DNR secretary Payne’s resignation signals turbulent times at agency

News analysis

The abrupt resignation of Department of Natural Resources secretary Adam Payne after less than a year on the job is emblematic of larger issues inside the vast agency, and a hint that ongoing fissures inside the agency have been settled in favor a more partisan and bureaucratic agenda.

Payne tendered his resignation last Friday to Gov. Tony Evers. His last day was October 31, and Evers’s office said the governor would move quickly to name a replacement. 

In recent weeks and months, the DNR has been mired in controversy, and Payne has waded into some of the polemics, sometimes contradicting his bureaucracy. The resignation also comes shortly after the state Senate rejected four of Evers’s appointments to the Natural Resources Board (NRB), though the governor has already named replacements for them.

One of those is a well-known and controversial figure from the DNR in years past: Former DNR water division administrator Todd Ambs, who pushed restrictive shoreland zoning laws during his tenure at the agency.

In his resignation letter, Payne said he would retire effective November 1 after three decades of public service.

For part of that career he served as executive director of the Wisconsin Land and Water Conservation Association. He also worked at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, overseeing its farmland preservation program, and then spent more than a score of years as the Sheboygan County administrator.

In that latter role, Payne elevated conservation as a priority, focusing on the Sheboygan River clean-up and preservation of the Amsterdam Dunes, a vast stretch of undeveloped Lake Michigan shoreline.

In his letter, Payne said it had been an honor and a privilege to serve with Evers, as well as to work with so many talented and passionate DNR employees. 

“I also enjoyed meeting and working with so many thoughtful people, including your very talented cabinet, tribal leaders, environmental and conservation associations, the Natural Resources Board, landowners, businesses, and local, state, and federal officials,” Payne wrote. “Suffice it to say, I made some new friends, and am so grateful for the kindness and support that I received.”

Because of that experience, Payne said, his resignation was not an easy decision.

“This is bittersweet, but the past year really helped put into better focus what is most important to me,” he wrote. “After a very fulfilling career in public service, 24 years at Sheboygan County alone, I need to spend more quality time with my aging parents and support my wife’s role as a caregiver. I also want to spend more time with our four young grandchildren and focus more attention on my personal health and well-being.”

Payne said he had worked to advance Evers’s own priorities, including water quality, parks, personnel, and providing more support for local units of government. 

“Thanks to your leadership, key investments were made in all these areas,” he wrote. “I was particularly grateful the budget provided additional resources that will help us respond more effectively to water pollution, including PFAS, nitrates, phosphorus, and lead, and for the $125 million put into a trust fund to help people and communities in need combat PFAS.”

The targeted increases in public safety for firefighters and conservation wardens will no doubt better position the DNR to recruit and retain staff, Payne continued. 

“And the historic investment in our state park system will help us more responsibly maintain and improve our infrastructure,” he wrote. “It was also very gratifying to see the start of the clean-up and restoration of the Milwaukee Estuary — a tremendous example of collaboration, and after two decades, the development of a new wolf management plan.”

But Payne also wrote that everyone had to work harder to connect the dots.

“I made it a priority to bolster opportunities for engaging our youth in the great outdoors, hunters’ safety, and strengthening our mentorship programs,” he wrote. “We also worked to further engage and support our new Office of Agriculture and Water Quality. I am excited about the future and seeing the department strengthen our relationship with local farmer-led groups and other key stakeholders.”

A Payne in the Northwoods

Payne might have wanted to work harder to connect the dots in the Northwoods, particularly after agency missteps during its bid to buy a conservation easement on the Pelican River Forest, and in taming his own bureaucracy on shoreland zoning.

For instance, during the DNR’s pursuit of $4 million in state stewardship funds to help pay for a 56,000-acre conservation easement in northern Wisconsin, mostly in Oneida County, state Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) took the agency to task for not working with local governments to secure their consent.

Payne later acknowledged to the Natural Resources Board (NRB) that several towns had passed resolutions opposing the project and, as The Lakeland Times reported, the DNR had those objections in hand, but the NRB was never told of the opposition before voting to approve project funding prior to sending the measure to the Joint Finance Committee (JFC) for its ratification.

The JFC, of which Felzkowski is a member, rejected the request 12-4, in part because of that town opposition.

After that snafu, Payne made a point last spring to tell northern Wisconsin officials that he and the agency would better communicate with local leaders — he did place a phone call to Oneida County board chairman Scott Holewinski — but that did not happen, either.

In fact, after that spring-time call to Holewinski, Payne and the DNR apparently dropped the communications ball well into September. When Oneida County was considering hiring outside counsel to assist with challenging the DNR on shoreland zoning matters at the county’s August board meeting, county supervisor Billy Fried said he hoped that some communication with the DNR might enable the county to avoid the legal costs, and so he wanted to know if the DNR had reached out to Holewinski as follow-up to the Pelican River easement controversy, as Payne had promised Holewinski in the spring.

Holewinski said he hadn’t heard a thing, though he had heard that the agency was communicating with Langlade County about the easement, though only a tiny sliver of the proposed easement land would be in that county.

“I don’t know if they’re working with smaller ones first before they come to us,” he said. “I don’t know what the DNR is doing but things have been hectic. … But the DNR hasn’t contacted me.”

It wasn’t until September 18, at a Wisconsin Counties Association conference, that Holewinski was able to meet with Payne, along with the board chairpersons of Forest and Langlade counties, Holewinski told The Times this week.

