STAND UP DODGE COUNTY.COM

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by Daniel L. Siegmann

 

I stand for the residents of Dodge County and for Rule of Law, always. This post may seem long for some, but every part of it is important for truth and clarity in this matter.

 

Sheriff Dale Schmidt submitted a post in response to the allegations now made public regarding our Dodge County Board Chairman David Frohling and those who are looking out for him. I have filed complaints and have documented, with evidence, 4 violations of state law, 11 violations of county law, and 2 violations of constitutionally protected freedom of speech which were committed by him. Our Dodge County Law Enforcement agencies are turning a blind eye to it all. District Attorney Andrea Will told me the board must police itself. Juneau Police Chief David Beal told me he just did not know how to deal with these violations because of the absence of an enforcement section in Chapter 2 of the Dodge County Code of Ordinances wherein many of the violations occurred. Why did these two law enforcement officials both purposefully ignore Chapter 30, Section 30.04, which lists the penalty provisions already in place for violations of ANY provision of the Code of Ordinances?

 

The Sheriff shared the investigation he personally performed regarding a complaint I originally filed in June of 2022. The report of this investigation proves to be embarrassingly incomplete and inaccurate, and his commentary smattered throughout it is often leading, misleading, and untruthful and, at times, redundant. Some would call his work here grossly unprofessional. At the present time this will be up to you to decide for yourself. I have corrected most of the inaccuracies within his report with this reply.

 

As you read his post, you can see that the Sheriff has taken it upon himself to become not only the investigator, but also the counsel for the defendants, as well as judge and jury – all with a HUGE conflict of interest because of the special working relationship he has with David Frohling. 

 

Notice that the Sheriff has addressed only one complaint of the five which are in existence against David Frohling. He references the May 17, 2022 complaint and disregards the two additional complaints dated August 16, 2022 as well as the September 20, 2022 complaint. In his haste the Sheriff did not catch that there are actually two different complaints associated with the May 17 meeting. We will call them #1 and #2. I have brought complaint #2 forward with the August and September complaints. The Sheriff has bent over backwards to try to discredit, not any of these complaints, but complaint #1 with this investigation. I am not pursuing any action with complaint #1 nor will I be. Keep your eyes open to what is really happening here. 

 

As you read the report from the Green Lake County District Attorney on complaint #1 it will become evident that she was looking for criminal violations (paragraph #2). My May 17, 2022 complaint #1 never sought criminal charges because this is more of a civil matter. In addition, WI. STAT. 19, Sub-chapter V, makes no provision for criminal violations as, for example, Sub-chapter III does. She gives her reasoning for “refusing to enforce the law and commence an action” regarding violation of Open Meeting Law, then suggesting I can contact a private attorney in this matter to pursue it further. 

 

She evidently did not investigate all the other violations in the complaint. I was denied the opportunity to bring forth action and debate in a court of law because of her individual prosecutorial discretion. 

 

I will now respond to the Sheriff’s opening letter and then the report of his investigation of my complaint #1. I believe you will see his lack of thoroughness which is quite irresponsible when conducting any investigation. 

 

Paragraph #1 

 

The Sheriff attempts to dismiss the charges of all five complaints in one swipe, four of which are on standupdodgecounty.com, with his statement that all allegations have already been “thoroughly investigated by this agency”. This is a lie. To my knowledge he has never investigated any of the other complaints referenced in my post which brought on his reply, not even the criminal complaint of theft. His statement is leading and it is deceptive. 

 

The Sheriff does some campaigning in paragraph #3 and then digresses in paragraph #4 to give an example of what he stated. He goes back to the Fall/Winter of 2021, I believe, and wants to show us his superior level of integrity in investigative situations. I have found that this changes depending on who makes the complaint and who the complaint is directed against. I will explain. 

 

First, some important background information leading up to the Sheriff’s story. Back at that time the 2020/2021 county board session was winding down and some longer-term members of the board were choosing not to run for another term. We found out that two of these were Chairman Russell Kottke and Second Vice-Chairman Joseph Marsik. As stated in my introduction which you will find on standupdodgecounty.com, these two individuals along with our current Chairman David Frohling had been caught twice meeting secretly, without posting the meeting, to discuss county business. These three Supervisors constituted a negative quorum of the Executive Committee and these meetings were clearly in violation of WI. STAT. 19.81-19.84. One of these three supervisors spilled the beans to a current sitting supervisor about one of these illegal meetings. He stated that the meeting was called by the Sheriff and was held in the Sheriff’s office. Wow. These men were evidently not his political rivals. Where is Rule of Law?

