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Walker’s Campaign Staff Communicated Directly With County Employees, Following Teen’s Death
Friday, August 2, 2013 5:09 AM
NIKI2
Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...
Quote:Gov. Scott Walker worked simultaneously with his campaign staff and county aides in coordinating responses to media inquiries, open records requests and news stories about the 2010 O'Donnell Park tragedy, according to newly released emails. The records show that Walker was integrally involved in the efforts to challenge any negative publicity after a concrete panel fell from the Milwaukee County-owned O'Donnell parking structure, killing a 15-year-old boy on June 24, 2010, on his way to Summerfest. The incident occurred in the middle of the 2010 gubernatorial campaign. "It is disgusting that anyone would use a tragedy for such blatant political purposes," Walker wrote in a draft statement that he sent on July 20, 2010, to a small circle of campaign and county staff, including campaign manager Keith Gilkes, campaign adviser R.J. Johnson and Chief of Staff Tom Nardelli. The individuals in this small circle regularly emailed each other about the Walker administration's response to the incident. Milwaukee County prosecutors spent nearly three years investigating Walker's aides and associates for campaigning on state time and other alleged infractions. In all, six individuals were convicted as a result of the probe, which was opened in May 2010. Of those, three were former aides to Walker while he was Milwaukee County executive, one was an appointee and another a major campaign contributor. A Walker campaign spokesman did not return phone calls late Monday. In one exchange, Walker's top Milwaukee County fiscal aide, Cindy Archer, emailed Walker and Walker campaign aides on July 8 that "we may be responding too quickly" to requests for O'Donnell-related records made by his Republican primary rival, Mark Neumann, and by the state Democratic Party. Archer said she heard from Gilkes, Walker's campaign manager, that Democratic Mayor Tom Barrett was taking three months just to acknowledge receipt of public records requests. "My sense from Keith is that we should be operating one step above ignoring them," Archer says in an email to county staffer Kelly Rindfleisch. More at http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/new-emails-show-scott-walker-played-role-in-odonnell-park-news-flow-b9964849z1-217511151.html
Friday, August 2, 2013 7:03 AM
SIGNYM
I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.
Friday, August 2, 2013 12:20 PM
Quote:Emails show Governor Scott Walker's gubernatorial campaign was telling his Milwaukee County staff how to respond to a tragic parking garage collapse. The emails went around the usual firewall that's supposed to separate campaigns from public offices. The emails show a 2010 Walker gubernatorial campaign that was in constant contact with his county executive staff over how to handle Walker's public response to the parking garage collapse that killed a 15-year-old-boy. At one point, then-campaign manager Keith Gilkes told Walker's county staff that Walker should be attached at the hip with the county sheriff, saying also that they needed to know everything about the parking structure. Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesperson Melissa Baldauff says these emails demonstrate a trend. “I think that what these emails show is that Milwaukee County was being run by Scott Walker's political operatives, and that this wasn't an isolated incident as Scott Walker said,” she says. “This was happening every day. These folks were in email chains and meeting for breakfast every day to discuss how to run Milwaukee County.” The emails are just the latest made public from a now-closed John Doe investigation ( http://news.wpr.org/term/john-doe) that targeted former aides to Walker when he was Milwaukee County executive. When asked, Walker told reporters his current campaign team does not advise his state office. http://news.wpr.org/post/emails-reveal-cooperation-between-2010-walker-campaign-milwaukee-county-staff]
Quote:Two men, including a former top aide to Gov. Scott Walker, were arrested Thursday and charged with embezzling from veterans groups, the latest break in the ongoing John Doe investigation into Walker's current and former staff. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm said former Walker aide Tim Russell and Kevin Kavanaugh, the former treasurer of a Milwaukee-area veterans group, are accused of taking money meant for veterans, wounded soldiers and families of those killed in action to spend on expensive trips and personal items. A third man, Brian Pierick, Russell's longtime partner, was also arrested Thursday as part of the probe and faces charges of felony child enticement and causing a child to expose his genitals. Pierick's alleged crimes were uncovered during the John Doe investigation when law enforcement officials seized iPhones and computers belonging to Pierick and Russell, who live together. More at: http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/walker-staff-probe-leads-to-charges-for-three-men/article_a334c030-37b8-11e1-86a4-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz2aquvRuPT
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