Wright County MN Massive Financial Cover Up Continues

The readers digest condensed version is that after more than a month of waiting, being told i had to produce a $250 down payment from the county attorney, on July 28, 2009 I recieved some of the data I requested..  The mental gymnastics they put me through for more than a month were unbelievable. These folks have no idea what the phrase, Public Servant means.

And now that I have the data, I am not allowed to address the County Commissioners to point out issues and ask questions.

County Administrator King Dick Norman sent the following stone tablets down from the Mountain:

"Mr Mashak: I have reviewed your request to be on the County Board Agenda of August 4th. Your request is hereby denied. Many of the items/issues you raise have been presented already or are a result of State law and the County must be in compliance with the law."

If I understand King Norman correctly, the thirteen plus (13+) dollars per hour minimum starting wage and the thirty five (35) days per year paid time off (7 weeks) after one (1) year of work are the result of state and federal mandates.  And I am not allowed to ask where I can find those mandates nor what those mandates are?

Well for those of you than want more details i have attached my last email to them. I think you will find it quite entertaining.

As soon as i can figure out how to write the code for allowing users to up load the excel files for 2006-2009 I will make them available for upload.  (The 2005 file was corrupted - I don't know how long it will take to replace.)  Until then, any Wright County resident that wants me to email them the information is welcome to contact me.  Once I figure out how to allow them to be downloaded, the files will be posted at my "Wright County Free Press"

Last minute update - I received an email that the 2005 file was in a different format and state law says they do not have to provide it in any other format... Apparently 2005 is the year where there is something big to hide.

Please see the current Schedule for the Wright County Minnesota Budget hearings at the end of the email. Hope to see you at the Budget hearings.

Respectfully,

Don Mashak

The Cynical Patriot

-----Original Message-----
From: dmashak@aol.com
To: Susan.Backes@co.wright.mn.us; Brian.Asleson@co.wright.mn.us; patrick.sawatzke@co.wright.mn.us; jack.russek@co.wright.mn.us; Rose.Thelen@co.wright.mn.us; elmer.eichelberg@co.wright.mn.us; DickMattson@aol.com; dick.mattson@co.wright.mn.us; dick.norman@co.wright.mn.us; Bill.Swing@co.wright.mn.us

Sent: Sun, Aug 2, 2009 4:47 pm

Subject: Continuing Wright County Financial Cover -up - Moodys downgrades Municipal bonds as a class

So now it is apparent the big stall in providing me the Public Record data I requested was to prevent me from having time to analyze the data before the budget process. And now that I have data, so i could ask questions about it - County Administrator King Dick Norman has delivered this stone tablet:

                                "Mr Mashak:  I have reviewed your request to be on the County Board
                                 Agenda of August 4th.  Your request is hereby denied.  Many of the
                                 items/issues you raise have been presented already or are a result of
                                State law and the County must be in compliance with the law."



The County has tried to delay providing me the data by demanding a $250 down payment....
down   payment?. I started by talking to Auditor Hiivala and you sent me chasing my tail 
through  various persons trying to get the data. How the heck do I end up speaking to someone in the 
County  attorney's  office to pick up data that is suppose to be public record.   Every time, except the last
 time I  showed up to get the data, the designated person was not  available and no one knew where
 the data  was ?  Why couldn't the data, that was a matter of public  record, be left with the receptionist ? 
 And then  you hang your hat on emails that were allegedly sent  and it is pinned on me as being my fault? 

 What  kind of special stupid does the County think the voters and taxpayers Wright County are?  It took 
 you a month to release the data and only then after I wrote and posted an article on the internet
 about the  Massive Wright County Financial Cover up.  Maybe in your twisted little mutual admiration 
society minds down there it works, but not for the average voter and taxpayer. I am pretty sure any average 
 voter and taxpayer can see through your charade ?   If it is public record, I should be able to have it in a 
timely manner.  A month is not a timely manner.

Any average citizen knows that the data I was requesting would be compiled in the normal course of 
business and therefore not require a bill in excess of $250 to produce for me. Any business owner or 
store manager would not that the data should be in the comparables used each year to prepare the 
next years budget? The fact that you made this argument is an admission that the County has not been 
operating within the parameters of normally accepted business and accounting practices. 

Any average Citizen knows that when I show up to pick up the data several times over the course 
of a month, I should not have repeatedly hear that the person with the data is gone, or the terms of 
producing them have changed and/or no one knows where he is or when he will be back or where the
data is.   When I leave my phone number and ask them to call, that means call, don't send an email 
that  I am  not  expecting and therefore I don't know to check for it.  At least have your staff call to say 
you sent an  email,  if you are too busy. 

