Who the heck is leading this Village? The Village Board or the Attorneys? These alleged accusations against Havn should have the weight of an anonymous Internet blogger. Anyone these days can accuse anyone of anything. What surprises me is the extent the Village Board is taking these accusations serious. Doesn't Havn have the right to know who the accuser is in this country anymore? Sounds to me like political work to me. Someone on the board, it appears to me, is trying to run Havn out of his position on the Board of Village Trustees.

Look, if the allegations are true and consensual then so what? If a vote comes up that involves the person he is alleged to have a relationship with then he simply abstains from voting. If the allegations are false then we do him a huge disservice and the Board should be ashamed to have given it the time of day.

Whoever convinced the current Village President James Majdoch to send this to the attorney should consider the motives of that person. This smells really bad and again potentially could add to our collective embarrassments in the Village.

Sonny, good luck to you. I hope my personal principles hold up along with what our country normally considers proper. Otherwise, we all are potential victims from anonymous allegations.

Good question. I'm disgusted that this is getting attention and now understand why I have not received a response to my complaint or emails or phone calls regarding my own issue with the village. What is going on and what are they thinking?

$10 says the anonymous letter came from a certain former village president.

Will this letter be made public thru open records? Is this really just about some secret office affair? Because let me tell you, that happens EVERYwhere. I don't think we can or should police personal morality. Simply put, it's really none of our business who's sleeping with whom. The only questions which should be considered is whether or not Havn's job was ever under par or if the employee was ever treated unfairly.

Seriously people...all allegations need to be looked into. This the thing to do. I hope he is found innocent, but it is right to follow procedure.

Katie Pullen:

Are you serious? Let's say this happened to you. What if someone accused you of something but you have no idea who said it? You are taken to court, put through the entire judicial system, had to hire lawyers to defend yourself, hire investigators, are talked about in local newspapers all without being able to cross examine who accused you?

Follow procedure? You scare me to think there is even one person out there who thinks this is right. Just because there is a law or two on the books doesn't mean they are constitutional. A ton of laws are out there but just haven't been challenged Constitutionally.

Think this through Katie. There is way more at stake here than you currently think. Hell, let's create a web site where we can all log in anonymously and throw allegations about your neighbors, co-workers, what your kids did knowing the police will be at your door 5 minutes after those allegations were made. What kind of world do you think we would end up with?

I hope you think it would be scary and this time you would be right. But this is what is happening right here in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin. I just pray someone has the decency to put a stop to this whole thing.

The Village Board is merely knee jerk reacting to not reacting at all during the Mike Andreasen issue earlier this year. But it doesn't make it right to do what they are doing now.

Mr. Roberts....yes I am serious.

Look at this the other way...this could very well be a valid complaint. A lot of these type of complaints are anonymous because of fear of retribution. If the government did absolutely nothing and it is real, you seem the type of person that would probably go back on this site and complain how worthless they all are and how you can’t believe that they didn’t look into such a serious claim. Just because, it seems, you have a person investment in this article, it does not mean that a complaint should not be looked into.

It scares me to think that there are people out there that would dismiss complaints due to the fact that it was anonymous. Welcome back to the dark ages where anyone can get away with anything because we shouldn’t take accountability and follow-up on things.

I am hoping that it turns out to be false. I have lived in Mt. Pleasant my whole life and know very well the political system there and how it has been a disgrace for years now. This would be one more black mark if it is true and no action was taken.

At least they are getting their stuff together with new leadership.

@Rees

There are times your comments make sense but in this case you are way off base. You are implying that allegations made anonymously are always baseless. They are not always baseless. For example, the IRS encourages and follows up on anonymous tips all the time, and catches many tax cheats that way. Any law enforcement agency that is doing its job looks into these things. Some are dead ends, some are not, but they must do the work.

All this anonymous author did was provide a tip. If the allegations are baseless, the investigation will be very short and Havn will be exonerated. If the allegations are true, then we may have a case of trustee misconduct. If the village's reputation suffers, it's too bad, but you can blame either Havn or the stoolie, depending on who the guilty party is. Either way, Mount Pleasant's reputation is based on the people that live and govern here. It is what it is.

