Presque Isle town supervisor takes issue with $5,000 bill

Before the Presque Isle town board’s Nov. 7 meeting adjourned, town supervisor Carl Wolter made a motion to approve 48 voucher payments. 

Town supervisor Cathy Logan Weber asked about one of the vouchers.

“It’s about voucher 36150,” she said. “It’s to SIFT company. Can you tell me how this bill came up?”

Madison-based Special Investigation and Forensic Technology (SIFT) is a firm the board hired in May of 2023 to look into town computers that some alleged Jim Walters of destroying town records from. The accusations stemmed from a contentious election for town chairman between former long-time town clerk Lorine Walters and incumbent John MacLean a month prior, in April of 2023. 

“I believe it was for services rendered by the company and it was authorized by this board when I was not here,” MacLean said in response to Weber’s inquiry. “And I think that’s all I want to talk about it.”

MacLean challenged an April 12, 2023 recount in Vilas County court after it solidified at the time an April 4 election count that resulted in him being edged by Walters by one vote. His challenge was successful and in November of last year he won a court-ordered special election to maintain his seat as town chairman. 

The time period he alluded to at the Nov. 7 meeting was during the time his recount appeal was making its way through the court system and Weber and Wolter comprised only a two-person board.

Weber told MacLean at the Nov. 7 meeting she remembered saying “not one more penny” would be paid to SIFT after multiple investigations by different agencies into the computer issue were conducted and the Walters’ names were cleared. 

MacLean reiterated he wasn’t going to talk about “it.”

“We’re going to pay it,” he said. 

“Oh no we’re not,” Weber said. “Not if I have anything to say about it. This was not authorized. I never saw an estimate. I never approved that payment. That was something we looked at before. We paid $10,000 to that company already. We never approved another estimate on this.”

“What are we afraid of?” Wolter asked. “Are we afraid of finding out the truth?”

Weber said there were two hard-drives from town computers — both were investigated by the Vilas County Sheriff’s Office and the state Department of Justice. 

“It’s already gone through Vilas County and the Department of Justice,” she said. “Now we should spend $5,000 to get another company to look at them again. I’m not afraid of anything.”

Wolter said he spoke with a sheriff’s deputy and “he said there was reason to present ... charges.”

“And he sent it on to the district attorney, and we happen to know the relationship with the district attorney and a former resident of Presque Isle and I think it was put under the covers,” he said. 

It went to the Department of Justice, though, Weber said.

“Not the district attorney,” she said. “It went to the Department of Justice. The state. And we never approved … we need to approve expenditures. We did not approve sending (hard-drives) back to them (SIFT).”

“I signed my name to the voucher,” Wolter said. “I’m approving it. We’re just looking for the truth.”

“Yeah, so what did you get?” Weber asked. “If you’re looking for the truth, then you bring it for discussion and look at an estimate and we approve it. You just don’t decide to do that.”

MacLean suggested the board continue the discussion in a closed session meeting.

“Well, we probably should,” Weber said. “But I will not approve paying that bill that we did not approve together. And so somebody took our town information from a secure place and took it to somebody else. How is that any different than what you were saying before, where you were accusing somebody of taking the computer out (of the office).”

MacLean reiterated that the board, while he was absent, approved it.

“Approved ... and not another penny more when we got to that point,” Weber stressed again. “(This) was not approved.”

“Well I believe it was,” MacLean said. 

“Well you can believe it was, you can say it was, we did not approve it going again,” Weber said.

MacLean, once more, suggested discussing the issue in a future closed session meeting. 

“To talk about paying this?” Weber asked. “I’m talking about paying this $5,000 voucher.”

“We should pay our bills,” MacLean said and Weber objected to paying the $5,000 bill.

“I wasn’t here,” MacLean said. “And I also know that you (Weber) tried to turn off the investigation mid-screen and that was not appropriate and it’s not appropriate to talk about this anymore right now.”

“This is something that you continue to do,” Weber told MacLean. “You decide that you want to buy something or pay for something and we end up paying for it even though we haven’t approved it (as a board). It’s like why am I even sitting here?”

The board ultimately agreed to pay the vouchers on a 2-1 vote, Weber dissenting.

Budget update

The town board also at its Nov. 7 meeting provided an update on budget workshops it’s been having. 

The town’s budget process, as indicated by the board at previous meetings, is a more difficult undertaking this year than usual. In September, the board agreed to form a finance committee to help.

MacLean said he’s “encouraged” and “we’re getting somewhere” with regard to the budget.

“We’ll keep working,” Weber said. “We’ll keep plugging away.”

MacLean said one thing he’d like to consider with regard to the town’s budget is “the dimensions of an inventory of all town owned assets with life-cycle features.”

“But the basic idea is we have life cycles on things like roofs, tires, on equipment, all kinds of things,” he said. “We don’t really have a list … there’s no property ideas, there’s no inventory of all the stuff that we have on our town, and so this is an interesting sidebar that we’re going to talk about next time.”

Weber said she was told having an inventory of assets is something that should exist, “but we didn’t know.”

She indicated looking at the town’s insurance coverage could be a good start.

MacLean added the life cycles of the town’s roads would be monitored as well, and “we’ll be able to chart that.”

“They’re aging,” he said. “Just like all of us.”

Boat cleaning equipment

The board had a lengthy discussion with regard to boat cleaning equipment being proposed by Otto and Linda Novak of the town’s lakes committee. Grant funding and donations were said to be pursued to pay for the over $40,000 cost.

Weber said she wanted to see a more detailed plan, while Wolter insisted the town should not be responsible for any costs.

The board will continue to consider a way forward in helping get boat cleaning equipment in order to prevent or limit any aquatic invasive species in town lakes.

Trevor Greene may be reached via email at [email protected].