August 18, 2017 at 4:38 p.m.
Where's the Benjamins?
Where's the Benjamins?
We'll let the news story speak for itself, save to say we believe the town has been and probably is engaging in illegal walking quorums in which supervisors debate and decide town policy via email, rather than fully and openly conducting business in open session.
And we believe town clerk Kendra Moraczewski is complicit in facilitating these illegal meetings.
Over the past year or more, the accumulation of incidents of outrageous behavior by Boulder Junction town officials has become mind-boggling, not only to us but to a substantial number of town residents and taxpayers.
The story in today's paper represents only the latest in this brazen conduct, but we assure our readers and Boulder Junction residents that even more stories are on their way. In two decades of actively reporting on town government, we have never seen such blatant disregard for transparency and good government as that being exhibited now in the town of Boulder Junction.
Never. Anywhere.
That said, the residents of Boulder Junction deserve the government they elect or keep (for there are processes for removing town officials), and it is not the newspaper's role to say who should govern the town of Boulder Junction.
But it is our responsibility to expose illegal and improper behavior by any government official or body when we believe it is happening, so those residents within the appropriate jurisdiction can have the information they need to make decisions about their government.
It is our responsibility, as part of the Fourth Estate that serves as a watchdog for government accountability, to ask the tough questions that need to be asked to preserve transparency.
The stakes are high, too, for what happens in Boulder Junction ultimately affects not just Boulder Junction but all of the towns in the Northwoods, and indeed in the state, because if officials can do as they please in one town, the law and best practices be damned, then others will follow suit.
To allow one local government to go rogue is to ensure that all local governments will go rogue, sooner or later.
Meanwhile, the questions continue to swirl in Boulder Junction.
The town is contesting an open-meetings complaint we made surrounding the board's closed session deliberation and subsequent decision to award Moraczewski an $8,700 pay out that was and is improper on its face, and which town chairman Dennis Reuss acknowledged was improper at the annual town meeting way back in April, saying the money would be recovered.
So where's the money?
Reuss himself and the town board remain under scrutiny for having paid Reuss Construction - of which the town chairman is an owner - more than $7,700 for work that was neither publicly advertised as required by law nor formally approved by the town board. In that instance, Reuss also acknowledged to The Times that the contract for more than $5,000 should have gone to the town board for formal approval.
"We made mistakes, and we'll correct them," Reuss said.
And so these are the days of our lives, and believe it or not, The Times continues to investigate other allegations that keep falling in like the sands of an hourglass, including accusations of illegal meetings and even more improper town-board voting.
For some time now, many have wondered - and we have, too - whether the town's actions are the result of intentional wrongdoing or just gross negligence and incompetence. Sadly, we believe the evidence in the latest open-meetings complaint points toward intentional wrongdoing and malice.
The emails at the center of this matter - those expressing the opinions about town policy by a quorum of the board via email - smack of a deliberate effort to evade the open-meetings law, not just some innocent blunder.
One town board member was apparently well aware he could not send emails about proposed town policy to other board members - even that is too brazen for Boulder Junction officials - so he sent what he wanted other board members to know only to the town clerk.
But why send any email about town policy at all, as supervisor Denny McGann did on multiple occasions, and especially to the town clerk, who has no vote in that town policy?
We believe the only reason to launch such an email to Moraczewski is because McGann knew Moraczewski would then forward the email to the other board members, which she in fact did. Which we believe is illegal, for having Moraczewski send the email is as bad as McGann sending it himself.
In effect, we believe Moraczewski is laundering the email to evade the law.
Moraczewski as much as admits this when, in one email, she warned new supervisor Wes Johnson, who sent his policy position to everybody, not to send his thoughts about town policy to other board members but only to her, and she would then forward it to them.
If that is not a third-party circumvention of the open meetings law, we don't know what is.
In all these cases, town officials have ignored private warnings and public stories and even legal complaints, continuing on their merry way. They as much as laugh in the faces of their opponents because they do not believe anyone will stop them.
It didn't used to be this way. For many years, Boulder Junction was a beacon of good government, a model to hold up for other towns to follow. Not so anymore. These days, the town government is an embarrassment that one is tempted to try and hide in the closet, except that it is oh-so-important to ask the questions that need to be asked to ensure transparency and accountability.
The questions multiply by the day. But one stands out as a rallying cry for all the rest and for all those concerned about good government.
And that is, where's the money Reuss promised to recover for taxpayers back in April?
Where's the Benjamins? All 87 of them, to be exact.
Where's those Benjamins?
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