Mayor Juan Perez and Sheboygan Press Propaganda

Could this story get any weirder?

Sheboygan city officials, including Mayor Juan Perez, are coming off as shockingly incompetent.

From the Sheboygan Press:

A Sheboygan woman who runs a Web site often critical of Mayor Juan Perez has been ordered by the city to remove a Sheboygan Police Department link on her unrelated business site, a demand a legal expert says the city has no right to make.

In a move initiated by Perez, City Attorney Steve McLean sent a cease-and-desist letter earlier this month to Jeni Reisinger, who was among the leaders of a mayoral recall effort last year, officials acknowledged Friday.

...Madison attorney Bob Dreps said the law is clear that neither Reisinger nor anyone else needs permission to link to the police Web site.

"It's a public site. (A link) is like saying this is somebody's address and helping them get there," Dreps said. "It just doesn't raise anything that any court has found violates any law."

...A secretary in McLean's office said he was not at work Friday.

Perez defended the letter Friday, saying the city must be careful which Web sites link to it.

"People associate (Reisinger) with racism because of that Web site she designed during the recall when she had me holding a Mexican flag (with) 'Power to illegals?' captioned on it. They were calling me 'muchachito' and 'senor,' all these derogatory terms on that Web site, and she was the creator of that Web site," Perez said. "My concern was that people would have some concern over her linking to a city Web site."

...Perez said he is under the impression Web sites must have the city's permission to post links to the city's Web site.

"If she didn't need that, I believe attorney McLean would have told me that, and that would have been the end of it," Perez said, though he added, "He said she wasn't authorized, he didn't say she needed permission."

Translation: McLean is going to take the hit for this. Perez is saying he's a victim.

Of course, for Perez to be seen as a victim, City Attorney McLean must be seen as incompetent or vengeful or both.

The situation has also prompted a brief police investigation, after Reisinger replied to McLean's letter by saying she had received permission for the link from police Officer John Winter, who created the Web site, Perez said. Perez told Police Chief David Kirk of Winter's involvement, and police then contacted Reisinger and Winter to confirm that was the case, Kirk said.

Lt. Jeff Johnston, the supervisor who called Reisinger, said he made it clear to her that she was only being contacted as part of an investigation into whether Winter gave permission.

"We are not conducting any type of criminal or even non-criminal investigation into her activities," Johnston said.

Both Perez and Kirk said Friday they received a half-dozen angry letters and phone calls after Reisinger's account of the situation — including her initial claim, later recanted, that she was being investigated by police — appeared on numerous Wisconsin-based blogs and a Milwaukee radio talk show.

The Sheboygan Press seems to be providing some new information.

A private citizen was never being investigated. She wasn't told that she was part of an investigation. She recanted her claim.

According to Jeni, that's not the case.

Jeni responds to the Sheboygan Press account here.

She's not happy about "the spin (aka LIES)."

If the Sheboygan Press wanted to give a complete, fair, and balanced telling of this story, Jeni would have been interviewed. Her comments would have been included.

It seems very one-sided to me. It's like a press release from the Mayor's office rather than a news article. It's like something from a state run media outlet.

I think the Sheboygan Press must be considered complicit in sliming Jeni.


(h/t McBride's Media Matters)