Wausau Ethics Board wants more answers from city staff

Plus more about the Kronenwetter election incident and other news tidbits

Every once in a while I have a number of items start adding up that don’t quite fit into the Weekly Wausonian but aren’t quite significant enough for a full story on their own. I try to wrap some of them in a theme and deliver them to you this way.

The Ethics Board met again Thursday evening ahead of the hearing it plans to hold later this month.

The topic: The incomplete responses from the city attorney and city clerk. And the board would like to know more.

To recap, Mayor Doug Diny faces an ethics complaint over his removing a ballot box from the steps of city hall last September. The complaint alleges that Diny acted unethically in his capacity as mayor in removing the box, arguing that based on the city attorney’s opinion that the box was under sole discretion of the city clerk, Kaitlyn Bernarde.

Diny’s attorney in a memo to the ethics board, which he made public, disputes those claims, saying he moved the box outside of an election (absentee voting hadn’t started yet) and that it wasn’t exclusively a ballot box.

One issue that’s come up at the ethics board’s last meeting - that the board didn’t get full responses from the city clerk and the city attorney. Why? Because right now the state Department of Justice is still investigating its own potential case. And that involves City Attorney Anne Jacobson and Bernarde.

Thus, they informed the board that there wasn’t much they could provide since they couldn’t compromise the state’s investigation and they cited attorney-client privilege.

But Ethics Board Member Brian Mason, who abstained from several votes during the board’s last meeting because he wasn’t able to get all the information due to some technical issues, said he would like to know broadly what information they’re not providing, and why.

The board agreed and voted to invite Jacobson and Bernarde to provide categorically what evidence they were unable to provide, and why, without actually disclosing the evidence. (Board member Doug Hosler voted against this idea, suggesting they would probably find that information out at the hearing anyway.)

The Ethics Board will hold its hearing on April 30. It’ll be a quasi-judicial hearing in which witnesses are called and questioned by the board and by cross-examination.

The county is looking into Kronenwetter not sealing its ballot bags post-election

Election canvas board aren’t usually the hotbeds of news items. But an incident in Kronenwetter put the county’s canvas board in the spotlight.

The board is looking into why Kronenwetter ballot bags that were brought to the courthouse on Wednesday after the election were not sealed, as they are typically supposed to be.