Citizen takes aim at School Board president
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The end of the Feb. 23 East Troy Community School District Board of Education meeting had District Administration Chris Hibner staunchly defending the integrity and leadership of School Board President Ted Zess after Zess fielded a barrage of questions from a resident during the public participation portion of the meeting.
Patrick Evans, who is the boyfriend/partner of School Board member Dawn Buchholtz, questioned Zess on issues from putting a sign in his yard supporting a candidate in the upcoming School Board election to his treatment of fellow board members to a land purchase Zess’ business made last fall.
Evans began his public comment at the meeting by addressing Zess specifically saying he wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with the kids being at the top, the stakeholders next and personal political survival coming in last.
Evans then said everyone in the room and everyone on the board should “turn and thank” board member Martha Bresler for standing up for what she believed in during the last referendum process when she and Buchholtz took out the full-page ad in the East Troy Times asking voters to turn down the Nov. 4 referendum because it wasn’t the right solution for the district.
One audience member, Tim Griffin, did thank Bresler out loud. When Zess didn’t do as Evans requested, Evans pointedly asked Zess if he was going to thank Bresler again.
Zess thanked her with a bit of a laugh and a shake of his head.
Evans then asked why Zess had a sign supporting a School Board candidate (Gina Dingman) that is not a School Board member in his yard when he had stated at a previous board meeting he didn’t want to get in the middle of an election by choosing a replacement for the School Board seat vacated by Chris Smith before the Feb. 17 primary.
Zess said he has the sign in his yard as a private citizen, not as the School Board president.
“If I see you at Lynch I think, Ted Zess likes Chevy’s. If I see Ted Zess buy a school bus, I think it’s School District related,” Evans said.
Zess again said his support of the candidate was as a private citizen, not as a School Board member.
“Don’t give me that,” Evans replied. “It’s a School Board thing.”
Evans said while he was happy with the new referendum to have a new elementary school built at the Prairie View site, he wanted to know why the board was still using Miron Construction. Evans passed out a copy of a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from April 2014 that detailed the $4 million settlement Miron agreed to after a billing investigation by the FBI.
He wanted assurances from the board that should the referendum pass the project would be bid out so the district would get the best price available on the project.
Zess assured him the project would be bid out because it had to be.
“We talked with Miron about it, and it sounds like it was a baseless accusation that they just paid to get it over with,” Zess said in a telephone interview Feb. 24. “And because they have another party watching over them (as part of the settlement), they’re the safest contractor around if you ask me.
“They’ve (Miron Construction) stuck with us during this entire process for years and now we should turn our back on them and say you’re out when the whole project gets bid out anyway? They’re just the project managers, that’s it,” Zess added.
Evans’ issues with Zess didn’t stop there and his next set of questions had to do with the timing of a land purchase, which Zess’ business made from fellow board member Steve Lambrechts.
“Do you own O.H. Development?” Evans asked Zess.
“Yes,” Zess said.
“Did you buy a piece of property from Steve Lambrechts?” Evans asked.
“I bought a piece of property,” Zess said.
“What was the reason for the purchase?” Evans wanted to know.
“We’re adding on to our business,” Zess said. “What does this have to do with anything?”
Evans questioned the timing of the purchase (August 2014), being so close to the 3-2 board vote for the last referendum and the purchase being from another board member that voted with Zess on that referendum decision. He brought up the fact that both Lambrechts company, East Troy Lumber, and Zess’ company, Allan Integrated Control Systems, are located near Doubek Elementary School.
Zess came right out and asked if Evans was accusing him of something at this point, to which Evans said he was just asking questions.
“I don’t even know what he was accusing me of,” Zess said the following morning. “I purchased property behind my building from Steve because he owns property around me. What, I can’t expand my business?
“I don’t understand it, it makes no sense to me,” Zess continued. “I’m trying to expand my business and a big part of it is to accommodate the robotics program from the School District that uses the space.”
Zess and his wife Ann own Allan ICS and company President Ann Zess said last week that they house the Patronum Bots robotic team from the High School for 10 months out of the year in their shop, which takes up about half of the available space.
“We are accommodating them with free space that they can access 24/7,” she wrote in an email last week. “We donate another $2,000 plus to them each year on top of that. The reason we do this is that the school does not have the room, and we believe in Project Based Learning, and this team.
“We have huge panel jobs coming in that we do not have room for, making an expansion necessary,” she continued. “We are also in desperate need for more offices so that when the time comes, we can hire. Our other option would have been to look for a bigger building elsewhere.”
Lambrechts said in a telephone interview Monday that when Ted Zess bought the building and property Allan ICS sits on in 2007, there was discussion back then of possible expansion and Zess wanted to know if there would be more land available when they needed it.
While Lambrechts said it was a shame this was distracting from the April 7 referendum and that the board and district should be focusing on getting that passed, he didn’t want to shy away from the questions, either.
“Neither one of us have anything to hide,” Lambrechts said. “Ask any question you want, the truth comes easy.”
As for Evans questions about O.H. Development LLC purchasing the land, Ted Zess said Monday it was a company he owned for more than 20 years from when he developed a subdivision and he uses it for real estate purposes.
After Evans finished asking his questions, Dingman spoke. She reminded everyone that East Troy was a small community and friendships and business relationships in a community this size is common and didn’t mean a thing.
“Ann Zess and I have been friends for a long time, since our kids were in school,” Dingman said. “If people want to make an issue with my good friendship with Ann, let them. This is a small community and believe it or not, we’re going to find people on the same street on both sides of an issue.”
Buchholtz said Tuesday morning that the questions Evans asked were his own and he was “very much and independent person who is not influenced by anyone easily.”
“He had questions about things that I couldn’t answer,” Buchholtz said. “I would have given him the answers if I could have. But any resident should be able to come to the board and ask questions if they have them.
“He came in, asked some pointed questions and then sat down. I didn’t see any anger or yelling. Had it gone the other way, I would have been the first person to complain as I’ve been on the receiving end of that type of thing at a board meeting.”
Buchholtz said her focus right now was the doing everything she could to help get the facility needs referendum passed. “I hope we can maintain a united front and move forward,” she said.
