That’s a shame. I suspect that parochial interests prevailed here.

WEST BEND — Elected leaders here on Wednesday shot down a proposed government reform effort that would have replaced an appointed administrator with an executive leader who would have been elected from across Washington County.

But the decision was close.

Thirteen of the county’s 26 board members voted against a measure they said felt rushed and ill-timed — and that they worried would have had monumental impacts on the county’s government.

The board’s remaining 13 members supported a move they’d argued would have enabled Washington County to absorb expected population and commercial growth.

But the measure required a majority, and the 13-to-13 tie defeated the resolution.

Even more at the Washington County Insider. If this is the case, it’s an egregious abuse of power to force a board member out. Why? The conflict of interest issue doesn’t make any sense. There must be more to the story.

I am writing to you today to notify you that I will be, under duress, submitting a letter of resignation tomorrow as District 11 County Board Supervisor.  I will be resigning because my mentally ill daughter is receiving services through Washington County Social Services (tentatively through January 2019).  Due to my place on the County Board, her services would have to be outsourced to another county and would cause Washington County to incur additional costs of between $4,000 & $20,000.  I would have been willing to forego my salary to cover the additional expenses but wasn’t given that opportunity.

I would like to highlight that there are currently no ethics breaches or perceptions of breaches.  The County Attorney has even written that he does not allege that I “am in breach of the Code of Ethics… or that you are not an ethical person or a man of integrity”.

Under duress, I was forced to request a determination from the Ethics Board which found “not based on any wrongdoing or ethical violation” that there was a conflict of interest and recommended that I resign from the County Board.

I would like to state for the record that this sets a dangerous precedent as any County Board Supervisor could have a conflict of interest and be forced to resign if any member of his or her family, including extended family receives any service from the county, including but not limited to:

– Long-term care assessment

– Short-term care coordination

– Access to benefits specialists

– Dementia care-giver support

– Senior Dining and home delivered meals

– Child support

– Victim/Witness support services

– AODA

– Veterans Services

I am truly dismayed and disheartened at the treatment I have received throughout this process.  Rather than look for, or accept, alternative solutions, I have been coerced, threatened and intimidated into this course of action.

I have enjoyed getting to meet all of you and wish you the best in your future endeavors.

Thank you,

William Blanchard

More from former Supervisor Blanchard at the Washington County Insider

Having submitted my resignation, I will address this as a private citizen of Washington County. I have stated before that I am willing to discuss the issue openly and honestly with anyone interested. In a nutshell, I was Kavanaugh’d. I have not done anything wrong, nor have I, unlike Kavanaugh, been accused of doing anything wrong or unethical. If you would like to discuss this further, please feel free to reach out to me.

I would like to notify you that I will be submitting ethics complaints against Chairman Kriefall and Administrator Schoemann. On a phone conversation they suggested (by suggested I mean pushed, forced, threatened) that I resign and then lie to my constituents and tell them that I have family issues and don’t have time to fulfill my County Board requirements. I replied by stating that the Air Force has three core values: Integrity First, Service before Self, and Excellence in all we do. While those may be a punchline to some, those are the values by which I try to live my life. I will be open and honest with my constituents. At that point they tried to backpedal but the unethical suggestion had already knowingly been made.

And from the County Administrator

I have received multiple communications from several Supervisors about the email you received from Supervisor Blanchard today announcing his intent to resign as a County Board Supervisor. As with all Board communication I highly advise you to refrain from any discussion amongst yourselves regarding this matter, including any ‘Reply’ or ‘Reply All’ to the original email from Supervisor Blanchard. I only give this advice as the matter may relate to the Open Meetings Law, as it may or may not be discussed by the County Board and as it has been considered by the Ethics Committee.

Please be advised this matter is of a sensitive nature, and thus requires the County’s strictest diligence. While Supervisor Blanchard is certainly allowed to share, as he did, any and all detail he feels appropriate, the County must follow all legal protocols within the ethics realm, as well as within the realm of treating clients and navigating through the court system with clients (if there were to be any)

Something stinks to high heaven here. I have spoken with Blanchard and reached out to County Administrator Shoemann, who has not yet responded. More to come…

Curious.

I was thrilled when I learned that the County Board Supervisor position for District 11 was open and even more thrilled when I was appointed to that position in August.

I am devastated that I am now forced, under duress, to resign from my position as Washington County Board Supervisor for District 11.  Over the past few weeks, I have been subjected to harassing calls and threats to resign or else… Why am I being forced to resign?

NOT because I have done anything wrong or committed any ethics violation but, rather, because my mentally ill daughter is receiving services from Washington County.