“He basically took notes and was surprised that nobody from the DNR has gotten back to me,” Holewinski said.  

The DNR did follow up after that, Holewinski said, but essentially nothing came out of that meeting except an airing of concerns.

And while Payne had promised a better process, the promise apparently did not go so far as to make town and county approval a requirement for land and easement purchases, as local officials had hoped and as a bill introduced in the legislature would have mandated.

Another issue has concerned Oneida County’s ability to revise its shoreland zoning ordinance to allow practices other counties have allowed. Some years ago the legislature gave its OK to using flat boathouse roofs as decks, but the DNR told Oneida County a stairway to such a deck would be considered an accessory structure that would not be permitted.

In other words, people could have a deck but no way to get to it, in many instances.

Last May, Holewinski said he believed that stairs up the side of a boathouse to the deck should be considered part of the principal structure and not an accessory structure, and, in the conversation he had with Payne in the spring, he said Payne agreed.

But the DNR has not budged from the stricter interpretation.

NRB controversy continues

Meanwhile, turmoil continues to swirl around the NRB.

In October, the Senate confirmed 63 of Evers’s 74 appointments to various agencies, but nixed nine candidates, including four potential appointees to the NRB.

Those appointees were Sharon Adams, Dylan Jennings, Jim VandenBrook, and Sandra Dee Naas.

Senate majority leader Devin LeMahieu said the Senate acted appropriately in rejecting the nominations, and that the body took its responsibility to provide advice and consent seriously. 

“No appointee is considered on the floor without being invited to appear before a Senate  Committee to defend their candidacy,” LeMahieu said.  

LeMahieu said the advice and consent process is largely a formality for appointees who are qualified and follow the law, and, since 2018, the Senate had confirmed 444 appointees and rejected only 10. 

But in these cases, LeMahieu said, the candidates simply did not pass muster.

“The governor’s appointment to the Wisconsin Elections Commission violated the law by refusing to promptly and properly appoint an election administrator,” he said. “Multiple of the  governor’s appointees to the Natural Resources Board openly indicated they would not comply with the laws of our state if confirmed. Wisconsinites will not stand for public servants who are unqualified or refuse to follow the  law.” 

LeMahieu said 97.8 percent of appointments upon which the Senate had taken floor action were confirmed.

Democrats, including Senate Democratic leader Melissa Agard (D-Madison), said the rejections underscored how radical the GOP has become.

“By rejecting these confirmations, Senate Republicans have rejected the invaluable skillset and knowledge that these folks would contribute to the state in their respective fields and instead chose nasty partisanship,” Agard said. “The rejection of these appointments is unprecedented. Since 1981, the state Senate has only rejected five executive appointments. The GOP is becoming increasingly extreme and their inability to carry out this basic responsibility highlights their continued dysfunction within their party and inability to govern.”

Alarmingly, Agard said, legislative Republicans in Wisconsin are mirroring the chaos of their congressional counterparts. 

“I call on my Republican colleagues to stop playing these political games and take action on the remaining more than one-hundred unconfirmed executive appointees,” she said. “The governor thoughtfully appointed a diverse, knowledgeable, and passionate number of people to countless boards and commissions. It’s far past time for the Republican-controlled Senate to fulfill their constitutional duties and confirm these appointments.” 

Evers himself slammed the rejection of his nominees but immediately named four new NRB applicants — including one that is sure to be as controversial or more so than the ones the GOP rejected.

“This is insanity, and this is an issue of democracy — Republicans have to stop doing this,” Evers said. “These are good people they’re voting down. These Wisconsinites are educators, healthcare professionals, survivors of domestic violence, advocates, and conservationists. And I don’t care if you’re a Republican, a Democrat, or otherwise, these Wisconsinites are completely qualified to do the job they’ve been asked to do, and they are volunteering their time, talent, and expertise without pay to serve their neighbors and our state.”

Harassing them, belittling them, and publicly firing them just because Republicans have decided that’s the way they want politics to work these days is just plain wrong, the governor said.

Evers said the GOP decision continued a years-long effort to block the governor’s appointments to the NRB. In 2021, Evers appointed and the Wisconsin Senate refused to confirm Sandra Dee Naas, a conservationist, hunter, angler, and natural resources and agriculture educator from northern Wisconsin, whose appointment meant Gov. Evers’ appointees for the first time had secured a majority vote on the NRB. 

The four new appointments announced by Evers last week were Todd Ambs, Robin Schmidt, Patty Schachtner, and Douglas Cox.

Of those, Ambs, a former DNR water quality division leader and former DNR deputy secretary, will draw the most fire, given Ambs’s reputation in supporting ever more restrictive shoreland zoning rules, which affect the Northwoods disproportionately. Ambs’s policies helped create a large property rights movement in the early 2000s.

Evers says Ambs worked in the field of environmental policy for 40 years before he retired in December 2021. In addition to being DNR deputy secretary and former DNR water division administrator, Ambs served as executive director for the River Alliance of Wisconsin, and campaign director for Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. He is a former member of the Great Lakes Protection Fund, the Wisconsin Coastal Management Council, and the Council of Great Lakes Governors. His nomination will surely attract opposition in the GOP dominated legislature, as well as in northern Wisconsin, and will ensure that, whomever is the successor to Adam Payne, there’s no smooth sailing in the foreseeable future at the DNR.