hanneman magnifies the idea that workers were too much "in fear" to file a complaint, even when they had interim and full time administrators on duty who were favorable to the employees. They didn't want to have their reputations ruined, or so the story goes. The story falls apart however, when we see they had no compunction at all about participating in the May 13 coordinated public input attack on 
Charneski. They claim they are afraid to file a proper complaint, but somehow think nothing of embarrassing high-profile public display of unprofessional immaturity.  The "fear" story doesn't hold 
water.

Cost and Value
   The $50,000 cost [Update: $67,000 total cost] to taxpayers that Charneski's political opponents have incurred in their effort to 
"cancel" him, is an absolute disgrace. Some believe it should be investigated and prosecuted for misappropriation of public funds.  The investigation certainly was never properly authorized by the Board. 
   The "investigation" found nothing that we did not already know; there was never a need for it other than apparently, to somehow appease the complainant who already knew that. 
   For about $20 we could have printed off the complete emails and threads (no cherry picking) and gone through them and talked about it. Essentially, that has already been done with the Poyer email and
the December 14 complaint, yet they are re-hashed here at $2,500.00 per page. Basically, someone paid $50,000 to get a Madison lawyer's personal opinion stamp of disapproval on Charneski's interactions that most working people would consider reasonable.

 
Summary of Hanneman's Performance as Investigator
    Assuming that the scope of work for this project was supposed to be something like an honest investigation, it appears that Hanneman's approach and conclusions are far from it. Not a single incident that she raises, appears to have been presented in a balanced, objective manner, and perhaps it was not meant to be so to begin with. We don't know, because the scope of work has been kept secret. 

Summary of Hanneman's Recommended Actions
   After seeing how this investigation was conducted, the recommendations provided appear to be the height of hypocrisy.
   She recommends a Code of Conduct for elected Officials, while she disregards flagrant violations by the staff, of their code of conduct. Dishonesty, disrespect, and insubordination happening with impunity, and indeed, supported by certain Board members. [Update: the 3 office workers who participated in the LaBarge/Coyle/Fisher/Poyer/Vedvik public defamation ambush were given a $2000 bonus.] 
   She recommends a complaint procedure, when we already have an excellent procedure in HR-009 that Hanneman, LaBarge, and Ludi completely disregarded.
    She recommends that the Village "assure unbiased investigation that preserves due process rights", after creating this biased report and ignoring due process.