Therefore, with a heavy heart, I submit this letter as my resignation from my position as Washington County Board Supervisor for District 11.

 

William Blanchard

Way to go, Washington County!

76% of the voters in this county are Republicans. That tells us that the fears of apathy in the GOP base may be a little overstated.

Now Don Kriefall, Washington County Board Chair, responds to Sheriff Schmidt’s column from the other day. This is an important discussion for the future of Washington County. Go read the whole thing on the Washington County Insider.

One of the initiatives discussed with Sheriff Schmidt was to offer to Washington County partners the ability to provide dispatch services for them at no cost. Funds saved by each municipality could then be earmarked to maintain or repair roads. As many municipalities had passed resolutions requesting a portion of the County sales tax, primarily due to the rising cost of roads, this would save those municipalities more than the amount of sales tax that they had requested.

Another initiative was to explore sharing a jail and circuit court with one or more county, Ozaukee and/or Waukesha. After the closing of the Lincoln Hills juvenile facility, one of the solutions offered by Governor Walker was to rehouse juvenile offenders in county jails contiguous to Milwaukee County. The initiative to share a jail/circuit court facility could provide several things;

• The ability to create a court dedicated to prosecuting drug offenses,
• The ability to share judges and allow caseloads to be more efficiently handled,
• The ability to allocate District Attorneys to prosecute cases more efficiently.
• The ability to repurpose each County Jail/Circuit Court and make them juvenile holding facilities and courts.

Another long term initiative would be to explore creating a metro sheriffs’ department. As this has been done effectively in other jurisdictions through the US (the Village of Richfield currently contracts with the Sheriffs’ office to provide police services) combining all police departments into a metro unit could provide the following;

• The ability to eliminate the need for mutual aid pacts for major events,
• All would fall under one umbrella for liability insurance and worker’s comp,
• The ability to better allocate resources in a more timely fashion at major events,
• No issues with who is in charge of any scene,
• All local police officers would be hired by the Sheriff’s Department and assigned to their local communities.

As stated, these are some out-of-the-box solutions that could create efficiencies without negatively impacting services, and in most cases actually provide better services. I agree with Sheriff Schmidt that agencies that are too small struggle to meet the needs of the citizens they serve.

The population of Washington County is 135,000, 30,000 more than Green Bay, so I would challenge the assertion that it would be too big to be personal and responsive to the community.

Where I totally disagree is his perception that this is a political struggle. The constitutional authority delegated to a County Sheriff does not require a “fight” or an adversarial relationship with the County Board. It requires that we work together collaboratively to better serve the citizens of Washington County. We will continue to explore ways to provide the best possible services that positively impact the quality of life for the citizens of Washington County.

In response to Sheriff Schmidt’s op ed yesterday, Steve Gonwa wrote a very interesting response over at the Washington County Insider. Go read the whole thing, but here’s a bit.

From my experience within Washington County, what is happening is accurately described by Sheriff Schmidt. What is apparently occurring is an undisciplined quest for regionalization and centralized power in county government without regard for the impact such action would have on its citizens.  I find it disturbing that an environment has been created in Washington County government  whereby such grandiose and misguided concepts are now not only embedded in the thinking of its top leaders, but encouraged by the administration to the point of folly.

It is not surprising that this is the environment created by the County Administrator Josh Schoeman and members of the Executive Committee.  Make no mistake, changes made to the County Board in recent years under Mr. Schoeman have systematically stripped the board of most of their decision-making powers and empowered the governance of the county to Mr. Schoeman, the County Board Chair and the handful of supervisors on the Executive Committee. Past County Boards in my opinion mistakenly allowed this to happen, as we are now seeing the depth of the problems created by these changes.

I support consolidation of services when it can be accomplished in a responsible and fiscally prudent manner, and when the overriding goal remains the provision of efficient services to the community. But what started as reasoned attempts at consolidating some specific county services with adjacent counties has clearly morphed into something far more reaching and potentially irresponsible.  Mr. Schoeman and the county have, with some success, consolidated a Health Department and a Medical Examiner Office with Ozaukee County and Waukesha County, respectively.  Perhaps less than 50 employees were affected by these consolidations ( the county floated the concept of a combined Highway Department with Ozaukee County and it proved to be too difficult to even get beyond a basic discussion ). To think that county leadership now believes it has the knowledge, experience and capability to pursue multi-county consolidations of public safety services involving hundreds of employees, millions of dollars in resources and a vast array of critical services shows a serious lack of insight and common sense. I, for one, have no interest in living in the consolidated world of Joshington County.

