Shawano County Board Chairman Tom Kautza said he intends to remove Supervisor Lowel Hammett from the ethics committee based on recent comments at a county board meeting.
For his part, Hammett said he stands by his comments, and Kautza’s tactics won’t bother him.
“On next month’s agenda, I’m going to have a line item on there to remove Lowel Hammett from the ethics committee and replace him with another board member,” Kautza told the executive committee July 16. “I did get several current board members ask me that I put it on the agenda to remove Lowel. There’s a lot of them that are very disappointed of what has been … comments being made, accusations, blah, blah, blah.”
Hammett was contacted after the meeting for a reaction to Kautza’s intentions.
“I’m a brand new county board member,” Hammett said. “I sat there for a year and a half and didn’t say anything other than when I was voting. The first time I bring up anything, I get yelled at. I get screamed at.”
Hammett said he has no personal stake in the issue.
“Something is going on at the county,” he said. “Someone’s upset because I shook the basket real hard.”
At the June county board meeting, Hammett wanted a closed session discussion to talk about past and future complaints against a county employee, as well $1 million in county funds that is allegedly missing.
“I only asked to talk to the others (supervisors) in private,” Hammett said. “He didn’t want me to talk to them.”
Kautza also wants to change the ethics committee to include only citizen members and no supervisors, a plan he will push in earnest later this year.
The committee is currently made up of two supervisors and three citizen members. Kautza said the committee should not have any supervisors to avoid any potential conflict of interest when there are complaints against supervisors, county employees or other elected officials.
Supervisors Kathy Luebke and Randy Mallmann agreed.
“There’s always an opportunity for conflict of interest,” Mallmann said.
Larenda Maulson, corporation counsel, said she recently reviewed the setup in other counties.
“A lot of them do only have citizen members,” she said. “They do not have board members on their ethics committee itself.”
kpasson@newmedia-wi.com
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