RECORDS SUGGEST COUNTY WENT to TOWN on THE DOLE$$$!

BREAKING LOCAL NEWS!
By GIL BRADY
The Cowboy Picayune-Sunny Times

Originally published 11.07.06, 12:16 a.m.

TETON COUNTY, Wyo., (CT) – Free flowers and lobster dinners, mojitos with a gal pal during a Texas junket, nights at Nevada strip clubs, a $900 dollar office chair, no-bid makeovers and drinks on the dole are just some of the bills county commissioners here paid with taxpayer' funds over the last seven years, records show.

Last July, Wyoming’s Division of Criminal Investigation, at the direction of Gov. Dave Freudenthal and Wyoming Attorney General Patrick Crank, submitted the preliminary findings of its five-month investigation into whether about $20,000 in alleged questionable spending by Teton County officials and employees, dating to 1999, violated any state laws.

The DCI report, submitted to Teton County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Weichman, has never been made public.

To date, no charges against any county personnel or officials have been filed. And when asked to comment last July, county commissioners Larry Jorgenson, Jim Darwiche and Andy Schwartz, who were in office at the time, said they did not recall approving a voucher showing a 2003 repayment for at least one county employee’s night at two Nevada strip clubs.
Schwartz clarified that the payout could not be construed as any kind of additional employee benefit.

Vouchers are the official forms for monetary claims against Wyoming county governments that state law requires to be fully itemized, signed and sworn to by vendors. County personnel routinely submit them for approval by county commissioners prior to any reimbursements for their professional expenses.

Other county records obtained by The Cowboy Times, some costing more than $150, detail a payment for a $933 office chair; plus, various charges incurred by current and former county personnel for the expenses of romantic partners and spouses not on the county payroll.

Junkets, Joyrides, and Strippers

Trips by more than one county worker to attend professional seminars at such popular hot spots as Reno, Austin and West Palm Beach featured many lawfully covered expenses like airfare, hotel, and food and beverage costs, records show.

But other receipts indicate county bureaucrats reported as trip-related records describing payments for activities unrelated to official business in states or places well beyond where any seminars reportedly occurred.

Also, some trips that began as legitimate professional excursions turned into little more than subsidized vacations where speeches or seminars were held early on, often with minimal or no attendance records, and spouses or companions accompanied officials and county personnel at taxpayers' expense, records show.

One voucher shows $76 in county reimbursed credit card charges for expenses at “The Spice House” and “The French Quarter,” two professed Nevada strip clubs, dating to a 2003 trip by county engineer Craig Jackson.

During an interview in his office last September, Jackson said he was accompanied on the trip by county engineering technician Dave Gustafson, currently a mayoral candidate for the Town of Alpine.

Reached for comment late Monday night, Mr. Gustafson, buoyed by his strong primary showing in Lincoln County, responded that for him the visits to strip clubs were, “Just dinner.
“I mean? What were they for, $75 dollars?,” he added.

Jackson has apologized for the Nevada outings and his fiscal behavior, some of which he said might have “been on the line.” And he wanted people to know that he takes his job seriously, showing up each day thinking of new ways to make the county’s infrastructure better and more efficient—extolling, between vows of diligence, the virtues of the county’s state-of-the-art trash system.

“It has never been my intention to defraud the county,” Jackson said Monday.

Explaining their mess

Despite these allegations and vouchers showing questionable expenditures being approved by county commissioners, elected officials, current and past, have explained the irregular bookkeeping as arising from flaws and customs in the county’s voucher-system.

Recently, county commissioner chairman Leland Christensen said the questionable spending concerned confidential personnel matters long resolved in “executive session.” Last September, county commissioners approved new policies they said closed loopholes in how vouchers submitted by county employees were approved and paid.

But numerous public records and witness statements challenge the scope of this official explanation.

Beyond the official story

A five-month Cowboy Times examination of public records dating to 1999 shows that elected county officials here approved tens of thousands of dollars in irregular purchases, private gifts, and questionable expenses by former and present officials and county personnel without itemization detailing an official purpose as required by at least county policy.

Besides questionable voucher-related reimbursements to county employees, records and official responses show at least one no-bid payment for over $14,000 went to the friend of county administrator Jan Livingston, author of the county’s two-year-old policy regulating bids.