 Every Voter and Taxpayer knows the solution would have been to leave the public record data with the
receptionist with the instructions to collect the money before releasing. Most Voters and taxpayers know that the County Attorney Receptionist is behind bullet proof glass so safety of personnel and security of the documents, prior to payment cannot be the excuse. The data is public record, so the possibility of the receptionist seeing something she should not see is not an excuse. 

I received one email from the County Employee in question and that contained the data I had been requesting for more than a month. And that email ended up in my spam filter. I searched the spam filter and all of my old email and new email for any other emails allegedly sent by said employee. None were found. I leave it to the Citizens of Wright County to deduce what happened to the rest of the emails allegedly sent to me....  Which again, I point out makes no difference because I asked my representative, Pat Sawatzke, and said employee to CALL ME on two or more of the prior occasions when i was not provided the data. Instead of apologizing and devising a way to streamline citizens getting data, the aristocrats of the Wright County Board, tried to hang their hat on me not reading emails that were allegedly sent. A month is a month is a month. Stop it now!

Enough, the mental gymnastics you made me go through just to get the data makes my head hurt? A simple request - twisted into a convoluted nightmare just so you could delay my getting the data. With that house keeping out of the way, lets get down to business.

I ask you to delay the budget process 2 weeks so i can analyze the budget and get the word out. I want your answer in writing so next election I can post it on the internet along with the various audio I have recorded, for all to behold and pass their own judgment.  No sense wasting political ammunition this far before the election.  I want it fresh in the voters' minds when they go to the polls.

I wanted to ask questions because the numbers seem so outrageous I could't believe them. Instead of answers,  I get a finger waived in my face and smirks by the County Administrator King Dick Norman all while I am seated and he is standing. (apparently the royalty of the county board have forgot to tell him he is a public servant)  I just asked him to explain to me the vacation, sick time and holiday paid time off policies. I asked the board to to admonish Dick Norman for treating a taxpayer this way and the Royal Court give him a free pass.  We now know where Mr. Norman gets his attitude and gestures. 

After the last meeting, while I was asking my commisioner Pat Sawatzke to explain the "point system" and the "Hay Group" to me, Mr. Sawatzke started yelling at me and waving his pencil at me.  I leave it to my fellow Wright County Voters, Citizens and taxpayers to pass their own judgements on the appropriateness of such behavior towards a fellow Wright County Citizen and Taxpayer.  For myself, my judgement of Mr. Sawatzke's behavior motivates me to again ask, "What do you folks have to hide?"

Does not the Moody's report concern you:
http://my.nowpublic.com/world/moodys-downgrades-municipal-bonds-are-you-scared-crapless-yet
For the first time ever, they want to downgrade muncipal bonds as a class, instead of individually.  They cite "overspending and a hollowing out of the Revenue Core"  (Oversimplified - Moodys is a Credit Bureau for Government Agencies and Businesses) As a concerned citizen I come down to ask questions and you treat me like this? What are you thinking?  Did not the Founding Fathers specifically desire that elected officials be referred to as "Public Servants"  Do you not share my same concern for, and love of, country in desiring to make the hard choices now, before it is too late? Can I not ask a few questions and get some data without feeling like my head got stuck in a blender with all your machinations to delay and avoid providing the answers and data?

You folks don't care that you are taxing 70 year old women out of their homes of 40 years nor
do you care about reducing the tax burden on us other property owners. You only care about maintaining the status quo despite overwhelming evidence that the country is on the brink of disaster.

You would rather give county employees 7 weeks of paid time off after one year (12 vacation 12 sick 11 holiday) than reign it in line with private sector equivalents.   How much money would it save?
My rough poll shows that after one year in the private sector, the number of paid days off run
approximately : Vacation 5-10; Sick days 1-6; and Holidays 0-8 for range of paid days off of 6 - 24.
Can't we reduce some vacation time of employees with the county less than 3-5 years to keep a
70 year old woman in her home of 40 years and reduce the tax burden to the rest of the tax payers?
With duplicitous intent, you deliberately break the paid time off into various parts to obfuscate the truth
and to avoid the outrage from the voters and taxpayers.

You would rather have a starting pay of 13+ dollars per hour at the lowest end than something more
in line with the private sector... (and the 13+ is starting for Receptionist, data entry and janitors, etc.)
This outrage causes me to summise that you are more loyal to the bureaucrats than the taxpayers
despite your pledge to the contrary at the last meeting. When the rest of us in the private sector are
taking pay cuts or being laid off, is it too much for Government Bureaucrats to make some sacrifices?