Good to see!

Well, this is about the most milquetoast promise ever. I’ll bet you a perpetual sales tax that he comes to the conclusion that getting rid of the sales tax would not be “consistent with our values.” From the email…

As I have met with neighbors in District 3 over the past few months, one question keeps coming up again and again.  Can we please get rid of the sales tax?

The simple answer is that if we never look at it, we for sure will never be able to do it, so let’s look at it.

My Promise

To be clear, I am not promising an end to the sales tax.  What I am promising is that I will request that our County Administrator and County Board chairman work in 2018 to develop at least 4 different plans for how we could get rid of the sales tax.  I am going to request that at least 3 plans include no new taxes or tax trading, since I want at least 3 plans that are entirely based off of budget cuts and program cuts.  This will give us the ability to see if there is any viable way to end the county sales tax while remain consistent with our values.

Once we have these plans, we can look at whether the cost would be too much for us to bear, or whether it might be possible and achievable to responsibly eliminate the sales tax.  While my gut tells me that the program cuts most likely will have a cost that does not match our values, we won’t really know for sure unless we push ourselves to explore what may be possible.

And who knows, maybe we’ll surprise ourselves and find a responsible way to eliminate the sales tax without compromising our values.  One thing is for sure, if we never look then we will always have the sales tax, so let’s at least look.

Background Info

The sales tax was put in place long before I was elected.  The community is right to feel disillusionment about the sales tax, since it was originally presented as a temporary tax to provide property tax relief and fund capital improvements.  When the sales tax came up for renewal in 2016, there was no plan for how we could eliminate it, so it would create a massive disruption to the County’s various programs.  I felt like I had no choice but to vote to renew it.

For a long time I have just accepted the common talking point that we only have 2 options for eliminating it:

1)      Replacing it with a different tax.  Sure, we could easily eliminate the sales tax by putting in a different tax, but what does that solve?  Really, all that does is trade one tax for another, what I call tax-trading.  Tax-trading is when one tax is eliminated by replacing it with a different tax, such as a property tax increase, a wheel tax, or another new tax.

2)      Massive program cuts that don’t match our values.  The option to do massive program cuts would significantly hinder the county’s ability to deliver on many of the things it currently does.  Those services include the Sheriff’s department, Samaritan, maintaining the County Highways, child protective services, and any of the other services the County provides.  Does that really match our values?

Recently I’ve reached a bit of a turning point on the issue.  Instead of sticking with what I think, I’ve decided that it is time to explore what might be possible, and to see what the impact to County programs would be.  When the sales tax comes up for renewal in 2021, I don’t want to be making a decision based on what I think, I want to make a decision based upon what we have studied and what we know.  And if there is any chance of ending the County sales tax, we would need to start working on that now.

That’s why I am promising is that I will request that our County Administrator and County Board chairman work in 2018 to develop at least 4 different plans for how we could get rid of the sales tax.  I am going to request that at least 3 plans include no new taxes or tax trading, since I want at least 3 plans that are entirely based off of budget cuts and program cuts.

 

Remember to

re-elect Christopher Bossert

as your County Board Supervisor on April 3.

 

This is a bit fascinating to watch. A little background…

In 1998, Washington County passed a temporary sales tax (I think you know where this is going). There were some major capital projects like at the county jail, courthouse, and UWWC, that the county needed done, but they didn’t have the money. So they bamboozled the public into accepting a “temporary” 0.5% sales tax to pay for those projects. By 2006, those capital projects were all done and paid for, but the County Board decided that they liked their new tax. Instead of killing off the tax as promised, they kept it going and redirected it to other things. Now the county sales tax is just another tax that the County Board uses to spend on whatever it wants.

Fast forward to 2017 and several of the county’s municipalities want a slice of that tax. The argument is simple. All residents of the county pay the sales tax so it makes sense to distribute that tax to several levels of government. The City of West Bend already sent a letter to the city earlier this year. Slinger voted to do the same last night. Other cities and villages are considering doing the same.

Last night, the Washington County Board didn’t just say “no.” They said, “hell, no.”

“Based on what you are saying, I think we need to be very clear that — not necessarily that we are denying anything, but that we are declining even considering it,” County Administrator Joshua Schoemann said to committee members.

Well, that’s pretty clear. It is a dangerous business to try to get between a politician and a tax.

On the issue itself, I agree with the county, but only because I have a forlorn hope that the county might someday end the sales tax as they promised when they implemented it. That likelihood, however remote, becomes even more remote if other governments get their hands in that pie.