Onalaska's Coulee Region Municipal Court Commission and Judge John Brinckman oversee the municipal court, which handles
thousands of ordinance and traffic tickets issued by police in Onalaska,
Bangor, Holmen, Rockland, West Salem, Campbell, Holland and Shelby
annually.
In September of 2017 9 "banker's boxes" of unprosecuted citations/summons were found in Onalaska City Hall storage room. Unprosecuted cases means those cited aren’t held responsible for violations and penalties won’t be imposed if convictions aren’t entered.
City Attorney Sean O'Flaherty after doing a cursory review of the citations said they could amount to 4 or 5 percent of the court's 13 years of business. According to Alderman Every that could amount to 45 DUIs that went unprosecuted! Those offenders could have been back on the street with no penalty resulting in traffic deaths that could have been avoided.
It's been common knowledge to Mayor Joel Chilsen, longtime aldermen Bob Muth, Jim Olson, Jim Bialecki, finance director Fred Buehler that this miscarriage of justice has been going on for many years.
In September of 2017 9 "banker's boxes" of unprosecuted citations/summons were found in Onalaska City Hall storage room. Unprosecuted cases means those cited aren’t held responsible for violations and penalties won’t be imposed if convictions aren’t entered.
City Attorney Sean O'Flaherty after doing a cursory review of the citations said they could amount to 4 or 5 percent of the court's 13 years of business. According to Alderman Every that could amount to 45 DUIs that went unprosecuted! Those offenders could have been back on the street with no penalty resulting in traffic deaths that could have been avoided.
It's been common knowledge to Mayor Joel Chilsen, longtime aldermen Bob Muth, Jim Olson, Jim Bialecki, finance director Fred Buehler that this miscarriage of justice has been going on for many years.
Wow !! How do they get away with that ? All these years ? Where does the money go ? Into someone's pocket ? I bet all the police departments in Holmen, West Salem, Rockland, Bnagor, and everywhere else are steaming mad !! I would be. So, if you get a speeding ticket, do you go to the Onalaska City hall and pay somebody some cash, and they pull your ticket and put it in box in the basement, and it never gets reported to the State, and you don't lose any points off of your license? Great !! How much to fix a DWI ? Doesn't the State of Wisconsin ever miss the revenue, or do they falsify the revenue reports to the State ? That would mean that the State of Wisconsin is getting cheated out of $$$ for every ticket that is in the basement. How many banker's boxes of tickets ? 33? Wait, isn't Mayor Joe Chilson the chair of the finance committee at Saint Patricks Catholic Church in Onalaska when they had $800,000 embezzled over a 10 year period ? I think I smell a rat here.... Didn't he also just say that "the money is gone, there isn't anything anybody can do about it". I smell a BIG rat !!!
ReplyDeleteWhat big names in the coulee region were buried in these 33 boxes as to not bring embarrassment to themselves or the entities they work for? Was money exchanged or favors given to hide these records from the public?? Just who is going to "review" these records, the same people that tried to hide the information in the first place???
ReplyDeleteI read in the newspaper that the city counsel voted and approved $8,000 to do an audit on these boxes of unprocessed police tickets. Then I read that Mayor Joe Chilson wouldn't let the staff at Onalaska City Hall contract an accounting company to do the work because he didn't want any one to do the audit to find out what was really in all of those boxes of tickets. What is he trying to hide?
ReplyDeleteHe is trying to save his own "hide". LOL !
DeleteI read that Joe Chilson told the newspaper that he wanted to spend the $8,000 on training a new clerk on how to do the job right. How much training do you need to do your job honestly ? If you paid the new clerk $25.00 per hour times 40 hours per week, that would be $1,000 per week. $8,000 divided by $1,000 per week = 8 weeks. Don't you think that 8 weeks is a long time to train a clerk how to process a ticket ? What does Joe Chilson think we are, idiots ????
ReplyDeleteIsn't there some kind of system that is supposed to prevent this from happening? Like when a cop writes a speeding ticket and makes you sign it, then he rips off one copy and gives it to you, and doesn't he have another copy that he keeps track of and is responsible for ? One time, a friend of mine was getting a ticket written out, and he convinced the cop that it was the car in front of him that committed the infraction, but the cop said that because he had already started writing out the ticket, that he could not stop it because he could not void or tear up the ticket. The cop told my friend that he could go to court, the cop would tell the judge to disregard the ticket because he had written it out to the wrong person. Doesn't anybody keep track on what goes on with the tickets around here ?
ReplyDeleteShouldn't the judge be checking into this stuff ?
ReplyDelete