You want to talk scary? Talk about ignoring "procedure", a.k.a. due process, just because there are a few laws on the books that don't pass constitutional muster. You're lucky that most people will disagree with you on this issue.

@HRGeyer:

It IS our business when a trustee is sleeping with a staff member and using his power as a trustee to, for example, get her raises that she doesn't deserve, or to coerce her boss to keep her on staff when her performance is unacceptable. Please read up on conflict of interest, because your comments show that you don't know about it yet.

Let the investigation proceed. The details will of course be kept under wraps, but if Havn is still a trustee next year we will have our answer.

Ms Pullen:

How can one verify there would be retribution without knowing who sent that letter? One could just say that. What if our court system worked the same way? I could write a letter anonymously about you and say anything I wanted. Then what if that same system hauled you into jail on that suspicion? The cops in your vision of what is right would merely say "we are just doing our job".

The real world doesn't work that way thank goodness. If I were to say something untrue about you then you could sue me for libel. You could sue me for deformation of character. But the court system REQUIRES that the everyone's participation be made public.

In this case no one knows who wrote that damning letter. Sonny Havn's good name is being trashed but by who? How does one defend himself against an accuser who won't identify themselves? In the real world again, that can't happen except here in Mt. Pleasant apparently. Yes, this irks me that this is happening. It even irks me more that you don't understand the bigger picture. If you think the standard should be how the IRS treats people, then let's all go back to Germany and see how people acted during the times leading to World War II. Or are you too young to remember those days? This is very dangerous precedent. I emphatically am saying that without being able to face your accuser we are beginning a very slippery slide to autocracy.

First of all...Doesn't anyone else find it strange that the "Patch" is quoting from a privileged opinion letter between the town attorneys and the town? How did they get such a letter? Was it provided by one of the other trustees? If so, is it normal practice for the trustees to provide privileged documents to the press? Shouldn't the investigation if done be confidential since it concerns an employee as well as a trustee's reputation? Also, according to the quote the Police Chief is looking into the allegations. Nowhere does it say a criminal investigation yet that is how the Patch characterizes it in the first paragraph. It appears as though someone at the town or one of their supporters is trying to cause more damage with spreading a biased story through the press than they are concerned with any actual facts or issues. Hopefully the investigation will also find the source of the original letter as well as how and when it was given to the the press. One would think that the only reason that this type of thing is not handled confidentially in the beginning phases is to cause as much damage as possible to reputations.

Sorry, but it is hard to argue with an irrational party. I am glad that others have some common sense.

If Mr. Havn had been thrown in jail on an anonymous letter, yes, I would think that was absurd. However, that is not the case. This is how the justice system works all over North America....not just Mt. Pleasant.

The "Patch" got the letter directly from the Clerk in the presence of Trustee Albeck, without even requesting it through open records. Why did the clerk hand this to Heather Asiyanbi? This is very unprofessional on her part as this is a personnel issue. How is this different from the rumours that the Clerk is sleeping with the Community Development Coordinator.This is strictly more BS that this board continues to spew. New leadership? Do you really all believe that Jim Madjoch just happened to be in the audience when they were meeting about a new president. This was all set up previous to the meeting by Harry Manning. There is such dissention on that board. Even the interim administrator Mark Moiren stated that. Oh that's right - he wasn't even willing to stick around and put up with their dysfunction. God knows Milkie was no leader - I had hopes for Madjoch as he was the former Police Chief and at least demonstrated some leadership ability in that position.
No employee has made any complaint against Trustee Havn. This is a witch hunt.

If it is true that the clerk handed the letter to the press with the knowledge of a trustee I would think the town would be inviting lawsuits from the affected employee. Further, does the town allow the clerk to make decisions concerning how to disseminate confidential or privileged documents? It is possible that the letter may not even be available under an open records request since it could be argued it is a personnel issue. If that is the case it would seem like the town is lacking internal control over its employees and elected officials. Ms.Pullen - I understand your position. However, in cases like this..with an anonymous letter affecting both a trustee's reputation as well as an employees I believe the proper route would have been a confidential look at all of the facts in and surrounding the letter and then allow the trustees to make a determination on how to proceed and if additional investigation is warranted. It seems like the clerk and/or other trustees have bypassed the proper channels in order to try and make this as damaging as possible..even if the accusations are all false. I am wondering if the clerk received the same letter but naming another trustee if she would have acted the same way.

