Advertisement In a 2 1/2-hour special meeting Wednesday that often strayed from Roberts Rules of Order, several Onalaska Town Board members accused Clerk Sue Schultz of violating public records and election laws, withholding information from the board and undermining Town Administrator Paul Kitzmann and Chairman Stan Hauser.
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Onalaska Town Clerk Sue Schultz takes notes during a Town of Onalaska board meeting Wednesday night.
Photo by Erik Daily |
Schultz, who asked that the discussion be held in open session, first refused to answer questions not pertaining to the terms of her employment but later turned questions back onto Hauser — “Do you delete any e-mails you receive?” — and at one point accused him of lying.
“It’s kind of blindsiding me as a kangaroo court,” Schultz said.
Hauser said it appeared she was failing to perform certain duties, though on the advice of town attorney Dan Dunn the board took no immediate action.
Supervisors also questioned Schultz and each another about the fate of a town computer and whether its hard drive was improperly destroyed after it quit working.
When Joe Schaller motioned to authorize an investigation, Hauser announced he already had contacted La Crosse County authorities and an investigation was under way.
“Shouldn’t we have been notified?” asked Howard Kelly.
“I felt it was my responsibility as chair,” Hauser said.
The dialog deteriorated quickly.
“Why are you being snide?” Schaller asked Kelly.
“You are creating innuendo,” Kelly said. “You do this all the time, right down to the time you accused me of beating my wife.”
“You are insane,” Schaller responded.
The discussion revealed the town has no formal procedures for backing up computer data.
“It doesn’t do us a lot of good to investigate things we don’t have a policy for,” Kelly said.
Schultz wasn’t the only town employee whose performance was on the agenda. After a closed-session discussion of Kitzmann’s performance, the board unanimously agreed to work with Kitzmann to establish criteria to be used in his annual evaluations.
In a separate vote, a motion to investigate a letter regarding firearm hunting rights on a 75-acre tract of land on Brice Prairie passed 3-2 with an amendment to have the administrator develop a policy for handling e-mails to the town.
Hauser said after the meeting he wasn’t entirely satisfied.
“Things were aired,” he said. “I hope there was some progress made.”
The board also voted to let the town people decide whether to proceed on a project to improve safety at the intersection of Briggs Road and Highway XX.
According to calculations by Hauser and Kelly, the town is anywhere from $50,000 to $60,000 short of the estimated $282,635 cost. The decision on whether to proceed will be added to the agenda for the annual town meeting.
anti whining wrote on Apr 7, 2009 6:38 AM:
So if you and Paul Kitzmann, our current town administrator and current chairman of Burns, had your way, all personal and private voting choices made in this country would be published as they were in Burns?
Individuals would be publicly ostracized for their voting choices as they were by Kitzmann in the Town of Burns. Those people would then likely not vote out of fear in the future, and people like Mr. Kitzmann would have their way as he did in the Town of Burns.
Yes, bullying does work for Mr. Kitzmann. It worked in Burns to discourage good citizens willing to participate in government. It also worked to drive a 12 year employee (secretary) out of the Town of Onalaska. "