Feeling Mohrig scandal fatigue?  I can’t blame you.  Every week, there are new incidents of wrongdoing by Council Member Rick Mohrig . . . misconduct involving dishonesty, non-transparency, and lack of accountability . . . egregious transgressions that are undermining fundamental trust and confidence in Milton City government.  And with the latest peccadillo, the unscrupulousness in Milton is being taken to new lows.  The political campaign is bringing out the worst in Mohrig.  However, in this blog post, I am going to let others speak . . . namely, Council Member Carol Cookerly and City Manager Steve Krokoff.  I will only provide context sufficient to understand their emails.

On September 5^th, a calendar invitation was sent from Rick Mohrig’s city email account about a September 7^th Mohrig “strategic planning” meeting at the home of two poll workers—one an elections clerk and the other a vote tabulator.  Mohrig is seemingly using city email and a city-provided computer for political purposes—an ethics violation.  However, the bigger problem involves meeting with poll workers.  Considering Mohrig’s past elections interference, one might think he would be more careful about even the appearance of impropriety . . . the optics of meeting with poll workers are clearly awful.  (BTW, the two poll workers have resigned.)  In response to questions about his emailed meeting invitation, Mohrig is claiming the city’s information systems and/or his city computer were hacked.  The City has expended significant resources to investigate both its systems and Mohrig’s city-provided tablet computer . . . and found no evidence whatsoever of hacking.  The obvious and dispositive question that is being asked (directly by Cookerly and more subtly by City Manager Krokoff) is whether the subject meeting actually occurred.  Eleven days have passed since the meeting invitation was issued and Mohrig has yet to answer this simple yes/no question.  (And Mohrig has been cagey in intimating that he might not have known the poll workers were actually poll workers.)  At this point, considering his carefully parsed answers to a simple yes/no question, I can only surmise that Mohrig is worried about self-incrimination.  Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive . . .

After several back-and-forth emails (copying council and the city manager), an exasperated Cookerly—tired of Mohrig’s evasiveness—sends a final withering blast at Mohrig.  Cookerly articulates serious ethical issues better than I ever could, so enough of context.  Following is Cookerly’s email where she decisively trumps Mohrig in his lame game of cat-and-mouse.  Game, set, match . . . Cookerly.

An exasperated City Manager Krokoff also, but more subtly, outmaneuvers Mohrig.  He clearly believes that Mohrig’s story does not hold water.  He refuses to allocate any more resources to what he plainly perceives as a highly suspicious allegation of hacking.  He firmly, but more diplomatically, poses Cookerly’s question to Mohrig about whether the subject meeting occurred, stating that he will not “authorize any further allocation of resources to delve into this issue” unless Mohrig asserts he “has no connection to” the poll workers and Mohrig “did not intend to schedule or attend a meeting as indicated in the meeting invite.”  Following is City Manager Krokoff’s email to Mohrig:

Remember, just a few days earlier, Krokoff admonished Mohrig about circumventing Krokoff and directing city employees (in violation of the City Charter) in what might be “misconstrued as an attempt to use government authority to suppress a political opponent.”  I believe any reasonable citizen would certainly construe Morhig’s use of city resources (email and computer) and authority (directing city staff to pull up campaign signs) as unethical abuse of power.  Following is a link to my blog post about Mohrig’s unethical direction of staff: 
Mohrig Violates City Charter By Directing Staff . . . Using “Governmental Authority To Suppress a Political Opponent” . . . Read City Manager’s Admonition and Advisory Memo to Staff. 

This blog has documented multiple instances of Mohrig’s disrespectful and improper actions toward city staff, including disrespecting and excluding staff members assigned to Milton’s Election Feasibility Committee.  Click following link:  Latest Investigation Shows Mohrig Pushed Aside City Staff and Suppressed Elections Findings . . . Violating Committee Standards . . . To Advance His Propagandistic Election Agenda

Citizens, it is time to restore integrity and just plain sanity to city government.  Mohrig has been allowed to run amuck in our city government for nearly two years . . . with detrimental effects on the city’s strategic priorities (which are being ignored) and damage to the city’s image.  Weekly, there is bad news in the media about Milton’s government . . . and usually Mohrig is at the center of this bad publicity.  It is past time to show Mohrig the door.

(At the bottom of this post, I provide a detailed sequencing, with commentary, of the emails among council members and the City Manager.)

Advocating for Election Integrity,

Tim

Note 1:  I want to be clear that my intention is not to malign the poll workers whose home was identified in the meeting invitation.  The fault in this situation falls 100% on Rick Mohrig.

Note 2: I have never met Council Member Cookerly nor ever had any communications with her on this topic or any other topic (except for emails sent to groups of city council members on their city emails).