 

After the second illegal meeting was discovered some supervisors took action to end this lawlessness. Supervisor David Guckenberger took the lead to change a county ordinance to specifically speak to this problem. The passage of this change is what David Frohling defiantly resisted, saying “if I have the chance I will do it all over again!!”, evidently not caring that it was illegal to do so. The Sheriff did nothing here even when an illegal meeting clearly took place. Hmmm…. .

 

Now we move forward to the incident the Sheriff is referring to in his letter.

 

I believe Joseph Marsik held a grudge over this previous action by David Guckenberger. When he got wind that some supervisors may have met in Ashippun (David Guckenberger’s district) Joseph Marsik got right on it. I believe it could have been a get even moment for him. I was told he filed an anonymous complaint with the Sheriff. Even though this complaint was incomplete it was sent quickly to the Waukesha County Sheriff for investigation. It was there that the complaint was completed. Joseph Marsik had to also send a notarized affidavit that he was the complainant. I believe the investigation took 6-8 weeks to conduct and the final report was nearly 70 pages long. It centered on David Guckenberger. I believe Joseph Marsik and the Sheriff both wanted to harm Supervisor Guckenberger politically. Yes, the Sheriff too, because before I became a member of the Board of Supervisors Sheriff Dale Schmidt approached me for help to get David Guckenberger off the Board. Now read the last sentence of paragraph 4. When the Sheriff approached me at that time he was politically weaponizing the power of law enforcement represented by the badge he was wearing. He states this would be something he would never do? It seems evident that Sheriff Schmidt could have been using the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Office as a lever and a political weapon against his political rivals here as he hid behind Joseph Marsik’s complaint. They seemed driven to take him down. In the end David Guckenberger was vindicated. 

 

Paragraph #5 is the Sheriff taking the high moral road again, degrading some supervisors whom he considered political rivals. I personally did not hear of any “involved supervisors” failing to cooperate. This is untrue and another arbitrary statement revealing the Sheriff’s political bias and, I believe, dishonest judgement. HUEY v. DAVIS, TEX. CIV. APP., #556 S.W. 2d 860, 865. And now he states the investigation was free! It didn’t cost Waukesha County anything to put a man on this for 6-8 weeks to conduct interviews and to drive all the way to the northwest corner of Dodge County?? 

 

His last paragraph is quite ironic. He speaks of facts substantiated by evidence? I provided evidence for the violations of law but, as you read the Sheriff’s report of the investigation, he chose to disregard it all. 

 

CORRECTIONS TO THE SHERIFF’S INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

 

Page 3, #2: 

The fact that debate of this question was not allowed violated Dodge County Ordinance 2.01 (17). In view of the fact that I represent nearly 3,000 residents of Dodge County directly and all of Dodge County residents generally, this illegal denial of debate was a violation of protected speech. 

 

Page 4, bottom, review of complaint, (1):

The authority of the Chairman to appoint committees was never questioned. These first paragraphs have no bearing on the facts in this complaint and are redundant. (In re Wise’s Estate, 144 Neb. 273, 13 N.W. 2d 146, 151). In a Federal Court it would probably be ordered stricken on motion (Fed. R. Civil P. 12(f)).

 

Page 5, paragraph #1:

Continued redundancy.

 

Page 5, paragraphs #3 and #4:

My complaint included the definition of ‘evenly apportion’. This is the place where violation occurred. I included evidence of UNEVENLY APPORTIONED committee assignments which the Sheriff completely ignored. The Sheriff offers his own opinion claiming the impossibility of defining evenly apportion and assumes we will accept it as gospel. He is wrong. The clear definition of evenly apportion does not change for people depending upon their background. If it was such a relative term we would not find it in Dodge County law. The Sheriff is exposing his bias and is leading the readers to his predetermined conclusion in this matter. Real justice is blind, right? 

 

Page 5, paragraph #5:

All microphones were turned off.

