No Runny Eggs

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that ethically-challenged Milwaukee County Board chair Lee “Thug” Holloway is going to try to cajole 6 fellow supervisors into voting to deny additional funding to the Milwaukee County Ethics Board for the prosecution of a 90-count civil ethics violations complaint against him (to allow the Ethics Board to spend additional money from the county contingency fund, the County Board must approve the request by a 2/3rds vote). The gist of the complaint is that Holloway used his position as a supervisor to vote to approve contracts with the defunct Opportunities Industrialization Center of Greater Milwaukee (OIC) while receiving $165,000 from OIC for a property he owned that never changed hands, with many counts alleging that Holloway failed to disclose ownership of that and other properties. If convicted, Holloway can be removed from not only his chair position, but from office entirely.

I don’t often praise John Weishan, best known before this year as being ousted County Board chair Karen Ordinans little brother, but he has the money quote – “Trying to starve them for dollars so he personally can get a better settlement is another example of him misusing his office.”

(H/Ts – Brian and JSOnline’s DayWatch)

Milwaukee County board chair Lee “Thug” Holloway, Milwaukee County corporation counsel William Domina, and the local chapter of the NAA(L)CP managed to intimidate 2 of the 10 supervisors seeking to replace Holloway as county board chair, Ryan McCue and Roger Quindel, into joining the Thug Nine to vote to “lay over” an attempted vote to elect a county board chair. Supposedly, the Board will take this up again if Peg Lautenschlager’s formal opinion on the matter matches her informal opinion that the board could proceed with the vote and potentially replace Holloway with a simple majority vote.

A message to those 2 cowards, as well as Richard Nykelwicz Jr, who once supported the idea of Thug Holloway stepping aside until the idea became serious: if Holloway is removed from his chairmanship, he will sue no matter how it is done. It won’t matter if the vote is 10-9, or 18-1 after a finding of cause. If you have learned nothing about Holloway, he will do anything and everything necessary to hang onto his power and unilaterally punish anyone who gets in his way. Just ask Orville Seymer and John Weishan.

In a blow against a strong Ethics Board, which has an open 90-item investigation against Thug Holloway, and against citizen involvement in watching government, Holloway cajoled 12 of his fellow board members into rejecting Don Uebelacker’s appointment to the Ethics Board. Uebelacker co-founded Citizens for Responsible Government, and had participated in a recall effort against Holloway (which likely would have forced his recusal in any vote on Holloway).

(H/T – Brian Fraley, who’s been keeping up the skeer on Lee “Thug” Holloway)

The Journal Sentinel reported in yesterday’s editions that 6 Milwaukee County board supervisors,  Paul Cesarz, Dan Devine, Lynne De Bruin, James Schmitt, Joseph Rice and Ryan McCue, who were among 10 supervisors that asked for a special board session on Monday, February 20  to elect a new county board chair and were subsequently asked to resign by Monday, February 13  from various chair/vice chair positions by county board chair Lee Holloway, will not resign.   In their letter to Holloway, they restated their position that Holloway step down as chair until his ethics case is settled, stated that they will continue to serve in their committee roles “faithfully and  in the best interests of the citizens of Milwaukee County,… to whom we owe our allegiance,” and challenged Holloway to remove them if he disagreed with that statement.

The second part of the story deals with the legality of that election.   After issuing a non-binding  opinion that while the supervisors can hold the meeting, Holloway will continue to serve as chair unless 2/3rds of the supervisors vote to remove him for cause, Milwaukee County Corporation Counsel William Domina asked Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager for a second non-binding  opinion.   The group of 10 are contending that state statutes do not preclude removing a county board chair outside of the normal 4-year cycle with a simple majority.

This is going to get VERY ugly, and the ugliness will start tomorrow.   I expect Holloway to remove all 10 supervisors from every committee they serve on, chosing to run county goverment with himself and the 8 supervisors that still support him.