September
2005
Reason for Olsen Recall - Greedy Landowners wanted Wal-Mart Cash
Jefferson’s Alderman Dave Olsen is facing a recall but once again, the activists behind the recall have motives that are less than pure. Their motivation is greed.
Pure greed.
Olsen stood in the way of several property owners who wanted to make some quick cash by selling to Wal-Mart and making them rich in the mean time. By Olsen’s poo-pooing of the Wal-Mart idea, these property owners saw their visions of wealth fly out the window and rather than focusing on the good of the community, their anger grew when their pocketbooks didn’t.
It turns out that Olsen’s opponent, Chris Havill, is the General Manager for the largest car dealership in Jefferson. If the Wal-Mart is built in Jefferson, Havill stands to see increased traffic right past his dealership. Once again, GREED is playing a key role.
Those who organized the recall claimed Olsen broke the law. But the Jefferson County District Attorney, an Assistant District Attorney from the Walworth County District Attorney’s office and the Attorney Generals office all have ruled that Olsen did nothing wrong. Now even the largest newspaper in the area, the Jefferson County Union, has endorsed Olsen.
The only question that remains to be answered now is whether Olsen’s supporters will turn out. Pro-recall activists time these special elections to drive down voter turnout — that helps angry people and it is the angry people who want Olsen out. Whether or not enough sane people show up at the polls will be decided Tuesday.
Related Links:
The Capital Times: Jefferson alder faces recall for ‘no’ to Wal-Mart
The Daily Union endorses Olsen:
Keep Olsen on council
The City of Jefferson has one of those election rarities next Tuesday: a vote to recall Alderman Dave Olsen. Recall elections are a safety net under our system of government, typically reserved for situations in which an elected official has violated or otherwise lost the public trust.
Unfortunately, they are being used more and more in attempts to remove elected officials who have offended some special interest faction or another. Such is the case in Jefferson. Councilman Olsen is facing a recall not for malfeasance in office or some infraction, but for having the audacity to vote the way he thought best represented his constituents.
The Walworth County district attorney’s office found the main charge in the recall petition against Olsen - an alleged violation of the state’s open meetings law - to be without merit. Following an informal review, Wisconsin’s attorney general also found no violation.
For people who understand the intent and letter of the open meetings law, these decisions weren’t a surprise. The intent is that the decisionmaking process leading up to government actions occur in the full view of voters. Olsen’s “crime,” in this case, was to cede his question time to fellow Jefferson citizens at what was listed as an “informational meeting” with Wal-Mart officials. This was the only public participation that took place at the meeting and, as the Walworth County assistant D.A. pointed out, the public notice of the meeting did not limit who would be involved with the discussion.
The next night, Olsen cast one of three deciding votes against annexing land from the Town of Jefferson into the city - land that was proposed for the Supercenter, but not committed for by Wal-Mart. The property owners seeking the annexation of the Town of Jefferson property submitted the open meetings complaint.
Soon, a group led by two ardent pro-Wal-Mart advocates, called the “Coalition for the Best Jefferson,” circulated a recall petition listing an unspecified open meetings violation, as well a catch-all line claiming that Olsen “failed to act in the best interest of Jefferson.”
We often find ourselves on the opposite side of issues from Mr. Olsen, but his is one of the public’s most accessible members of the council. He doesn’t deserve having to face a whispering campaign concerning charges that died quickly when exposed to the light of day.
If this is really about Wal-Mart, which we believe it is, then the petitioners should have said so in the document. Of course, it is possible that then they might have had trouble gathering enough signatures if that had been stated up front. If there were other reasons for forcing the recall, they should have been specified so they could have been addressed publicly.
We believe the public tolerates differing opinions if they are honest ones. Those who try to punish or silence people whose opinions they disagree with often harm themselves more than their target. They spend so much time circling the wagons that they forget the direction the wagon trains was taking in the first place. Unfortunately, of late, some in Jefferson have forgotten these simple truths.
We recommend keeping Dave Olsen on the council next Tuesday. More importantly though, we’d like to see a full slate of candidates on the ballot - including Chris Havill - when Olsen’s and other aldermanic seats are up for election next spring…just a few short months away.
Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan, Watchdogging Wisconsin
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Greed? Wow, I live in Jefferson, and I’ve never heard that one leveled against the people who wanted to sell their land to Wal-Mart. These dramatic excuses to preserve Olsen’s seat are growing more thin. Olsen’s never mentioned greed as a justification for his vote, at least in public. I don’t know how two landowners could’ve motivated teams of business people and ordinary citizens to gather 1,000 signatures against Olsen if they weren’t giving a cut. Greed motivated all of them, too? The ladies who started the petition were not the landowners.
I can’t see why Wal-Mart would’ve paid too much more for land than they should have - they could’ve picked a different site. And Olsen’s largest campaign contributor, the Elkhorn-based owners of County Market, the grocery store across the road from the proposed site, are trying hard to sell an out-lot on their property, too. They put up their “for sale” sign not long after the surveyors completed their work for Wal-Mart.
Traffic? Everyone in Jefferson knows that we’re scheduled in a few years for a state-supplied bypass of Highway 26 that’ll significantly alter traffic patterns. It’s supposed to reduce traffic flow, at least at first, until ordinary growth catches up. And with the bypass in place, will south-travelling shoppers bother to drive through town, or take the bypass with its southern exit with dozens of yards of the new Wal-Mart? You have no idea what you’re talking about. You are apparently parroting something you heard from Olsen.
