River News: Our View

As we report today, in an astounding vote, the Vilas County Board of Supervisors defeated a resolution 18-2 that would have recommended that clerk of court Beth Soltow be recalled, and it tabled a similar resolution for circuit court judge Daniel Overbey.

It was one of the most egregiously wrong and tone-deaf votes we have seen in a long time, and it simply serves to put off what must be — we repeat — what must be a day of reckoning for those two officials. 

The resolution was prompted by their reprehensible conduct during and after an affair between the two. But in lodging their opposition to the resolutions at hand, those opposing the recall could not see the forest for the trees.

The board, except for board chairman Jerry Burkett and supervisor Lake Edwards, missed the point. The real issue here is not the affair; the issue is their conduct toward courthouse employees within their jurisdiction — the damage already inflicted upon them and that likely is still occurring.

They also missed the point of the recall: to let voters of Vilas County decide what should be done with the pair — the only way Soltow and Overbey can truly be held accountable, given the tendency of the “brotherhood of justice” to circle the wagons to protect their own.

With last week’s vote, the Vilas County board of supervisors turned its back on its own employees, and again denied them any institutional support. The point is not that they should be ousted — though it seems to us that already established conduct justifies it — but that the full story should be told and they should be judged and held accountable, one way or another. 

A recall would accomplish that.

Overbey’s and Soltow’s conduct has already broken some employees, pushing others to the point of resignation. Employees have reported being been screamed at, doors slammed, things thrown. Beyond that outright abuse, employees have said they had to witness inappropriate behavior between the two in the office and watch as Overbey abused his own position as a judge, sending inappropriate texts to Soltow during testimony in trial.

And from what we hear, the work environment isn’t any better now. Maybe there’s no screaming and slamming doors these days, knowing they are being watched, but the dysfunction is apparently baked into the cake. If that’s the case, the cake needs to be thrown out.

In a letter to the board, Overbey said communications between the courts and the clerk of courts’ office was just fine. But we hear that the clerk herself — the chief of that office — has no communication with the judge and will not enter the courtroom. Last November, things were so bad that Overbey’s access to the clerk of court’s office was removed from his key fob.

Does that sound like everything is going as swimmingly as he makes it out to be? Or, how long will it be before the court system drowns?

What’s more, despite the crocodile tears clerk of court Beth Soltow shed on the county board floor last week, we are told by multiple sources inside the courthouse that, privately, she is as recalcitrant and unapologetic as ever.

Employees may be fearful to say otherwise because they are terrified, but, if that is the situation, the employees need someone to help them, to support them, and to clean up the mess. But the county board chose to sweep it all under a big rug.

Again, the mess is not the long-ended affair. The mess is the chaos, disruption, and reign of terror inside the courthouse that these two are responsible for. No tearful apology can clean that up. A full accounting — and full accountability — is the only remedy.

Now some on the county board floor opined that maybe, just maybe, what was being reported in the newspaper isn’t accurate. That maybe the people we have talked to just sold us a bill of goods.

Sorry, but that lame excuse doesn’t past muster. We know from experience that people approach the newspaper when they need help the most and fail to find it in other quarters; people don’t just make up stories hoping for a headline.

Besides, most of the reporting that has been done so far — trust us, a lot more is coming — isn’t based on new information passed on to us from inside the courthouse but on public records, mostly emails between circuit court judge Martha Milanowski and state court officials.

Milanowski stepped into the fray — her own work environment had been affected, as our story last week showed — to protect her own court but also the workers, and emails clearly demonstrated that state court officials not only were told about a horrific work environment but concluded that that was the case.

Indeed, officials confronted Overbey about the abusive conditions. At least one employee left because of that environment — Overbey admitted that at least half of it was his fault — and the conditions deteriorated so much that a state court official, Susan Byrnes, came to Vilas County to hold a meeting to try and reassure the employees.

The dissension went through the entire courthouse, it was reported to the state, even affecting recruiting and hiring. How could the county board ignore all that?

There’s even more that should have smacked them right between the eyes. Beyond our sources, beyond the email records, there’s boots on the ground. Finance director Darcy Smith, human resources director Kris Braynak, corporation counsel Chad Lynch, and county clerk Kim Olkowski all supported the recall effort. These are effective county managers who work in the courthouse and know what is going on. 

Burkett specifically asked Olkowski and Braynack if they felt everything was OK “on the third floor” and they said no.

So supervisors turned their backs on them as well.

Our question is, why did the county board ignore the established record of a hostile work environment? It was established in emails with state court officials that supervisors would have read themselves, if they had done their job.

And if everything is going so well now and it is all behind them, why did all those critical county officials publicly support the recall? Why did Olkowski and Braynack say that things were not OK. It’s because the ship is not righted, that’s why. 

Instead, they chose to ignore the evidence of misconduct right before their eyes. 

