A version of this story was originally published by Shereen Siewert in the Wausau Pilot and Review.
The Marathon County Clerk is under investigation after she said in a Facebook comment that she could help “behind the scenes” organize a recall election of Wausau School Board members after the board voted to begin the school year with distance learning due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Marathon County Board Executive Committee authorized an independent investigation of Kim Trueblood in a special session Monday. Wausau School Board President Tricia Zunker, who is also a Ho Chunk Nation Supreme Court Justice and candidate for United States Congress, requested the investigation after learning of comments Trueblood made in the Facebook group “Parents for Wausau Schools Reopening.”
The group was organized by parents upset at the board’s decision to begin the school year with virtual learning on July 27. Posts in the group have called for a protest this weekend as well as a recall of school board members. On a post calling for a recall petition to be started, Trueblood commented, “School board elections are in the spring. Due to my position, I have to very careful with what I support publicly, but I can get info & do anything behind the scenes.”
Trueblood, who was previously employed by the Wausau School District as a substitute teacher, is the chief election official for Marathon County and conducts all federal, state, county, local and school district elections.
Zunker said she called for action by the Marathon County Board not as a representative of the school board but as a private citizen and constituent seeking to ensure fair and impartial elections.
In a letter to Marathon County Board members obtained by Wausau Pilot & Review, Zunker calls Trueblood’s behavior “alarming and unacceptable in healthy government.
“Clerk Trueblood’s comments on this post regarding efforts to organize a recall election are unethical and frankly, likely illegal,” Zunker wrote. “She oversees elections in an official capacity. It could not be more wrong. It’s even more abundantly clear that she is aware of this as she prefaces the statement by indicating her need to be cautious publicly due to her official position.”
In her letter, Zunker especially questions Trueblood’s “behind the scenes” offer.
“Is this manipulating election results?” Zunker wrote. “Is this disposing of absentee ballots? ‘Anything’ is not an ambiguous word – it means any possible action is on the table.”
Zunker is requesting a formal ethics investigation, a formal resolution condemning Trueblood’s statements, an official censure by the board, a statement of further assurances by the board regarding the integrity of elections in Marathon County and any other necessary action to ensure Marathon County voters participate in fair and impartial elections.
In an email Thursday, Marathon County Administrator Lance Leonhard pointed to the county’s ethics policy and said he planned to discuss Trueblood’s conduct with Marathon County Board Chair Kurt Gibbs.
“The county’s ethics policy communicates our organization’s approach quite clearly,” Leonhard said. “I take our organization’s commitment to core values and ethics exceedingly seriously and I can assure you that I will consider this information closely and will take any, and all, steps that I believe to be appropriate.”
“I take ethics very seriously,” Zunker told Wausau Pilot & Review. “I have taken oaths to uphold the law and act ethically with my license to practice the law; in my service as judge for the Ho-Chunk Nation; and in my service to Wausau on the Board of Education. I teach ethics to graduate students at Colorado State University and to law students. Presumably Clerk Trueblood took an oath as well. Healthy government demands fair, impartial elections. The integrity of our elections at stake here.”
Trueblood was appointed County Clerk in September 2019 when longtime clerk Nan Kottke retired. Gibbs told news station WSAW that the County Board could not alter Trueblood’s duties, as the position is an elected one.
