Shawano County Supervisors Randy Mallmann and Joe Miller – and 11 other supervisors – believed they were successful in changing the rule on how the board chairman appoints someone to fill a vacancy on the board.
Apparently, they weren’t.
After the board voted in September to confirm Chairman Tom Kautza’s appointment of Katherine Jacob to fill the vacancy in District 5, supervisors discovered there was a second interested candidate, Victoria Elst, who was not disclosed at the time of the appointment.
And they were not happy.
Supervisors voted 13-11 in August that if there is more than one candidate for a vacancy, the names and statements of qualifications be forwarded to all board members prior to allow them time to review the candidates and make a more informed vote.
“We were not given that opportunity,” Miller said. “This has nothing to do with the person who was selected. It has everything to do with why we were not informed or given the opportunity that second candidate. When the board approves a rule change, why is that rule change not followed?”
Mallmann admitted that Kautza and Elst had an initial conversation but could not get together to discuss her interest and qualifications. By email, Mallmann asked Kautza why supervisors didn’t get the information.
“His response to me, too, was with this vote that Supervisor Miller is talking about, we weren’t listening as a board about what we were voting on,” Mallmann said of Kautza’s email response. “To me, that’s very offensive.”
He said at a minimum, information should be sent to the board in advance of the meeting. The board is given information on all other matters.
“This should be no different,” Mallmann said. “If it’s important enough for the board to vote on, it’s important enough for us to do our homework and read it before we vote on anything. Passing it out to us 15 minutes earlier is not a professional thing to do.”
Kautza said the rule change was nullified by what comes earlier in the rule regarding appointments.
“The rule change that you proposed, the way you changed it, it changed nothing, because … the first thing it says in there in that rule is that the chairman may deviate,” he said.
When deviation occurs, the rest of the rules are nullified.
“By not taking that portion out, that basically means the chairman can do whatever he wants,” Kautza said.
He told Mallmann and others who want to change the rules, they need to run it past corporation counsel first to ensure it accurately reflects what is intended.
“If you go back and watch the tape, I even said, ‘It changes nothing,’” he said. “That’s where I said nobody was listening, because it didn’t. It didn’t change the process. Because there’s two, three, five or 10 candidates, it still says the chairman may deviate. And I did, because I was sure I had the right candidate.”
Since the appointment of Jacob, she has informed Kautza she is too busy with her job to serve on any standing committees. Kautza agreed and appointed other supervisors to serve on the two committees Jacob had originally been appointment to.
“What disappoints me, as a board member, and you knew all this, and yet you’re just letting us basically waste the county’s time, because you knew nothing was going to change,” Mallmann said.
Miller asked Kautza why he voted for the rule change, and Kautza said he knew it would change nothing.
“We were manipulated. I’m tired of it,” Miller said. “We should have been given the opportunity to vet that second candidate, because that’s what we wanted to do, and it all went by the wayside. Thank you very much.”
Supervisor Kathy Luebke said the board has turned into a mess where nobody wants to work with each other anymore. She begged supervisors to stop the nonsense and do better.
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