 

REVIEW OF COMPLAINT #2

 

Page 6, paragraph #5: 

Here the Sheriff pulls in a totally unrelated matter to try to prop up his false premise. This section of nominations he refers to has the Chairman making nominations for a special committee during an open meeting with other supervisors present. My complaint which the Sheriff is investigating is speaking of the procedure in which the chairman makes all regular committee assignments at the beginning of a new session, on his own personal time. Confirmation of these regular committee appointments are then confirmed in an open meeting with the supervisors present. This action is brought forward as an incidental main motion and is ALWAYS DEBATABLE, regardless of a voice vote or not. The Sheriff’s investigation is grossly inaccurate here. His investigation is severely flawed. 

 

Page 6, paragraphs #4-#7:

I entered that meeting with an understanding that the question of confirmation was debatable. I had not verified that belief so when Chairman Frohling stated it was not debatable and Board Parliamentarian Kimberly Nass tacitly agreed to that, I second guessed my understanding. It was later, after I consulted my Robert’s Rules of Order manual, that I found I had been right and that county laws had been violated. I then gave David Frohling and Kimberly Nass an opportunity to prove that the motion to confirm the regular committee appointments was not debatable. They could not. This fact was also included as an affidavit of fact in the complaint which the Sheriff chose to ignore, then bringing forth, instead, misleading conclusions to again influence his readers to his desired conclusion, exhibiting bias on his part. 

 

Page 7, paragraph #1:

Read my most previous comment which also applies here. 

 

Page 7, paragraph #2: 

Nominations to a special committee by the Chair at a meeting and confirmation of standing committees appointed by the Chairman when made apart from an open meeting are rightfully treated differently than what he states here. Read his words, “it appears [this word means he is not speaking fact and truth] that debate is not a part of the process for nominations by the chair [during a meeting], in this case confirmation of committees” [which have been assigned by the chairman not during a meeting]. Words in brackets are mine for clarity. This particular county business must be debatable in an open meeting. The Sheriff is presenting an unrelated matter, forcing an incorrect application, and claiming thereby to disprove my allegations. Confirming appointments to a special committee is NOT the same as confirming appointments to regular standing committees. 

 

REVIEW OF COMPLAINT #3

 

The only possible ways to discuss an agenda item again at the same meeting after the question in concluded is to bring it back with a motion to Reconsider or a motion to Rescind, Repeal, or Annul. If the Sheriff was looking for truth and fact rather than his very evident habit of selectively choosing that which supports his personal agenda this investigation would have reported that. On May 17, 2022 the Chairman illegally took it upon himself to take action on the same agenda item again after it had been concluded when he initiated discussion with Supervisor Boelk regarding committee appointments. In addition, he had just told the Board that this item was not debatable and that no one could speak to it. The Sheriff wants him to have it both ways regardless of county law. Chairman Frohling and Supervisor Boelk WERE debating this issue and, on top of this, Supervisor Johnson was removed from the Inter-County Coordinating Committee by Chairman Frohling without ever following the legal and proper procedure of removal required by county law 2.01 (33). (This is the same violation of county law which the Chairman committed against me on September 20, 2022.)

 

Page 7, Conversation with Kimberly Nass (Corporation Counsel):

I provided a notarized affidavit of the fact that Kimberly Nass told me specifically that if David Frohling stated she told him that confirmation of committee appointments was undebatable then she must have said it. I included an affidavit of support for this with the complaint. 

 

Page 7, Conversation with Chairman David Frohling:

The change was made. We have it recorded during the May 17, 2022 meeting and the confirmation vote for that change came to the Board at a subsequent meeting. He could not bring a confirmation vote to the Board for this change at that time because it was not on the agenda. Chairman Frohling told Supervisor Boelk, “you will be appointed [to the ICC Committee] to go to that meeting”. The decision had been made in violation of WI. STATS. 19.84. 

 

Page 7, Contact with the County Clerk Office:

This is all arbitrary and redundant material. 

 

Page 8, Disposition, paragraph #3:

Please re-read my comment regarding Conversation with David Frohling, above. 

 

Page 9, Disposition: 

The question is not when but in what manner. It was discussed twice under different parameters on May 17, 2022, the first time no debate was allowed but the second time it was. Supervisor Johnson was replaced by Supervisor Boelk without following the legal procedure for removal of a confirmed committee member. 

 

WE SHOULD CONDUCT AN INVESTIGATION OF THIS INVESTIGATION! 

 

(THINK: RYAN DAVID)