On Monday, January 30th, the Walworth Town Board held a Special Meeting regarding a legal investigation which the town board commissioned on Tuesday, January 3, 2017.
The investigation was conducted to examine what was described as a long history of impropriety of the Walworth Town Clerk, Ms. Susie Jacobs. Jacobs is currently serving the third year of her four year term as an elected official as the Town Clerk. However, due to being an elected official, Jacobs is not considered an employee of the town, and therefore is sheltered, by law, from being dismissed from her position.
After sustaining a head injury On October 8, 2016 which caused a severe concussion, Jacobs has indicated that she has been unable to work full time, with her absence causing difficulty for residents as well as town employees, according to the Town Board, due to her limited office hours and inability to perform certain aspects of the job on account of her injury.
Around the same time, after receiving numerous complaints regarding Jacobs’ professional conduct, and after Jacobs terminated her [then] First Deputy Clerk, the town board made the decision to eliminate the First Deputy Clerk position in an effort to mitigate the possibility of potential litigation against the town in the future.
Despite the elimination of the first deputy position, Ms. Crystal Lewandowski has been working as a Deputy Clerk in Jacobs’ absence, without compensation. Even with the extra help, the clerk’s office has remained closed for business, or open sporadically with abbreviated, varying hours since October.
The Town Board passed a Resolution (#218-16) in January, allowing the board to submit all complaints to the Town Attorney, Boylan Code LLP, for an investigation of Jacobs’ alleged improper and unethical conduct.
During the meeting, it was officially stated in a resolution, that Jacobs allegedly conducted herself improperly by harassing employees in the Town Clerk’s Office, verbally abusing employees in her office [in public and in private] by subjecting them to “outbursts of anger, shouting, intimidation, derogatory and disrespectful remarks, and by explicitly and implicitly threatening termination of employment”, criticism of Town Clerk’s Office employees on matters related [or minimally related] to their job performance/description, manipulating the abilities of employees to do their work via overloading, under-loading, withholding information, assigning meaningless tasks and deadlines which could not be met, deliberately giving ambiguous instructions, withholding training, and purposefully excluding/isolating/marginalizing employees in her office from normal work activities.
Alleged unethical complaints included using the town’s resources for personal activities and interests unrelated to town business, and also for using her official title, email and office addresses for solicitations from members of the public for her own personal interests and activities unrelated to town business.
During the investigation, Supervisor Patti Marini reported that Jacobs “was asked to meet with Boylan Code, however she refused, denying herself the opportunity to respond to the allegations in the complaints.”
Upon completion of the investigation, its findings were referred back to the town board for their review and further action. The board then approved, at Monday’s special meeting, Resolution #39-17: Censuring the Walworth Town Clerk Susie Jacobs, stating the investigation’s findings had been acknowledged and accepted by the Town Board, and that the complaints concerning alleged improper and unethical conduct of the Town Clerk were all found to be substantiated and, by engaging in such conduct, Ms. Jacobs violated the Town’s Conflict of Interest and Code of Ethics Policy.
It was noted on the record that Ms. Jacobs has engaged in a pattern of similar improper and unethical conduct on numerous other occasions dating back to 2008 & 2009 when the town previously investigated complaints against Ms. Jacobs. Those investigations likewise determined that she had engaged in acts of harassment against a town employee and was counseled, to no avail.
Lastly it was stated that, due to past and continuing improper and unethical conduct, Ms. Jacobs has created a “hostile, stress-inducing and thoroughly unhealthy and intolerable work environment in the Town Clerk’s Office, resulting in significant employee turnover, increased costs, decreased services for the public and potential lawsuits from aggrieved workers”.
The Town Board, both Republicans and Democrats, unanimously approved the resolution, effectively censuring Town Clerk, Ms. Susie Jacobs, advising her to cease and desist from all conduct which the Town Board has determined to be in violation of the policies of the Town of Walworth, and to comply with all provisions of the Town’s Non-Harassment Standards of Conduct and Conflict of Interest/Code of Ethics policies. It was also resolved that the town will continue not to fund the First Deputy Clerk position until the town board is satisfied that the Town Clerk has taken steps to prevent future occurrences of such conduct.
A “Censure” is a formal and severe disapproval or condemnation of someone, usually in the form of a statement.
Councilwoman Judy Markowski addressed the board and the public, explaining that she does not take her vote lightly, while duly noting that “This is not the way I expect employees of the town to be treated.”
Councilman Pembroke and Councilman Ruth also explained that, while this is not a proud moment, they, along with the town board, want the best for the community. Ruth added, “I’m sorry it has to be done this way, but it needed to be addressed.”
Before closing the meeting, Supervisor Patti Marini stated that, “This is the action of the full Town Board, not any one, singular person. The decision was made unanimously.”
On Thursday afternoon, a call came into the Times office from a Walworth resident, concerned that it appears that Town Clerk Susie Jacobs was holding a training session of several people in her office. When the Times approached Jacobs at her office, asking whether she was training help for the Clerk’s Office, Mrs. Jacobs indicated that she was just showing some things to volunteers, and not training anyone. Neither Susie Jacobs nor the three others in her office wished to comment further.
At Thursday night’s Walworth Town Board meeting, a resident expressed her concern regarding 3 people reviewing books in the Town Clerk’s Office Her concern was that, given the nature of private information in the Clerk Office files, they should not be shown these things. She added that, due to the recent Censure of the Town Clerk, she does not feel confident with the Town Clerk’s being entrusted with town monies and resident’s private information.
Another resident at the meeting stated that she had been one of the people reviewing records, and noted that addresses and dog permits were the records being accessed, of which the Town Clerk, Ms. Susie Jacobs, stated are not confidential records and are a matter of “public record”.
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