October 19, 2017

In one fell swoop, Council Member Bill Lusk has managed to disgrace the City (and a tax-exempt charitable organization) while also taking politics in the City to a new low.  How did Mr. Lusk manage to accomplish such an incredible feat?  Mr. Lusk misappropriated a city-generated database containing personal information of citizens, including email addresses.  This database was provided to a charitable organization, Milton Veterans Memorial Markers, that honors fallen veterans . . . the markers (mostly white crosses) that you see planted along roads on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.  Mr. Lusk misappropriated this information for political purposes:  to create an email distribution list for political solicitations.

This is a data breach not unlike the data breaches that have become all too common these days—the most recent being the Equifax data breach.  However, in this case, the hacker was not a gang of North Korean, Chinese, or Russian cyber-criminals.  Rather, the “hacker” was our own Council Member Bill Lusk.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.  This fits into a pattern of bad behavior from Mr. Lusk that I have witnessed over the past 23 months of my involvement in City government.  This is the same Bill Lusk that promoted a developer’s project and re-zoning in advance of a judicial hearing on that developer’s re-zoning application.  It is the same Bill Lusk that planted dozens of illegal signs (that he refuses to take down) all over Crabapple on the night before early voting at the Milton City Library.  Citizens have been witness to such reprehensible acts from Mr. Lusk on a regular basis.

To its credit, in this matter, the City has taken swift and decisive action.

First, the City issued an email to potentially affected citizens about the unauthorized use of their personal information by Mr. Lusk.  The City took responsibility for the lapse, apologized, and committed to taking corrective action to ensure citizens’ personal information is protected in the future.  I applaud the City for its leadership in this matter.

Second, the City issued an unequivocal reprimand and cease-and-desist order to Mr. Lusk.  In no uncertain terms, the City expressed its displeasure with Mr. Lusk and directed him to refrain from all uses of the city-provided e-mail addresses.  Following is the letter issued to Mr. Lusk.

In the coming days, I will provide additional information on this scandal, including additional documentation.

I want to make clear that this violation of the public trust is a very personal issue for me.  I am a veteran, having served nearly 8 years as a nuclear submarine officer in the U.S. Navy.  My wife is also a veteran, having served nearly 12 years as an officer in the U.S. Navy.  My grandfather, father, and brother all served in the armed forces.  We are saddened and troubled to see such a noble initiative to honor fallen veterans sullied in this fashion.

Given the serious nature of this ethics violation, I am calling upon Mr. Lusk 1) to immediately resign from City Council and 2) to withdraw from the race for the District 2 Council seat.  Resignation and withdrawal is the honorable course of action.  Mr. Lusk would spare the City and citizens from having to endure long, painful, and expensive ethics hearings on this matter, which seem inevitable.  Following are 1) my comments before Council this past Monday night and 2) Council Member Longoria’s subsequent comments on the matter.

Council Member Longoria’s comments follow.  Joe gets it.  Notice Mr. Lusk’s feigned disengagement from the discussion.  And notice Thurman and Kunz’s lack of any contribution to the discussion.  Do they care about ethics?  (Rhetorical question.)

Advocating for clean governance,

Tim Becker