August 17, 2020 at 2:04 p.m.
Forensic investigation of transit commission is needed, and long overdue
Forensic investigation of transit commission is needed, and long overdue
No doubt. We wouldn't be able to sleep, either, if we had spent the past few years not only as part of the transit commission's culture of imposture and secrecy but as one of the driving forces behind it.
We say imposture because the transit commission has never really pursued the sort of noble mission it says it does. From the outset, its violation of a federal charter rule; its conflicts of interest, real or perceived; its clashes with private businesses; its stonewalling of county questions into its operations; its refusal to be cooperative in law enforcement inquiries; its eternal parade of empty buses; its open meetings violation - all these and more have made a mockery of public service.
No, we wouldn't be able to sleep at night, either.
As we look back upon the last few years, it's noticeable that most, if not all, the issues related to the transit commission have never been resolved. Questions still linger, its stonewalling goes on.
Now a new issue has emerged. Mr. Mott himself brought up the matter of a "current question regarding the transit manager" in his resignation, and this week Oneida County board chairman Dave Hintz advised keeping transit on the agenda of the county's administration committee because of "other issues that potentially we will need to discuss."
All this comes on the heels of an early July transit commission meeting in which, after a closed session, the transit commission voted to hire a lawyer "to address recent information related to the operation of the transit services, the investment of public funds, the possible employment of assistance from outside entity and accounting procedures related to the same."
It just never stops.
To be sure, it is not uncommon to have agency employees or officials get into controversy or trouble, and neither is it uncommon for entire agencies to be swept over by misconduct. This happens in private life, and it happens in public life.
What's important in those incidences is whether there is accountability for wrongdoers and whether the agency and its conduct is reformed. Most of the time these incidents do turn out to be outliers, and life goes on.
But every once in a while, an agency's culture becomes so contaminated and rotten that reform is impossible, and more drastic measures need to be taken. That was the case with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources before Scott Walker was governor, and it's the case now with the Oneida Vilas Transit Commission.
As such, we call for Oneida and Vilas counties to shutter this operation, transfer transportation for the elderly, the disabled, and those with special needs to the appropriate agencies, and let us all move on from this travesty.
We also ask the Oneida and Vilas sheriff's departments, district attorneys, and county chairmen to pursue a forensic examination of relevant records related to the transit commission. It must be determined if there has any been criminal conduct, and accountability must be demanded of all those responsible for this fiasco.
We believe there is more than enough probable cause for such an investigation, especially with a rampant culture of secrecy still thriving.
Even Mr. Mott's resignation was awash in magnificent deception. In an attempt to portray the transit operation in a positive light, he attached a sheet of statistics on funding distributions, and everything looked pretty good. But those figures are incredibly deceptive.
Suffice it to say that, even using Mr. Mott's own numbers of about 40,000 one-way rides a year before the pandemic, that's an increase of just 13,000 rides a year over the base ridership that the Departments on Aging provided to the elderly and disabled and special needs populations at the end of 2015.
Those base rides for the elderly, disabled, and special needs are mandatory - they would and should be given even if the transit commission didn't exist, as was the case through 2015.
In other words, over the base population for the disabled and aging, and assuming that most people come back from where they go, the transit commission is providing rides to about 525 members of the general public each month, or to about 18 people a day over two counties.
That's just nine members of the general public a day in each county on average.
If we give the transit commission the benefit of the doubt, and assume that nobody comes back from their one-way ride, let's just double the number and you still have only 35 members of the general public riding a bus on any given day, about 17.5 per county, and at a ridiculously subsidized cost.
That's why we see all those empty buses.
It's not an illusion.
Buses to specific destinations serving specific and mandatory populations provide most of the rides, and every other vehicle is a ghost bus. It's simply not sustainable, and the transit commission should be dismantled.
We could dissect Mr. Mott's letter further but why? Basic math leaves him with no credibility.
Instead we would like to look at another very red flag inside that commission, and that is the absolute hostility to open government demonstrated by the commission in general and by Bob Mott and transit commission chairman Steven Schreier in particular.
We all know Mr. Mott's long record of hostility to open government, and also the record of the transit commission - for example, former chairman Erv Teichmiller's refusal to be interviewed by law enforcement or to answer questions posed about transit by the two board chairmen of Oneida and Vilas counties.
We know about the commission's refusal to turn over to the sheriff's department the draft minutes of a meeting during the department's investigation of an open meeting complaint, and we know the history of the commission trying to dodge annual audits required by its charter.
Then there's Mr. Schreier. On July 15, we sent Mr. Schreier an open records request. As of this writing, on Aug. 12, we have not received the records.
The request was for emails that could be compiled in a hour's time, judging from our experiences in other records requests.
To be sure, we received word from county board chairman Dave Hintz on July 21 that Mr. Schreier's records were being processed and records would be released after required review and redaction by the county.
A couple of very important points.
First, as Mr. Hintz acknowledged on July 21, as an elected official, Steven Schreier is the custodian of his own records in his possession. It is his responsibility under the law to respond to the records request.
In his July 21 letter, Mr. Hintz wrote that, "Steven will respond to your request with the records that he is the custodian of in his county board supervisor role."
More than three weeks later, Mr. Schreier has never responded. Even if he has no responsive records, he is required to respond to that effect.
More than that, as the legal custodian of the records in his possession, which is what we asked for, Mr. Schreier is "vested by the authority with full legal power to render decisions and carry out the authority's statutory public records responsibilities," as the DOJ compliance manual states.
As an elected official, he is that authority.
He may well wish to have the county look over his records for redactions and required withholding if he wants, but the law demands that he fulfill the request concerning his own records in timely fashion, and it is his responsibility to have the county do any review within the reasonable time period of 10 days.
The law simply does not countenance time delays because an official chooses to have others look over the records, knowing full well it could be months before they get to them.
Delay is his obvious plan, and it is a game others in the county are increasingly playing these days, a dangerous political game we might add.
But Mr. Schreier's failure to make good on what Mr. Hintz promised makes his motivations clear.
We find it almost amusing that Mr. Schreier and Mr. Mott were outspoken this week in their support for having far-left referenda put on the November ballot so we could, in Mr. Mott's words, "let the people decide."
What rank hypocrisy. Mr. Schreier and Mr. Mott want to let the people decide when it comes to cleverly written referenda questions penned by leftist organizations, but if the actual people want to see what's going on in Mr. Schreier's government emails or with the transit commission, that's a different story.
It's a story of character, or lack thereof.
Mr. Mott is gone from the transit commission, at least, but Mr. Schreier remains at the helm of an already contaminated transit commission, no better than his predecessor, making any meaningful reform impossible.
It is yet another reason why transit needs to be shut down permanently.
Comments:
You must login to comment.