In 2016 mayor Chilsen was on the St. Patrick’s Catholic Church finance committee (who's job it is to keep track of the money) when Barbara Snyder the church secretary stole $832,000! He must not have much finance acumen, or is it possible that this woman DIDN'T actually gamble it all away at the casino, but more believably split the loot with some local accomplices who looked the other way for her, or otherwise helped her launder the money.
Then in 2016 we have mayor Chilsen's employee Kari Neumann who stole more than $70,000 right out from under Chilsen's nose at city hall! When attempted to be contacted by the La Crosse Tribune Mayor Joe Chilsen declined to comment about the case, and did not return phone calls. What is he hiding? An honest mayor would have talked to the press.
For years we have the police chief who worked under the same roof as mayor Chilsen running all over town having affairs with married women and threatening citizens that talked about his cheating, even taking shirtless selfies in his City of Onalaska office! Was the mayor not paying attention? When the chief's philandering was brought to Chilsen's attention in 2017 he claimed that he couldn't do anything about the behavior because Trotnic was undergoing sex-addition treatment making it a medical condition. State law mandates that a mayor with ANY information of police misconduct alleged or proven MUST bring the issue to the City's Police and Fire Commission for review. This was never brought (legally) to the city's police and fire commission.
In 2017 city administrator Eric Rindfleisch uncovered a large stash of file boxes in the city hall store room containing thousands of unprocessed citations and summons from many many years of police work. Mayor Chilsen and his staff fought for weeks to allow citizen watchdogs their legal right to inspect these records. What is the mayor trying to hide? The investigation into WHY these hundreds or thousands of citations were not processed is still underway. I suspect we will find that Chilsen, Trotnic and Judge Brinckman are VERY dirty!
Recently on February 23 Chilsen told city officials that he "fired Chief Trotnic and escorted him out of city hall", then lied to the media claiming that Trotnic resigned "to pursue other job opportunities". Which is it mayor? When asked for comment by local media Chilsen refused to divulge the circumstances that led Trotnic to offer the resignation.
UPDATE - Thursday Mar 1 2017 it's being reported that the Onalaska Fire Chief Don Dominick will "retire" this summer, when in fact the mayor has stated to city officials that the police and fire commission fired him for performance reasons. For that to be legally done it would have to have been on the police and fire commission meeting agenda, and a public meeting would have to be held. Again Joe Chilsen either doesn't understand the LAWS on how municipal government works, or just thinks he is above the law!
This is a developing story that will clearly continue to develop as long as Joel Chilsen is "working" in Onalaska city hall.
