Report: Ken Charneski is creating a hostile work environment

The Wausonian obtained an investigation that's not yet public that claims Charneski's treatment of employees in Kronenwetter is harassment; Charneski says it's BS and a waste of $50,000.

CORRECTION: The Wausonian has learned that the village has hired a new public works director. The story has been updated to reflect that.

The Wausonian learned that the family member the park was renamed after was incorrect - it was Joe Buska Sr, not Jr. Also, the park had once been named after Buska Sr. because he had donated the land, and later renamed to Sunset Park. The story has been updated to reflect that.

A new report obtained by The Wausonian investigated the harassment claims put forth by a village employee against Village Trustee Ken Charneski. Its conclusion? Charneski is creating a hostile work environment.

The report comes after three years of reporting The Wausonian has done in the village of Kronenwetter, starting with the multi-part Big Trouble in Little Kronenwetter series. In that series, The Wausonian highlighted the mass exodus of employees from the village. In interviews, those ex-employees all pointed in one direction: certain trustees were making their jobs untenable.

One of those frequently mentioned was Charneski, who is the last of those previously highlighted in that series to remain on the village board.

According to the investigative report by Von Briesen, a law firm that frequently investigates sensitive municipal matters, Charneski is creating a toxic work environment, takes small matters that should be handled privately and blows them out of proportion in a public manner, and floods staff with orders, emails and records requests to the point that it’s difficult for those staff members to accomplish the day-to-day tasks they’re assigned.

The challenge, of course, is that as an elected official, there may not be much village leaders can do about it.

The village currently is without an administrator and, until recently, was without a public works director. Richard Downey, who had been a long-time administrator of the village, left in the midst of the exodus in 2022. Since then, there have been several interim administrators; Leonard Ludi, who had worked as the village’s public works director, took on the administrator role and lasted a few months before resigning due to “considerable concerns”; and Peter Kampfer, who told the village earlier this year that he was up to the challenges at the end of a three-hour, contentious meeting, quit after less than two months.

So many finance directors had quit that at one point the village had trouble paying a bill because no one was left who remembered the log-in credentials.

But according to the report, that exodus currently has one cause: Charneski, who it accuses of driving away current employees and scarring away potential future employees.

Charneski in conversation with The Wausonian disputes those claims, and says the report was “a biased piece of %&$#” that the village paid thousands of dollars for. And, he says, the report was never authorized by the village board.

The following are the details of the report.

A toxic work environment