January 20, 2021 at 4:14 p.m.
Oneida County's culture of overreach and deception
Oneida County's culture of overreach and deception
To wit, in December the Oneida County Forestry Committee decided in its infinite wisdom to ban contractor Robert Rynders, trail supervisor for the Forest Riders Snowmobile Club, from working on county forestland. According to the forestry department, Mr. Rynders did not perform work the way the county instructed him to do, improperly performed some work, and performed unauthorized work.
The key words in that last sentence are "according to the forestry department." The forestry committee took the department's word for it hook, line, and sinker and issued the ban without so much as a pretense of fact-finding. Government bureaucrats must always be trusted.
Before we get too deep into the specifics, it's important to know the forestry department fiasco goes much deeper than the forestry department and committee. It represents not just brazen over-reach by one department and not just chilling censorship by one committee, but a culture of arrogance and groupthink that is countywide under the leadership of board chairman David Hintz, corporation counsel Brian Desmond, and human resources director Lisa Charbarneau.
Look at the behavior in this incident and one can see a microcosm of the county as a whole at work.
For starters, let's talk about whether the allegations against Mr. Rynders are true. We can't say one way or another, primarily because the county never gave him a chance to defend himself.
What we do know is we have heard numerous accolades about how good the Forest Riders trails have been. What we do know is as of last January the county's snowmobile coordinator, Ben Broquard, who has resigned in the aftermath of this mess, himself said the Forest Riders trails were in great shape, and publicly praised the trail work of all the county snowmobile clubs - all of them - as late as March.
Were there some issues? Yes, apparently, at nine sites. But, as Mr. Broquard's own records indicate, Mr. Rynders had performed work on only three of those sites. Mr. Rynders has his own claims as well, but here's the thing, there's serious doubt Robert Rynders is at fault for anything that comes within a hundred miles of a ban.
And not just a ban but a ban for life.
As it turns out, the ban for life did not come from the forestry committee but from forestry department staff. That's right, without so much as a whisper to the forestry committee's elected supervisors that anything was wrong, much less seriously wrong, Mr. Broquard, forest director Paul Fiene, and assistant director Eric Rady got together and decided - a "department decision," Mr. Broquard called it - that Mr. Rynders was to be banished.
They didn't just decide to recommend such a prohibition to the forestry committee, either. They actually went out and acted on it. Mr. Broquard sent an email to the Forest Riders club president commanding with all the dictatorial authority he could muster that Mr. Rynders was to be told immediately that he could not "ever" work on forest land again, and Mr. Broquard further ordered snowmobile club president Curt Christensen to report back to him: "You shall inform Bob of this as you are the club president right away. Confirm with me once this is done. I will be calling you to discuss this more in depth and notify you by phone as well. The key point here is, Bob Rynders is not ever again allowed to work on County Lands."
Now that's pretty Stalinesque in its tone, shades of the old DNR back in the 1990s and early 2000s. Bureaucrats everywhere are banding together to Make America a Gulag Again, and apparently Oneida County is no exception.
That chilling email was sent on Nov. 24, but the forestry committee didn't take up any of it until Dec. 2. That's the day the forestry staff, having already performed its execution, went to ask if it was OK to actually turn the electric chair on.
Now comes even more jack-booted government. Having already been mistreated by the forestry staff, Mr. Rynders was in for no better treatment from the committee of elected supervisors. They listened to what the forestry staff had to say, and performed their own execution.
A review of meeting minutes for a two-year period shows there was no discussion of these issues with the committee before that fateful day, unless of course it was held illegally. So one would think the forestry committee would have listened to the forestry department. but would have also decided to do some fact-finding.
You would think they would have asked Mr. Rynders and snowmobile club officials for their side of the story. But, nope, they didn't.
In fact, Mr. Rynders was never notified of the meeting, not by forestry staff, not by the acting committee chairman (supervisor Alan VanRaalte, who was sitting in for supervisor Jack Sorensen, who was having knee surgery and not involved), not by anyone.
Why be fair? After all, this is Oneida County government.
As it turns out, Mr. Rynders did say a lot in an email. but only after the fact. But in that email, and backed up by other records, he points out that Mr. Broquard, the ringleader against Mr. Rynders, did not even stay around the trails as he was required to do while the remedial work was performed on those nine sites. He liked the weather, so much so that he took the day off.
Beyond the lack of due process, both Mr. Fiene and Ms. Charbarneau proceeded to engage in deception with inappropriate and misleading communications, trying to dispel the notion that the department acted without consulting the forestry committee. In an email to other county officials, for instance, Ms. Charbarneau wrote it was the "committee's directive to notify the Snowmobile Club that Rynders was no longer allowed to work on County Forest land."
It was, but she omitted the part where the directive was delivered to the snowmobile club more than a week before the forestry committee ever knew a problem existed.
So where does all that leave us? It leaves us with bureaucrats who are emboldened to overreach and overstep their authority, as the forestry staff has done. They are not alone. It should be noted Mr. Broquard paid a steep price, and we speculate he really was pushed under the bus rather than happily rolling beneath it.
Oneida County has a habit of finding scapegoats to protect the entrenched elites of its bureaucracy.
But what about Mr. Fiene and Mr. Rady? We have seen no evidence they did not participate in the ganging up on Mr. Rynders. How could they possibly think they could ban someone from working on county forest land without due process, or take it upon themselves to assume the powers and responsibilities of elected officials?
Those are arguably fireable offenses, and we look forward to seeing how the county plans to discipline them.
Of course, and this leads back to the rotten culture within Oneida County government, Mr. Fiene and Mr. Rady have good role models. As corporation counsel, Brian Desmond has usurped public records powers from proper records custodians, and he bullies the county board chairman at will, so Mr. Fiene and Mr. Rady no doubt want to be like him. No wonder they felt they could act with impunity and compel elected officials to go along with them.
Ms. Charbarneau is part of the culture, too, acting both as union shop steward in her closed shop, and as protecter of all things bureaucratic (as long they think like her). And finally, there is the behavior of the elected officials, VanRaalte, Bob Almekinder, Bob Mott, and Greg Pence, who should know better than simply take the bureaucracy's word for it.
As for Mr. Rynders, Mr. Sorensen, who is now back in charge of the committee, has said he will bring the Rynders issue back to the committee for further discussion. Presumably someone will notify Mr. Rynders this time around.
This time, we implore Mr. Sorensen to control his committee and make sure fact-finding is undertaken to establish the real truth. The lack of snow in late January is bad enough. What's worse is the appalling lack of honesty and due process that blows in frigid winds around the county courthouse all year round.
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