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Did Kriegl vote for Unit A? He says no, machine says yes
By Tim Damos / News Republic

 

 

 

For more than a year, he bombarded the newspaper with letters to the editor, waved documents in the air while shouting down fellow supervisors at meetings, and used every opportunity to talk about what he felt was a failed jail initiative that would eat taxpayer dollars for breakfast.

Then, Sauk County Supervisor Tom Kriegl voted in support of jail Unit A. Or did he?

Kriegl insists he had no such last minute change of heart Tuesday night, and says he voted with the opposition following a contentious debate on the county board floor. But the machine he used to cast his vote disagrees.

"Who but myself knows the way I voted?" Kriegl said in an interview Thursday. "There’s no way I’m going to be on record as voting for that colossal mistake."

The vote tally was 22-8 to continue operating Unit A, which opened in 2008 to increase the jail’s capacity for renting beds to out-of-county inmates.

Staff from the County Clerk’s Office and the Mapping and Information Systems Department conducted tests this week on Kriegl’s voting machine and found it to be working properly.

MIS Director Steve Pate said it would be difficult for someone to manipulate the voting equipment. The buttons on the machine record ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes similar to the way a light switch turns on and off.

"We can’t say, ‘This one is yes and this one is no,’ it’s hard-wired into the machine," Pate said Friday. "The only way to alter this would be to pull the console apart and physically switch the wiring."

Kriegl said he was sitting in a different seat than usual Tuesday night, and had difficulty with his voting equipment throughout the meeting.

Pate said supervisors sometimes don’t fully press the buttons that register their votes, which are marked with plus and minus signs.

The wiring doesn’t connect and they have to try again, Pate said.

But Pate said he has never seen a vote recorded incorrectly in the system.

Pate also said if supervisors accidentally push the wrong button when they are voting, they have about 20 seconds to change it before the vote tally is finalized.

 

While Kriegl certainly has a paper trail of his vehement opposition to opening the once-vacant jail unit, getting his vote changed in the official record won’t be easy.

Sauk County’s Acting Corporation Counsel Alene Kleczek said Kriegl will have to make a motion to amend the minutes from Tuesday night’s meeting when the full board convenes again next month.

The county board utilizes Robert’s Rules of Order, a procedural manual for governing bodies.

According to those rules, Kleczek said, after Kriegl makes his motion the county board’s chairman will ask if any supervisors object to Kreigl’s vote being changed.

"Then, he pauses and waits for somebody to object," Kleczek said. "If nobody objects, then it’s changed."

Kriegl will essentially be at the mercy of fellow supervisors, some who have shown bitter opposition to his political tactics throughout the Unit A saga.

 

Sauk County Sheriff Randy Stammen, who is on the opposite end of a lawsuit filed by Kriegl that involves a dispute over jail records, issued a press release Friday that appeared to include a final shot at his political rival.

The release listed — in alphabetical order — the names of county supervisors who voted to support Unit A. Kriegl’s name was listed first, although that made it out of place alphabetically.

In the release, Stammen thanked his supporters, adding that "The continued operation of Unit A will benefit the citizens of Sauk County, in many ways, but most prominently, through the tax levy that must be assessed to them."

The sheriff singled out Kriegl in the final sentence.

"I would also like to add a special thank you to Supervisor Kriegl, who I must admit, surprised me by his vote to continue the operation of Unit A," Stammen said.

 

Stammen and others championed a county report that showed the jail initiative provided Sauk County taxpayers with $600,000 of property tax relief in 2008. The report tracked the expenses associated with opening and operating the 94-bed jail unit, as well as the revenue earned through a contract to house up to 100 prisoners from the state’s Department of Corrections at $51.46 per inmate per day.

Critics said the DOC housing report was flawed because it only tracked the performance of one contract, rather than the overall profit or loss that resulted from increasing the jail’s capacity.

Supporters said the new unit couldn’t have opened without a contract to fill the additional beds, so it was fair to attribute all DOC revenue to Unit A, even though not all DOC inmates were housed there.

In 2007 jail operations benefited by $1.22 million of income earned by renting available beds in the already operational Unit B, budget documents show. With Unit A operational in 2008, the jail collected almost $2 million in total bed rental income, a shortfall from what was projected that resulted mainly from losing renters from Dane County.

The additional costs of opening and operating Unit A in 2008 totalled $857,994, according to the county report that tracked the jail project.

An independent review by the Baraboo News Republic found that — when all jail expenses and revenues are accounted for — the net cost of operating the county’s jail increased from $3.84 million in 2007 to $4.02 million in 2008.

The resolution to continue operating the jail wing approved Tuesday night included a provision that the performance of the DOC contract will be reviewed by the county board again within one year.

How the board voted

The Sauk County Board voted 22-8 Tuesday night to continue operating a jail unit that opened in 2008.

Scott Alexander....................Yes

Judy Ashford. ..................... .Yes

Steven Bach,........................Yes

Linda Borleske......................No

Tommy Lee Bychinski..........Yes

Arthur Carlson.....................Yes

Robert Cassity..................... Yes

Al Dippel ..............................Yes

Paul Endres. .....................N/A*

Joan Fordham......................Yes

Joel Gaalswyk...................... No

Frederick Halfen...................Yes

Virgil Hartje, La Valle............Yes

Lowell Haugen..................... No

Marcy Huffaker.................... Yes

Thomas Kriegl................. Yes**

Marty Krueger......................Yes

Gerald Lehman.....................No

Tim Meister,.........................Yes

Charles Montgomery...........Yes

Henry Netzinger...................Yes

Shawn M. Posewitz..............Yes

Robert Sinklair......................No

Donna Stehling....................Yes

Donald Stevens....................Yes

Judith Stoeckmann.............No

Peter Tollaksen.....................Yes

Larry Volz..............................Yes

William Wenzel,....................Yes

Lester Wiese.........................No

Katherine Zowin...................No

* Paul Endres was excused from the meeting

** Tom Kriegl says he meant to vote “no”