Come one, come all, ye Posers and Hypocrites

Hear ye! Hear ye! Tonight at the town hall, come watch the posers and the hypocrites try to bamboozle us all!

They might as well print fliers for the town criers to distribute as they hawk their snake oil to gullible town boards close and far, luring the innocents into a civil liability slaughterhouse that is coming as sure as the next winter.

We’re talking about those on local town boards and those carousing around the countryside like The Travelers, urging town boards to enact enhanced wake regulations that are, in most cases, simply unenforceable. 

Readers can read the details in the article in this edition, but in short, the carnival barkers are trying to assure town boards and local citizens that they can easily form vigilante citizens groups to, among other things, stop boats they suspect of violating enhanced wake ordinances, or take photos or videos with their cameras and, like magic, prosecute them for illegally using their boats to create excessive wakes.

The problem is, as the article explains, a photograph alone contains no actual evidence of illegal use of ballasts or fins, and citizens are in deep trouble — even those on volunteer committees sanctioned by towns — if they begin to stop and harass boats on lakes. They have no constitutional right to make such contact, as the DNR acknowledges in today’s story.

That is why the DNR boating law administrator, Darren Kuhn, sounded an alarm. And here’s another thought for you all: When lawsuits are brought for violating other boaters’ rights — and they are surely coming if town boards continue to buy into the con game — it won’t be just the towns who are sued; town officials and citizens will be sued individually for their conduct.

And rightly so.

So, just who are these posers and hypocrites who are taking their citizens and towns down the primrose path? Well, they are many, but today we will feature four prominent hucksters from our own area: Newbold town chairman Dan Hess, Lake Tomahawk town chairman George DeMet and town supervisor Lenore Lopez, and former Exxon — yes, that Exxon — corporate hack Richard Phillips.

Let’s start with Hess. For years he served as Oneida County’s chief deputy. Then he retired, and has become Oneida County’s Chief Poser. Congratulations on your promotion — or demotion, as the case may be. In conversations with us, he prattles on and on about the science, though to our knowledge the science is debatable and, more than that, deliberation over competing studies is necessary to determine what is reasonable regulation of use and what is not. 

No such deliberation has occurred, not in Newbold and not anywhere else in Oneida County. Sure, Hess talks a lot about education, but he backhandedly serves up the possibility of tickets if citizens don’t cower to what he and his crowd want.

This is classic police state mentality coming from the former chief deputy. You do what I want—or else. No deliberation on the science, no talking with other side. We will “educate” you or you will deal with the “law” as we cram it down your throat.

What Hess is not telling everybody is, he is wearing a nice new Emperor’s suit. In other words, he is naked as can be with his enforcement malarkey. As our story explains, a town chairman could issue a ticket, but that would be a dangerous move indeed because what would that citation be based on?

That is to say, sheriff Grady Hartman says his department will not enforce the ordinance. Likewise the DNR can’t enforce a local ordinance, and the town has no police department.

So who is going to gather the evidence? The answer is, no one, at least not legally. A photo or video alone won’t stand up in court, and just try having citizens stop boats to inspect their ballasts.

See you in court, big time.

The thing is, as a former chief deputy, Hess surely knows all this. That’s why he’s a Poser. He knows he has nothing to enforce the ordinance with, that it’s all a dog-and-pony show. We have no clue why he wants to pander to a minuscule and radical posse of citizens in the Northwoods, but that’s where he has unfortunately ended up.

Let’s move on to the former Exxon corporate attorney, Richard Phillips. There he was, over in Lake Tomahawk, not just telling people to go out and take pictures of boats they suspect are in violation, and not just telling them inaccurately that those photos would hold up in court, but telling those hanging on his words that this advice about taking photos was coming from the DNR.

As the DNR boating law administrator says in today’s article, that’s not true. In fact, it’s just the opposite: A photo alone won’t do anybody any good; even for law enforcement, it’s just a starting point, and the DNR wants everyone to know that.

To make all these matters worse, it is rich that a former Exxon goon would come down here after an illustrious career helping Exxon pollute the earth. To put this association in perspective, let’s not forget that Exxon was one of the giant corporations that tried to swoop in and plunder northern Wisconsin with the rightly doomed Crandon mine.

Now we have no clue whether Phillips’s fingerprints were anywhere on that mining project, but it doesn’t matter. That he could have survived so long as an attorney for such a dishonorable globalist company should tell us all we need to know about him.

Now he comes here — he’s not from here, just so we all get that straight — and, because he doesn’t personally like wake boats, wants to tell us all how to live our lives. Just like Exxon wanted to tell us how to live our lives all those years ago.

Richard Phillips apparently had no moral qualms working for a corporation that wanted to poison our waters, but he is offended by those who like to have recreation on clean waters. And mind you, he’s not for reasonable regulation to prevent irresponsible excessive wakes, he’s for prohibition, and he’s willing to use government to get his way.

Just like Exxon. The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.

What a hypocrite.

Last but not least, there’s Lopez and DeMet. These two were so eager to ram an ordinance down the throats of Lake Tomahawk residents that they were allegedly willing to break the open meetings law to do it. 

We say allegedly because there’s no conviction yet but Oneida County district attorney Jillian Pfeifer has filed a verified complaint (our complaint, for the record) and summons with the court, and is prosecuting the alleged offense, which involves our belief they attended as a quorum a presentation promoting — wait for it — enhanced wake ordinances.

In other words, DeMet and Lopez want us all to obey an ordinance on their waters when they themselves couldn’t be bothered with obeying the law when pursuing the enactment of that very ordinance.

They are hypocrites, too, and it’s a horse race between them and Phillips over who takes home the trophy for biggest Hypocrite of the Northwoods.

At least they aren’t posers, like Hess.

At the end of the day, these posers and hypocrites either don’t understand the consequences of their actions, or are using an agenda by design. The goal, of course, is to outlaw all wake surfing, whether it is responsible or not, and to ultimately outlaw all recreation on state waters. It’s a foot in the door.

Remember this has long been a state goal — that’s why for years decks on boathouse roofs were banned, as were such things as floats and chairs on docks. These “environmentalists” want to kill tourism and make life miserable for all.

How sad that local officials are being so badly duped, especially those with law enforcement backgrounds who should know better. Hopefully voters will know better the next time around.

The posers and the hypocrites like to say that the Public Trust Doctrine doesn’t prevent enhanced wake ordinances, and that’s true as far as it goes. But unreasonable ordinances that seek to outlaw such recreation on its face deprives other citizens of their public trust rights, as well as of equal protection, and those who challenge their ordinances will prevail in court, where they will soon have their day.

And the Public Trust Doctrine and equal protection doesn’t even begin to address Fourth Amendment issues if citizens are goaded into vigilantism on northern lakes.

The other consequence of their actions is the compromise of public safety. The kind of citizen and photographic patrols being advocated are going to lead inevitably to confrontations on our waters, needlessly so. Making contact with boats puts all boaters in harm’s way, and, as the DNR warden stated, cannot stand. 

The real solution, as sheriff Grady Hartman has suggested, is a state statute where reasonable regulations can be deliberated and enacted. Recreational wake surfing needs to be protected, as do the rights of those who might be harmed by irresponsible wake surfing.

But that is as it is for all recreation; the solution is not a ban. Reasonable state regulations can also ensure consistency and put an end to the local posers and hypocrites caravanning around the Northwoods.

They could still go to Madison to hector lawmakers there, but at least that crowd would deserve it.