Interviewed last August in her Teton County office, Livingston confirmed steering the bid without public notice to a friend who redecorated the county commissioners' chambers this past spring.

Records show the decorator’s business had been dissolved by Wyoming’s Secretary of State four days before county commissioners approved a warrant for $14,217 to Pamela Stockton Interiors, LLC.

While confirming the no-bid payout, Livingston explained that Stockton’s arrangement was not, legally speaking, “a contract.” Livingston also added that the county's need for timely services often requires her to rely on those, such as Stockton, with greater expertise than hers.

In a brief phone chat this summer, Stockton declined comment about the payout or whether her business had been dissolved prior to receiving county monies, other than to say, before hanging up, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I don’t want any part of it.”

On Monday, Stockton again declined comment about the matter, redirecting discourse on the subject back to the county.

Jackson attorney Peter Moyer, listed on state records as Stockton’s business agent, has downplayed any questions over his client's company having been dissolved at the time she received payment.

“It was probably because someone missed paying a $50 dollar mail-in fee,” he has said.

A check of Wyoming’s Secretary of State's Web site showed that Pamela Stockton Interiors, LLC, was dissolved last June 5 for “Admin. Dissolution (TAX)” and was still listed late Monday night as “over delinquent” and “inactive”.

Attempts at Muzzling the Press
Last summer, during a phone debate on whether this inquiry and this writer were legitimate, Livingston said she agreed "the public has a right to know how its money is being spent."

Livingston also said she supported the “1stAmendment and Freedom of the Press” despite usurping that right earlier the same day by disrupting a meeting between this reporter and Mr. Jackson in his King St. office, some four blocks away from Livingston’s seat in the county administration building on Willow St.

After advising Jackson that he did not have to complete our interview, Livingston attempted to discredit "freelancers" by claiming because one has not been “assigned the story” by an “editor,” they are therefore a peddler and profiteer. Told that the U.S. Constitution permits any citizen to question public servants about public records, Livingston nodded and smiled then advised Jackson he was free to terminate the meeting, which he did.

Earlier this year, county commissioners, over the objections of Darwiche, renewed Livingston’s contract and gave her a raise to about $94,500 per year.

Scuttlebutt on a muzzler

At a fall meeting in a downtown hotel, Darwiche said that Livingston was "too unprofessional" and lacked the business acumen for the responsibilities of her job and liked to use her sweater as a decoy, too.

According to county observers, Livingston’s position as county administrator had allegedly not been legally formed until long after she took the job. Questioned about this purported legal curiosity in a spirited phone call last September, Livingston acknowledged the query without flat denial or complaint, saying only, "Mmm, that's debatable."

Intimating whistleblowers?

Following a luncheon attended by Darwiche and Weichman last summer, a county employee and whistleblower alleged Darwiche had relayed a message during the luncheon on behalf of county commissioner chairman Leland Christensen. Christensen reportedly told Darwiche to inform the county employee that they were “no longer protected by whistleblower laws.”

Both Darwiche and Weichman have confirmed that the meeting occurred; although, only Darwiche opted to go on the record about its contents. Christensen’s phone number could not be obtained by press time for comment, but efforts continue.

In exchange for cooperating with this report, the six-year county employee and whistleblower requested that their name and title be withheld until securing full legal protections to shield them from any possible retaliation.

According to Darwiche and the county whistleblower, after interpreting a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision restricting the "free speech of public employees," Christensen, believing the new high court ruling might concern the county whistleblower, asked Darwiche to relay his thoughts on his behalf.

This fall, Darwiche confirmed furnishing Christensen's message to others at the lunchtime meeting, but did not say that he thought it contained any veiled threat.

What’s next?

In a June 19, 2006 letter, from Wyoming Attorney General Patrick Crank to the county whistleblower, Crank wrote that any “prosecutive decision” as a result of DCI’s investigation rested with "Teton County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Weichman".

Wyoming law and county policy ban payouts for county claims unsupported by itemized vouchers and unrelated to county business. Knowingly falsifying a voucher is a potential felony punishable by up to 10 years in jail and a $10,000 fine.

However, most county observers, knowledgeable about the controversy, say the legalities of the scandal will likely turn on proof of ever-elusive notions regarding criminal intent.

Asked last September if he would prosecute lawbreakers, Weichman said: “Probably.”

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