It’s been some time since I received a paper copy of the report documenting the investigation into the conduct of Kronenwetter Administrator James Davel.
Besides the report, the files contained augmentations from three people involved: former village board member Sandra Sorensen, former Zoning Administrator Peter Wegner and recently former village clerk Jennifer Poyer.
The day the report was released, I scrambled for an entire afternoon and evening, digging through as much as I could from the report and the augmentation, hundreds of pages in all, to try to get to the bottom of things for a story the next morning. I had the report first, and speed was of the essence to preserve that advantage.
As such, I resolved to only stick with what was in the material at the time, and save any deep dive for a follow-up story, if one was warranted.
Well, the headline I used for that story was warranted. The report and the investigation raised so many more questions than it answered. As I’ve started digging through the report, appendices and augmentations (and their appendices), indeed many more questions arose that I have since been working on getting answers to.
— Why were some names redacted and not others? Employee witnesses were redacted for reasons that aren’t made clear, including in a letter explaining the redactions. But Poyer, who hadn’t been disciplined following the investigation, would seem to fit into that framework for being redacted. (The report did allege violations of village personnel policies, though it doesn’t appear those were acted on and Poyer received a positive performance review following the investigation.)
— Why wasn’t Wegner, who the board fired on April 30, given any disciplinary action for what was unveiled in the report prior to that termination? And why, if what he alleges is true, was he never given a termination notice or any other paperwork outlining what the basis was of the just cause he was fired for?
— Why was the investigation conducted at all? If neither people who allege they heard the supposed tattoo story filed a formal complaint and in their initial interviews seemed to see not it as a problem, why did it escalate to an at least $35,000, attorney-led investigation?
— Why did Poyer say in the investigation, at least as it’s portrayed in the report, that she wasn’t offended by the tattoo story, but in her supplemental material point to another story about Davel turning his head at blonde women in the Netherlands and suggesting that does demonstrate a pattern of behavior? And was a complaint filed over this incident?
— Why was Davel allowed to work from home instead of being placed on administrative leave during the investigation?
— In the appendix to the report, a text screenshot showed Wegner had given his two-week notice following the incident in which he says Davel shared medical information about him to the village board. What happened with that?
— Why wasn’t Wegner ever disciplined or had charges filed against him over the alleged shooting threat? Or apparently documented in any way?
— Three employees were given bonuses/additional pay shortly after the investigation concluded — alleged to be $2,000 per month. They included two employees whose statements were cited in the investigation’s findings concerning Wegner, but also included Poyer. What was this for and who approved this?
— And what exactly kind of office environment was Kronenwetter’s village hall?
The report, as I said, raised more questions than it answered. I set out to find out.