Pat Sawatzke has lied to me on the record, attempting to blame government mandates and giving the
"point system" as the primary reason that payroll is so high.  My investigation yeilds that the point system Mr. Sawatzke refers to relates to equality of pay between the sexes.  Is Pat Sawatzke suggesting we have to revert to the old system of paying women less for equal jobs as a way of reducing expenses?  Of course that is hogwash, he wash tossing manure at the wall and seeing what would stick. He did not anticipate that someone would check his facts. King Norman saluted his manure on the wall, and wrote the email that I began this correspondence with. The fact is the County Commissioners set the base and the County Commissioners have been spending taxpayer money like drunken sailors on shore leave. The bureaucrats are there to make sure they share by being represented by other bureaucrats that the taxpayer pay to be there. But the County Commissioners - the ones who are suppose to represent and protect the taxpayers and voters have sold us out for $50200.00 per year(part time at 20/wk = about $50/hour).

And the County Bureaucrats have set up a retirement fund separate from social security rather than
help protect us private citizens from the ravages that are coming because the bureaucrats have raided
and spent the alleged Social Security lock box money. Shame on elected officials and Government
Bureaucrats for abandoning us private citizens and just providing for County Government Bureaucrats.
Bureaucrats caused the Social Security Crisis and now Government Bureaucrats get a free pass on the crisis they created. Yes, they created by recommending that course of action to elected officials.  Let us have a vote now to dump all the government pension funds into the Social Security General Fund so they have some motivation to fix or apply pressure to fix the Social Security system. How does it feel now to be in the same sinking boat with the rest of us?  Are you Government Bureaucrats now a little more motivated put pressure on the powers that be to fix the impending Social Security mess?

I am sorry I do not have time right now for a more in depth analysis that the 5 County Commissioners
that get paid a quarter of a million dollars a year should have done for us voters and taxpayers.  I have my own job and my own financial and personal issues. I have asked for the delay so I can speak intelligently during the budget process.  I get jears, smirks, finger wagging and derision when I ask questions of County officials, so I forgive me if I don't try the water at that well again. So I must take the time to immerse myself in the records and locate resources in the private sector and at the state level to get answers about things I don't understand. And since, I don't get paid $50,200.00 for 20/hours a week pay, I must work aroung my income producing time and use my recreation time to do the job the County Commissioners should have already done.

This letter is written in the same vien as Thomas Payne wrote his book, "Common Sense" at the time of the American Revolution.  I seek no leadership role.  I seek only to inform and motivate my fellow Citizens to find their own way to address the crisis that confronts us.  I do not have all the answers.  I believe their may be others out there far more better able to handle the mental gymnatics that the County Commissioners will put them through and better able to debate the topic at hand. It is time for all good people to come to the aid of their country and county.

If they grant an extention of time, I will use the time to evaluate the budget like a normal private sector
businessman would. (Hopefully I can get the last 2 years comparables for all the expenses easier than I got the payroll data) Creating measures of productivity and pushing for pay, vacation and benefits commensurate to private sector equivilents would be among my priorities. This, as opposed to eliminating the Sheriff's Department as my Board Member Sawatzke suggested.  I would love for any accountants to dig into the last 5 years of payroll. I will be posting those documents on line.  If any accountant would like to forward their findings to me and remain anonymous, that would work to. If any local paper would like them, I will provide them free of charge or tell them where exactly online they can find them..

I have asked the County Royalty to post the payroll and the budget information on the internet at the website we tax payers pay for but they don't think that is a good idea.  They would rather kill trees and prevent citizens from getting this data by charging $250.00 or more upon request. (But they don't have anything to hide?) So much for open government.

For love of and concern for our Country and County, I encourage all Wright County Citizens to show up at
the budget meetings that are suppose to occur.  I was warned they can change the schedule any time they want and only have to post the notice some place on the wall in the court house.  They tell me it is
unreasonable for them to post it on the website nor is it reasonable for them to create an email list and notify citizens that would like to be notified.  Please let this stand as my public request to be notified by email and phone by my elected representative, Pat Sawatzke.(or his designated alternate, if that is not beneath his rank) So for now, I guess we will have to go with what is currently posted and hope that the County Aristocrats won't act duplicitiously and change meeting times with the specific intent of avoiding being asked the hard questions.

And if they tell you I have been too hard on them, just remind them t I gave as I got. We would never got to this level of acrimony if they had just produced the public records i requested in a timely manner and started waving their fingers in my face. 

They are called public servants for a reason. Apparently since our Senators and Representatives no longer listen to WE THE PEOPLE, they don't have to either.

if there was any doubt of their deliberate duplicity left, it went out the window when they said that now that i have the data, i can not ask any questions about it at the next board meeting.

These thoughts were on my mind.

Patriotly and unapologetically yours.

Don Mashak
The Cynical Patriot