Do our Board Rules allow the Chair and Vice Chair to issue a letter of reprimand to a Board Supervisor who was arguably the Chair’s strongest political adversary?
During our April 2022 organizational meeting, on my first night as a Marathon County Board Supervisor, I ran for Board Chair against Chair Gibbs. In what is undoubtedly an unprecedented result, I received 13 votes or over 1/3 of the total votes.
If I had been reelected as Supervisor this year, I was willing to run again for Board Chair. Based on my hard work and results achieved over the last 2 years, I am confident that I would have received more votes this year and may have been successful.
On November 21st, 2023, 2 days before Thanksgiving, Chair Gibbs approached me before the HRFC meeting and asked if I would stay after the meeting to meet with him. After the meeting, Chair Gibbs and Vice Chair McEwen asked me to come to the conference room, where they presented me with a sealed envelope and invited me to open it, read it, and discuss it with them.
Guessing the nature of the contents of the envelope, I refused to open or accept the envelope. I asked under what authority was the document being provided. Chair Gibbs stated that it was under their authority as “Leadership” of the Board. I did not take the envelope and immediately left the conference room.
As I was walking through the foyer, I noticed Corporation Counsel Puerner and told him that I needed to discuss something with him in his office. I explained the situation and asked if Chair Gibbs and Vice Chair McEwen had the authority to issue a letter of reprimand. Corporation Counsel Puerner verbally responded that they did not have the authority to issue a letter of reprimand on their own, as that would require approval of the entire Board.
Vice Chair McEwen provided me with a copy of the letter the next day at my request as I didn’t want to go through the Thanksgiving holiday wondering what was in the envelope.
The letter of reprimand is written to make it sound like I had done some truly awful things. In fact, I had essentially a) asked for an item to be added to an upcoming HRFC agenda, b) suggested that we form an unofficial task force to try and resolve a very contentious issue in the County, and c) asked a fellow Supervisor and the County Administrator to support me against lies in the media.
I spent much of Thanksgiving day writing a blog post to refute the letter and other attacks on me. You can find that post here:
The Chair’s responsibilities include Rule 6(f) – Ensure the County Board and individual Supervisors act consistently with the County Board’s Rules and Policies including Rule 18 Guidelines and Expectations.
In my opinion, none of the allegations in the letter of reprimand are at all related to the items listed in Rule 18 (see References) or any other of the County’s Rules.
The letter also mentions that my conduct was deemed to be “unbecoming of a Marathon County Board Supervisor.” I did not find any guidelines or reference to “conduct unbecoming” in either our Board Rules or the Wisconsin Statutes Chapter 59, so apparently this is an undefined standard that can be interpreted however one sees fit.
The letter also mentions the possibility of a possible investigation that is not going to be pursued. If there wasn’t enough evidence of wrongdoing to undertake an investigation, suggesting a potential investigation in my opinion seems only to be intended as a character smear.
I am not sure if this letter was actually emailed to the other Supervisors. I did not get a copy by email.
In my opinion, it is an abuse of power to write a letter of reprimand to a political adversary without any clear evidence of violation of Board Rules or Statutory requirements, especially without any apparent authority to do so.
Vice Chair McEwen mentioned that Chair Gibbs had consulted an attorney before writing the letter. Who authorized this expenditure and from what account? If the attorney mentioned was from the Wisconsin Counties Association, did Chair Gibbs use his position on the WCA Board for personal gain?
References
Web Page on “Conduct Unbecoming”
Wisconsin State Statutes, Chapter 59 – Counties