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Ethics Board investigates governor's use of boat The state Ethics Board is investigating Gov. Scott McCallum's free use of a pleasure boat provided by Mercury Marine during the summer of 2001.
The Ethics Board began investigating the situation last week after the Wisconsin State Journal discovered that because of ethical concerns, the 21-foot boat made trips back and forth between the Fond du Lac boat manufacturer and the Governor's Mansion during the summer of 2001.
McCallum campaign spokeswoman Debbie Monterrey-Millett said late Monday the governor wouldn't comment on the probe.
"The issue is currently under review by the Ethics Board, and it would be improper to interfere with their work," she said.
On Friday, Ethics Board attorney Jonathan Becker interviewed state Department of Natural Resources Warden Bill Engfer, who originally got the boat, and on Monday, interviewed his boss, Chief Warden Tom Harelson, Harelson confirmed Monday. Becker declined comment, as did his boss, Ethics Board Director R. Roth Judd.
State law prohibits public officials from using their offices for personal gain or from accepting gifts that could influence their official decision-making.
The DNR arranged in about 2001 for the governor to use the boat, then brought it back to Mercury Marine when it began to appear the agency had accepted a gift from a company it regulates, Harelson said. An employee of Forward Wisconsin, a public-private group chaired by McCallum, then retrieved the boat from Fond du Lac, charging the organization $48.57 in expenses for the round trip.
"I personally got a call from a maintenance person, or the person who takes care of the Governor's Mansion," Harelson said. "He called and said to me, 'We in the past have gotten a boat from the DNR. What are the chances of that happening again?' Harelson said he told the employee that the agency had no budget for such a boat and that the DNR had stopped providing one to the governor in 1990. However, Harelson said he agreed to see whether the DNR could find a free boat to use.
Harelson said he was aware that Mercury Marine sometimes loans boats to governmental agencies, so he asked for and received use of a boat. Warden Engfer said he brought the boat to Madison and gave the governor and some of his staff at the Maple Bluff mansion a lesson on how to use it.
"After we delivered the boat over there, we had to register it in DNR's name and put it on our inventory," Harelson recalled. "This was starting to look as though we (DNR) accepted a boat. That's a problem because we (DNR) regulate them (Mercury Marine.)
"We felt like we were in an uncomfortable position - that's why we got out of it."
Harelson said that after discussing the problem with the governor's legal counsel, Chad Taylor, the decision was made to return the boat. Engfer then hauled the boat back to Fond du Lac, roughly four to six weeks after he'd gotten it.
At that point, Harelson said, he's not sure what happened to the boat, although he did hear from someone on the governor's state Capitol staff they might go through Forward Wisconsin to get it back.
Records obtained from Forward Wisconsin show employee Christian Nolten drove from Madison to Fond du Lac and back on Aug. 31, 2001, to retrieve the boat. An audit in August of this year questioned the expenditure, saying it didn't appear to fit the mission of Forward Wisconsin, which received $500,000 in taxpayer money last year to lure businesses to Wisconsin.
Forward Wisconsin President Wayne Harris told his board of directors in a Sept. 23 letter that the boat had been procured for "a Forward Wisconsin reception at the Executive Residence. The reception was never held."
McCallum told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this month he thought the boat had been provided by the DNR and confirmed he and his family had used it on Lake Mendota a handful of times. Even though McCallum is chairman of Forward Wisconsin, he told the newspaper he knew nothing about the role the group played in getting the boat. |
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Copyright
© 2002 Wisconsin State Journal
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