A Shitstorm of Criticism Rains Down on the Mayor

Lake Geneva area citizens strongly criticized Mayor Chesen’s actions as a“vendetta” at the finance and council meeting on 9.28.2009. Surprisingly,none of the citizens who spoke in favor of a special election and spoke-up in defense of democracy when Spiro Condos was appointed on 8.24.2009 have spoken either in defense of Mayor Chesen’s actions or against them.

Former Alderman Dick Peterson: “No attorney in their right mind is going to recommend the Mayor suspend four elected alderman, if he is not going to take the advice of the City Attorney it is up to the alderman to say no. We are not going to fund this fiasco … cut out the funding and you might stop this nutty behavior by the Mayor. Stop this nonsensible spending for a vendetta against the old mayor.”

Dave Williams: “Anyone with a grudge with the city could come up with a verified complain asking for removal for cause. It is very simple to file a complaint for cause, and providing an attorney at taxpayer expense, will encourage over persons to files complaints.”

“The appointment of a “Special Prosecutor” is not required by statue ….and you are setting a very bad precedent. If someone has a complaint against any city official, you’re setting a precedent whereby the city, in addition to paying for council to the city council, are also going to provide an attorney for everyone who has a complaint against another city official? ….  Anybody that his a grudge is going to do this, and the city is going to help them by hiring an attorney. There is not going to be any end to turmoil in this city.”

Peg Esposito: “Approving fees to this firm is like giving drugs to an addict….. This mess is more about personality than politics; it has fallen to the level of kids in the back seat of a family car.”

Terry O’Neil: “Where is the 2008 financial status report(Audit)?  State law requires the city financial statement to be filed by March 15 2009 …..It either has not been done, or it is being hidden. The city financial statement has not been done as required by state law, since Mayor Chesen began his two year term 18 months ago.”   (The City Controller replied “We do not have a 2008 audit.”)

“How can you have an unbudgeted item of $148,000 (for another ambulance) when the city is facing escalating legal fees?”

“Mayor Chesen established an ad hoc committee to look into the misuse of city credit cards, but without a resolution the committee could do nothing and did nothing…. The committee did not look into the past credit card misuse or who approved the past misuse. Why would a committee would be formed and do nothing?”

Former Alderman Bill Huntress: “Mayor Chesen is trying to get rid of people who have been elected 9 or ten times, they never lost. Now the paper, the Regional News, they don’t put these kind of things in the paper…..the mayor says this is for the good of the city, so now he is going to eliminate these people and replace them with people who have lost 9 or 10 elections. Now he says it’s for the good of the city…. I think it is for the good of himself.”

“Now how can you replace four winners with four losers? The people have spoken– they don’t want these other people in office. Now Mr. Chesen states the four people he is trying to eliminate they don’t vote the way his constitutes want. ….If they don’t vote the way their constitutes want, they won’t be in office. The reason he wants these replacement (loser aldermen) people in here is because he is telling them what he wants them to do. These people he is trying to get rid of are free thinkers, and think for themselves. A lot of people don’t like that, they want to manipulate things.”

…..”The eight elected council members are the ones that are suppose to determine the direction of the city, not the mayor, not the public works director Mr. Winkler, not Vanderwale -who we pay tens of thousands of dollars to every year and (the city officials) don’t pay attention to a dam thing they tell us–not the fire department, not the business park, not any church group, not any developer. The eight council members are the ones that are supposed to run this city; and that’s the problem we have–we have all these other people trying to run the city. And, unfortunately, Mr. Chesen has done everything to make it hard these four people. He has degraded them; he has laughed at them; and now he is trying to tell us they are criminals…. There is no evidence against these people. The only thing he does is he hates Mr. Condos, he is holding this city hostage.”