Similarly, the Jefferson County DA didn’t rule on anything. He passed the case to Walworth, who opined. And the newspaper is called the Daily Jefferson County Union, usually “Daily Union” in conversation.
Greed? In 2000, Olsen was reprimanded in his City job for doubling his health insurance without authorization, for back-dating documents and fiddling with the checkbook to create his own retirement account without authorization, and ultimately was given the chance to resign in 2001 when it was discovered that he’d created and hidden a $30,000 slush fund at the Chamber - yes, he knows about greed.
Open Meetings violation? Yes, at his “media conference” this summer, Olsen freely admitted to violating the Open Meetings law last fall by participating in a day-long strategic planning session. At this meeting, he and several other Council members hatched a plan to eliminate the City Engineer and Park & Recreation Director. Yes, they wanted to do away with the positions, not just the people in them. Great forward thinking, huh?
Where was Olsen’s sense of open government? He had no problem with no reporters and no public present as the Council hashed out a plan for the City. He’s never complained or apologized about that incident. Instead, he shuffled blame to the City Admin and City Attorney. The Open Meetings law allows no such blame-shifting. Only the elected and appointed can be fined. The recall petition only said that he had violated the Open Meetings law. As such, the petition’s “reason” is valid. However, yes, the other complaint they filed was found to be worthless. So guess which violation Olsen trumpets during the election.
Check out my http://www.goJefferson.com site for more of Olsen’s history…
You miss the point. We at Watchdog Milwaukee never said Olsen justified his vote by any discussion of greed. We’re saying it because others won’t. Lining up at the trough only to find you’re not going to get any slop is enough to miff any pig but what else would you call someone who puts self interest ahead of the health and welfare of the community?
But enough of this. Here’s the words that were printed in the Daily Union by Debra Hale of Jefferson.
Debra Hale wrote:
Who is feeding you this info? Where are you getting your information? I’ve never heard anyone claim they knew how much money these two landowners were getting from Wal-Mart, or even whether it was an extraordinary amount.
I don’t see why it’s of a concern to anyone, pro- or anti-WM. You might as well complain about anyone’s land sale. “Heavens, my neighbor got too much money for selling their land!” What kind of coffee-shop gossip is this? People get what the market will bear, and prices are set between buyer and seller. Period. Some people get lucky, some don’t. They were farmers on a wedge of land at the very edge of the city. Don’t you think everyone in Jefferson understood that this land would be sold for development? It was marked as such in the city’s master plan, set down ten years ago. Farmers rarely have retirement plans; either they intend to hand their land over to their kids or they plan to sell it at the best price they can get so they can move elsewhere to retire.
Your point is quite dull. You fail to explain how the supposed greed of two landowners managed to motivation dozens to oppose Olsen with a rare recall petition, and then how this greed motivated 1,000+ citizens to sign that recall petition.
No, you miss my point. For five years I fought Olsen tooth-and-nail over this sort of greed and these sorts of Open Meeting violations. One, Olsen was lining his own pockets as I described. Wouldn’t you love to have a full-time-with-bennies City job at the same time you get to keep running your family business, and as Olsen describes, volunteering for a half-dozen organizations? Olsen’s explanation: “I’m a night owl.” Uh huh.
Two, for five years in this job he was toeing the line for exactly the same sort of business interests you deride. These businesses wanted to control which businesses came to town and which didn’t, which got favors and which didn’t. Olsen fought to prevent the public from attending the meetings of the City’s development corporation, against the directives of the City Attorney and City Clerk, and eventually I had to file a complaint with the local DA, who ruled in my favor. They were meeting in secret at 6:45 AM in a private office building for years, overseeing the City’s business parks and ignoring the downtown.
Several years later, Olsen was on the Executive Board of the county-level economic development group, fighting against me on exactly the same issue: I wanted the public and reporters to be able to attend meetings of this county business group. Similarly, the director of that group was being paid by the County yet held a part-time job elsewhere. Olsen fought on the side of darkness again, opposing the effort to open up the County development process. I took that complaint to a DA and then to the state AG, who ruled in my favor. Now he’s championing himself as the protector of the public’s right to speak. Amazing what he can spin, isn’t it?
Hale’s letter isn’t very tight, either. Complaints to DAs aren’t “thrown out of court.” You make a complaint, you get an opinion. The DA decides what they want to do about it if they think something was wrong. The landowner who filed this weak-tea complaint has now given Olsen plenty of PR traction. I hope he regrets his action. Olsen’s eating it with a spoon. And I give you an example of when Olsen admittedly broke the law - but this has no traction?
Hale repeats the same xenophobic “not from around here” lines that Olsen touts in his campaign lit. Olsen can leave Jefferson as an adult for more than a decade, yet Hale says “he’s lived here all his life.” Do you, too, think that when people move to Jefferson, they have no right to run for office? Living here five years isn’t enough to run for City Council? For Olsen, paying taxes is OK, bringing your business here to be taxed is OK, but heavens - anyone who takes over the family business must be suspect. Unless of course, it’s Olsen coming back home to take over his family business.
I read your bio. You seem like a sensible guy who knows how to research an issue. Please, visit my web site, ignore my opinion and just look at the facts about Olsen. You’re backing the wrong horse.