February 22, 2021 at 11:39 a.m.
The return of the radical aestheticists
The return of the radical aestheticists
There's no shortage of bad actors in the current Oneida County zoning fiasco, in which a private group (aka the Thome Team) is seeking to rewrite a portion of Oneida County's shoreland zoning ordinance, in the process blindsiding the zoning committee and seeking to supplant language supported by hundreds and hundreds of citizens and stakeholders with a special-interest leftist agenda crafted in secrecy.
Oh where shall we start? How about with county staff who participated as part of "the team" that is going to save the citizens of Oneida County from the dastardly Scott Holewinski.
First, there's Brian Desmond. That he should be involved in a secret and rogue operation to undermine the will of the people is hardly surprising. Indeed, he has been doing so for years, a bad actor's bad actor.
We'll leave it there for the corporation counsel, who resigned this week. No use to kick a log that is getting ready to roll down the hill, but Oneida County citizens should cheer and feel comforted about his departure, knowing that even though he worked for years to undermine good government in the county, he won't be causing any more trouble here and he was so incompetent that nothing he did in the past will last.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Then there's zoning director Karl Jennrich and assistant director Pete Wegner. We'll go a little easier on them this week. For one thing, it became apparent that neither one of them started the ordinance rewrite process, as is alleged by a Thome team member.
It's quite obvious Mr. Jennrich was approached, and attempted to facilitate contact between a citizen and like-minded supervisors. All of this is made clear in a so-called smoking gun email of July 1, in which Mr. Jennrich made clear he was putting people in contact and asking to be "kept in the loop" if they did anything.
Now this does not mean Mr. Jennrich and Mr. Wegner are innocent and should not face some consequences. They didn't start the process, but they participated in it later, spending significant time on a significant issue without telling the zoning committee.
These two have worked in zoning for years, so it's hard to believe that it was anything but by design. That, or they were simply awe-struck by Mr. Desmond's charming personality, impeccable wit, and beyond-mortal intelligence and followed him down yet another primrose path toward Catastrophe Cliff.
Then there's the lake association's piece of work, Tim Reardon. We'll certainly give him credit for being arrogant and full of himself. Well, of course, he wouldn't be a privileged environmental elitist if he weren't full of himself.
He sure was sure generous, though, offering to "educate" us about the wisdom of his beliefs about shoreland zoning, and to explain the interpretations of state shoreland standards he imagined with DNR staff. It's magic, we tell ya, the way they waved their hands and made the standards change, all without any change in state law or administrative code.
We were impressed, too, with the way Mr. Reardon tried to throw Mr. Jennrich under the bus, saying he started the whole process and citing a "smoking gun" email by Mr. Jennrich dated July 1, 2020. But, as we report in today's edition, Mr. Reardon manipulated a key part of that email in describing it to us. In fact, the email confirms exactly the opposite, that Mr. Jennrich didn't start the process.
But that's quibbling, right? Those poor uneducated masses, especially at the newspaper, will probably never even bother to read the email, or understand it if they do.
In the same vein, Mr. Reardon intones from on high that the zoning committee was backing the whole project because, after all, two zoning staffers were part of the "team" (excuse us, The Team).
Now here, we can cut Mr. Reardon some slack because who would think that zoning staff would involve themselves in something so significant without getting approval from the committee. It would be an assumption, but a reasonable one.
But once it became obvious to all the universe that the zoning committee had no knowledge of any of this, Mr. Reardon should have just acknowledged it and moved on. Instead, he left his credibility as bare as a clearcut lake front by continuing to cling to the inaccuracy, much as climate change doomsdayers keeping repeating their mantras of impending extinction long after living into old age.
Of course, Mr. Reardon would have had a problem if his team's work had been sanctioned by the zoning committee, a problem known as our open meetings laws. Mr. Reardon has in turn asserted those don't apply to The Team's meetings.
And what authority does he cite? None other than the recently resigned corporation counsel, Brian Desmond, a staunch enemy of openness who has cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in errant handling of open records and open meetings matters.
When attorneys start citing Mr. Desmond as a legal authority, well, let's just say, it makes you wonder where they went to law school.
Anyway, as we report separately, both a court decision and an attorney general's opinion puts those meetings in the crosshairs of the open meetings laws. We're not saying with 100 percent confidence that the law would apply - we're not so arrogant as some - but it's sure not a slam-dunk either way.
Finally, we notice in his correspondence, and in the zoning meetings, Mr. Reardon likes to talk about natural scenic beauty, as if it is some kind of objective standard and as if it has anything to do with environmental protection and water quality.
The return of the radical aestheticists - who insist natural scenic beauty is objectively defined and that they know what the definition is (the more untouched by human hands, the more beautiful something is) and must be regulated so as to prevent aesthetic pollution - is a signal that the old DNR under Gov. Jim Doyle is set to return in full force.
This is troubling given that Mr. Reardon and his team have been working with the DNR. Rip off Mr. Reardon's rhetorical mask, it seems, and what rears its head is the old radical DNR.
Speaking of the DNR, it is appalling that a state agency who oversees shoreland zoning refuses to meet with a county zoning committee that oversees that county's shoreland ordinance.
It is not just arrogance but cowardice, and it should be an affront to every citizen in the state. In the DNR's mind, now that they have worked with county bureaucrats and environmental elites, their work is done.
This throws the shade of the old DNR, which held the public in contempt and which, like the Thome team, just sat down and rewrote laws and rules on a whim, until they were finally reined in by a Republican governor and a Republican Legislature.
That bunch was every bit as manipulative of law and rule and guidance as the current DNR, and dictatorial at that. But we will give them this: They would show up at meetings.
They would come into Oneida County zoning meetings, and threaten to thrown down a superseding ordinance from the heavens if the county didn't do what they said. They would work in secret but when the time came, they broke down the doors and dared anybody to cross them.
This DNR is different. They too work in secret, but they are too scared to come to a real meeting, complete with citizens and the media and elected officials, to hash things out.
Put simply, Kay Lutz and James Yach are cowards, nothing less, hiding the smallness of their beings behind big bureaucratic shields.
But make no mistake. The radical aestheticist movement is back, and they - the DNR, the bureaucrats, the affluent environmental elites - they are coming for your property rights. It's time to for citizens to wake up and fight back.
The proposed ordinance amendment by the Thome team is a good place to start that fight.
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