New leaders adhere to checks and balances after former heads convicted of crimes
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
The City of Lake Geneva Street Department is beginning to regain the public’s trust since its two top managers were convicted of criminal charges stemming from giving away city materials or pocketing city revenue, said Tom Earle, the department’s new superintendent.
Earle was hired to replace Ron Carstensen, 57, the former superintendent, who was charged in June 2014 with seven felony offenses and one misdemeanor charge stemming from giving city salt and sand to private companies between 2009 and 2013.
Carstensen pleaded guilty Sept. 11, 2015, to two of those charges – felony misconduct in office and misdemeanor theft in a business setting – and was sentenced Sept. 11, 2015, to six months in jail with work-release privileges and 40 hours community service. In exchange, the six other charges against him were dismissed – another count of felony misconduct in office and five counts of felony theft in a business setting.
Earle was hired in May 2014 from RW Miller and Sons, a Lake Geneva company that does frequent work for the city, to replace Carstensen.
Neil Waswo was promoted from within the department to replace Donald A. Hoeft Jr., 66, the former foreman of the department. Hoeft pleaded guilty Nov. 24 to three misdemeanor offenses – two counts of theft in a business setting and encouraging a probation or parole violation. He was fined $250.
Hoeft allegedly sold city scrap metal and turned the money over to Carstensen, who put it in a “slush fund” that he kept, and received checks personally for city oil sold to a Spring Grove, Ill., company. The encouraging-probation-or-parole-violation charge stems from signing off on community service hours for a woman in exchange for a good price on her truck, according to the criminal complaint.
Adding accountability
Nearly a year after Carstensen and Hoeft were convicted, the city remains in litigation with C&D Landscape in Elkhorn – one of the two companies Carstensen gave city salt and sand to – in an attempt to recoup the $14,000 worth of salt and sand mix Carstensen allegedly gave to the company. The other company, B&J Landscape in Lake Geneva, has settled and paid its bill, Earle said. Carstensen allegedly gave that company $17,000 worth of salt and sand.
The street department has switched from a salt-and-sand mix to 100 percent salt for use on winter roadways and has amped up the checks and balances on salt that goes out and comes back in, Earle said.
He said he found no record in the department of salt being accounted for when trucks returned from treating roadways before taking over as superintendent. Now, he said, the department keeps track of how much salt goes out on its trucks and how much is left on the trucks when they return.
Reports are done after every snow event that include the day, the time, the temperature, the amount of snow that fell, the driver’s hours, how much salt he left with and how much salt he came back with, Earle said.
The process involves more paperwork for the department’s 12-man crew, but it gives the city a detailed account of the materials the department is using. The paperwork is then sent to City Hall where it is reviewed by the city administrator, treasurer and comptroller, Earle said.
Regaining trust
Other than the additional accountability and the switch to straight salt, Earle said the department’s operations have remained the same as has its workforce, some of whom have been with the department for 20 years or more.
“It was rough on the department for awhile because the guys were right in the middle of it,” he said.
Earle said during the investigation, police were on site weekly and sometimes daily, seizing computer hard drives and taking statements from employees.
He said staff members are glad to have the matter behind them.
“The atmosphere was a giant collective sigh of relief,” he said. “I could not ask for a better staff, and that’s the truth.”
Earle said the department is “absolutely” under scrutiny from the public and from City Hall since the misconduct surfaced.
He said after every snow event last year, he got calls from residents questioning the amount of material that was used or claiming trucks went down their streets and failed to lay any material.
Earle said part of the skepticism stemmed from the switch to salt only, which isn’t visible on the roadways like sand is. He said the department considered adding 5 percent sand to the salt but determined it wasn’t worth it. He said with salt only, the application is reduced by 35 percent per snow event.
“You use far less and it’s far more effective,” he said.
So, Earle fielded the calls and eased residents’ concerns, and, when they began to see the salt working, the complaints subsided.
“By the end of the year, people started to trust us a little more,” He said. “By the end of the year last year, I got zero phone calls.”
Earle said street workers also endured heckling from the public – some of whom were joking but some of whom swore at and harassed truck drivers. He said people would yell things out the window like, “How much you get for that?” On four or five occasions, the department reported the incidents to police, Earle said. Those instances too have subsided, he said.
“Like anything, time heals,” Waswo said.
Moving on, the department wants the public to be aware that crews are out there working for them, Earle said.
“The guys just want people to know it wasn’t them, and they’re doing their jobs,” he said.