Let's see, the new Clerk is paid over $60,000 a year and took it upon herself (and conspiredaboard member) to issue an anonymous slanderous statement to the press. Must be nice to throw that kind of money and control at an incompetent Clerk. They seem to be pretty good at throwing good employees under the bus.

Trustee Havn is a truly good person who has dedicated years to make Mt. Pleasant a better place. Instead, its become the workplace from hell.

This is all about the spring elections and Albeck's bitterness that she wasn't "crowned" Village President. The "anonymous" complaint should hold no credibility.
People, drop the nonsense and get back to work!

The village lacking control - of course they are. Mr. Madjoch needs to step up and get the problems in line. They hired Mark Moirin to make changes and then didn't like what he had to say. Please, please someone with some common sense run for village board. Albeck, Feest, Garski & Manning all ran on the whole Stuart road issue years ago with the intention of "cleaning up" the Village. Please tell me what these idiots have done to make this Village better. NOTHING!!! except nit pick at staff and cause distrust and an equally hostile working evironment as was there with Andreasen.
Mr. Roberts is correct when he says they are over reacting because Manning, Tiegel, Hewitt, Havn chose not to do anything when they were approached by staff in regard to Andreasen's behavior. What an embarrasement this Village is - statewide. Why in the world would anyone want to work in that environment. Good luck finding a new administrator and fire chief!

Ms. Asiyanbi. Correspondence or any other documentation does not have to be marked privileged to be privileged. Correspondence between an attorney and their client is usually privileged and a legal opinion definitely is privileged. I assume that your open records request was made in writing and I further assume that whoever released the letter to you checked with legal counsel and/or the board before they released it to you thus waiving the right to the privilege. My point is if that was not done then who is making the policy decisions for the town as to what should and should not be made public and more importantly waiving any privilege rights to documentation. Further..just because someone is cc'd on a letter would not give that person a right to access it. If the individual sent it to you directly that would be one thing. If an employee, trustee, or other official gave it to you from their possession they may be opening themselves up to legal action. The town would be under no obligation to give you a copy and further may have been under a duty to keep it from others without an opens record request or even protect it under the personnel exception.

I do not want to get into a legal argument with you Ms. Asiyanbi. The point about the letter from the attorneys was who made the determination that it was "not" privileged and gave it to you. If it was determined by the board or attorneys that is one thing. Again. the question is.who made the determination to waive that privilege or decided that it was not privileged to begin with? You are not the one who needs to decide or even worry about whether a document is privileged since that privilege is waived once they give it to you. I am not saying that the "Patch" acted inappropriately. I am saying that there could be issues with how the town personnel handled the request and documentation.

Your the one that said you have to file open records. Now your saying it was addressed to you. BS.

I say something about your clerk friend about her relations with mr Kane and mr Martin and you erase my comment. Unbelievable. Maybe another letter will be coming about her. Will you guys investigate that? Nope. You will erase the comment and shred the letter.

Little strange elections are coming up and Mr Havn is up for re election. He's the only person on the board that is looking out for the Village.

I live in M Pleasant and don't follow the local politics that closely but decided to read the articles and blogs on trustee Sonny Havn's predicament. Many of you have made poignant comments and many are just nonsensical and mean spirited. If Havn is having an affair or not what no one seems to be mentioning is Mrs Havn. He is married isn't he? How is all of this affecting his wife? the news of her husband having an affair or not has to be devastating for her. So should we care about Havn? probably not, he is a big boy but what about his wife? let's not forget her! which it appears all of you have. It is his character as a person and a husband that should be looked at..who does this to his wife?

I believe that Mr. Havn' wife died in the past year so would think it would be a case of 2 consenting adults dating and really none of our business!

Toni Hammes:

I am not sure where you got your information from but obviously it is wrong. Thank you Heather for clearing this up. Two consenting adults?