June 2, 2017 at 4:46 p.m.
A toast to Martha Milanowski
A toast to Martha Milanowski
When Allen looks out the window and into a train car next to him, he sees the exact opposite. People are happy and talking and lively; they are drinking cocktails and toasting; they are blowing kisses and having fun.
The two train cars are as different as clear and cloudy - the scene is filmed in black and white - and Allen tries desperately to change trains, but, alas, to no avail. The scene ends as his train pulls out of the station.
When it comes to open government, living in Oneida County these days is much like sitting in Allen's train car, while living in Vilas County could be called the party car next door.
That is to say, open-government advocates in Oneida County have nothing to toast when we look about us. Our faces our sad and somber as open-meetings violations spew out of the county one after another; no one is smiling as our conductor, district attorney Michael Schiek, sits expressionless and motionless, refusing to hold anybody seriously accountable for violations.
Things are so different over in Vilas County. For years now, Vilas County circuit court judge Neal A. "Chip" Nielsen has stood out as one of the best open-records judges in the state, and likely in the country, and that has always earned him a stellar grade in our annual open government ratings.
Now, Schiek's counterpart in Vilas County, district attorney Martha Milanowski, has moved swiftly and acted boldly in holding local-government officials there accountable for the open-meetings law. Last week she filed a hard-hitting complaint against last year's town board members for a serious alleged infraction.
Rather than merely offering up her opinion that the town board violated the law last September, and then doing nothing about it - Schiekism - Milanowski has filed a complaint in circuit court, something Schiek hasn't done. She is seeking to void all actions made in conjunction with the closed session, which involved an improper pay out of $8,700 to the town clerk.
What's more, Milanowski is seeking full disclosure of the discussion and actions that occurred within the closed session, and she has asked for forfeitures against the offending board members. That's something else Schiek doesn't do, as far as we know, even when he agrees that the statutes have been violated, save for one $25 forfeiture that supervisor Ted Cushing agreed to pay.
Milanowski's actions are refreshing, and, like those passengers on the party car in Allen's movie, Vilas County open-government advocates - and indeed all citizens - should be smiling and toasting each other.
And they should toasting Martha Milanowski.
It's no secret that local governments are watching the unfolding reactions to open records and open meetings laws violations that we and other media have exposed. They also look to see how those infractions are dealt with.
Clearly, when a district attorney continually declares governments to be in violation but never exacts any consequences, as is the case in Oneida County, he is sending a message to all local officials: Commit any open-meetings infraction you want because I will not hold you accountable. That encourages future infractions.
Milanowski has sent the opposite message in Vilas County. She has served notice to local government officials that such lawlessness will not be tolerated. There will be consequences.
Indeed, the filing of the complaint at least ensures that such alleged infractions will be heard by a judge on behalf of the people; in Oneida County, Schiek's obstructionism ensures that alleged infractions never see the halls of justice.
A couple of points. It might be argued that the Boulder Junction case involved a far more serious offense, for the discussion in closed session revolved around a compensation pay out to the town clerk totaling $8,700.
So the possible mishandling and misappropriation of public money was an issue in Boulder Junction while that has not been alleged in Oneida County. It's a fair point.
But, we would argue, that one fair point misses a few other important points that should be considered when rendering judgment on Schiek's inaction, and his effective licensing of open-records and open-meetings abuse in Oneida County.
First, the last violation by the Oneida County board might have involved minor and irrelevant conversations that did not relate to public policy, as Schiek argued, but it was the overriding circumstance of the violation that should have brought consequences.
As we have reported, the board violated the law by including a generic item on its agenda at the very first meeting after they were warned not to do so. And that warning came in a mandatory seminar supervisors had to take because a county committee had - here it comes - violated the open-meetings law.
To top it all off, the board defended itself by pointing out that the county code mandated the inclusion of the agenda item. They removed it once they were busted but before the board changed the county code to allow its removal, thereby undercutting their entire legal argument.
In other words, the board wants to obey the law only when it is convenient.
The point is, the Oneida County board has shown through repetitive violations, multiple public comments by supervisors, and its inability or unwillingness to heed cautions and warnings that it does not care about the law. They have been and are thumbing their noses at us, and laughing about it, and Schiek lets them get away with it.
That's a dangerous attitude because it inevitably leads to further violations and eventually, left unchecked and unpunished, that thumbed nose becomes a weapon firing into the heart of the public interest. That, history has shown us, always ends up costing taxpayers dearly.
All this makes Schiek's need to hold these officials accountable every bit as important as the handling of money in Boulder Junction.
There's something else. Schiek has in the past ignored not-so-trivial violations that allowed public officials to evade accountability, and on one occasion it was related to the health and safety of a child.
In 2013, the administration at Lakeland Union High School - not the same administration that is in place today, we emphasize - allowed very important records to be destroyed that it was mandated by law to keep.
Schiek acknowledged the infraction but, as is his pattern, chose to do nothing. Yet, some of the missing records were potentially germane to complaints and allegations of egregious mistreatment and withholding of needed services to a severely physically disabled student, and their suspicious disappearance raised questions.
The missing records might have proved those allegations, or not, but Schiek can hardly claim they were irrelevant to serious public policy.
None of this is to say Milanowski will feel that every open-meetings or open-records violation is important enough to file a court complaint over, and we certainly don't expect we will agree with her on every issue. We're sure we won't.
But that goes to independence, and her actions in the Boulder Junction case go to due diligence. Unlike Schiek, she has done her job and taken a law crucial to our democracy seriously. By taking action, the new district attorney has sent an important message to local governments that they need to obey the law.
We must also commend Vilas County sheriff Joe Fath, who investigated the matter. Again, we have had substantive and serious disagreements with the sheriff in the past, but we give credit where credit is due. Fath found an open-meetings violation and even went further in his report to say the whole matter raised "the serious issue of whether the town misallocated tax dollars in improper compensation."
And so the people of Vilas and Oneida counties sit like passengers on two side-by-side train cars, one surely happy and joyous because a law crucial to their lives is taken seriously; the other, waiting with somber expressions for a new conductor, while government darkness falls all around, as saturating as the rains this spring.
The difference between the two counties is like the difference between clear and cloudy.
Meanwhile, tickets are being punched. The trains are readying to leave. The two counties sit side by side, so close, and yet so far from each other.
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