They chose to ignore other managerial voices that all is not right. See no evil …

On the county board floor, Soltow, ever playing the victim, when the real victims are the employees in the court system, also said the whole thing should just be put to rest, that everything was hunky-dory now. 

In what was a channeling of Sally Field, she gushed about how her staff loves her now. They really do!

We doubt that, but even if that is the case, any and all officials must be held accountable for any inexcusable and unacceptable conduct toward their employees. No matter how things may seem now, what’s the penalty? Do you get a free pass if you assaulted your neighbor last month but didn’t beat him with a golf club this month?

What’s more, again, we are told that everything is not great among employees and that they are hoping against hope that the county or the state — somebody — will do something to help them. 

We will acknowledge an important point, namely, at this stage of our investigation, that is what we have been told, and what we have been told clashes with what Overbey and Soltow are saying.

We only know what we have been told and what we can infer from the positions of other county officials supporting the recall. We also don’t have a dog in the hunt, except to get to the truth, and so, because allegations have been raised, we are bound to investigate, and so should the county board feel obliged investigate what the real story is.

It might be good place to point out that, while supervisors can count all the evidence piling up in front of them, they shouldn’t be so eager to buy into the narratives of Soltow and Overbey. As the emails between them show, Milanowski believed that Soltow and Overbey had a skewed sense of reality — were in effect delusional in what others thought of them.

Here’s another example of disconnect that needs to be investigated. In his letter to the board, Overbey used the corporation counsel as a reference to prove that everything was just fine, saying he asked Lynch if he was aware of any concerns about how he was conducting himself and his branch, and Overbey said Lynch assured him that he was aware of none, with Overbey underscoring the ‘none.’

Yet, this week Lynch supported the recall effort. If what Overbey said was true, why would that be? So supervisors should take that into consideration when Soltow and Overbey lay out their narratives to the board.

On that count, we encourage the county to pass another resolution — a resolution calling for an outside and independent investigator to compile a report on what has happened inside the courthouse, what misconduct there has been, if any, and assess what the current situation inside the courthouse is.

To be sure, some supervisors, as well as Overbey himself in his letter to the board, observed that the state judicial commission is conducting an investigation, and that the board should “allow the judicial commission to do their job.”

The problem with that is, the state has been “looking into it” since last August at least — soon to be a year — and no fundamental changes have been made. 

In addition, we have been told that the state has offered little in the way of support for staff and was in fact missing in action until events inside the courthouse became so dramatic that an intervention was necessary.

That apparently led to little more than a day of hand-holding. Meanwhile, no report has been forthcoming that we are aware of and, according to the judge, the investigation continues to plod along, meaning that, while they take their time, employees must still go to work in the courthouse and endure what they endure.

Everyone should know, short of a judicial commission recommendation for removal, which would be filed with the state Supreme Court and would be an open record, all other disciplinary matters, including any investigatory findings and discipline, will be sealed. So, if he truly means what he says, Overbey must publicly call for the investigation to conclude — what could be holding it up? — and he should pledge that he will authorize the complete release to the public of the investigation itself and its findings.

We could be wrong, but, given the state’s response so far, we think there’s little chance of the state court system imposing any kind of consequence on Overbey that is proportionate to what is being alleged. Again, it is important that the county do its own fact-finding by pursuing an independent investigator.

Jerry Burkett deserves credit for bringing this resolution forward, but now the entire county board needs to take action, and quickly so. 

Maybe everything is just peachy, as these two disgraced officials say. But what if they are not? Can county supervisors afford to take that chance? If they are not, then every day courthouse employees must walk into a hostile environment and work under the most stressful conditions.

Their livelihoods are on the line, and the well-being of their families. These are local residents with deep ties to our communities, who rely on their jobs. Where is their voice?

Then, too, Overbey can write in a letter that the whole thing is just a “personal matter” that became front-page news because he and Soltow are elected officials, but that is false on so many fronts it is laughable. An inappropriate relationship between county officials would be news whether elected or not, but Overbey is gaslighting us all when he says it is a “personal matter.” It’s a matter that became personal for all the staff over there — so bad that at least one left, and multiple staff approached the state to expose the whole thing. Finally, when no one would support them, the newspaper was contacted.

As Milanowski put it in an email late last year, integrity and trust was significantly compromised over the past year, not “due to the affair in and of itself but rather due to how it was brought into the workplace and directly affected the staff each and every day, including not being trained adequately.”

And that’s why it’s front page news. It isn’t just about Overbey and Soltow; it’s about the employees and the hostility they have had to endure. Supervisors should remember, what’s past is prologue. They can use it to move forward, or ignore it and risk history repeating itself.

So far all this “front page” news might be smoke, but the record already shows there’s a lot of fire to go along with the smoke.

The question is, will supervisors continue to fiddle while the courthouse burns?