School Board member Charlene Hardin's excellent adventure at taxpayers' expense wasn't criminal. She committed no crime. According to Milwaukee County prosecutors, her actions were the result of her incompetence.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
School Board member Charlene Hardin and a high school secretary didn't do anything criminal when they went AWOL instead of attending a school safety conference in Philadelphia earlier this year.
Their unexcused absence was more the result of screw-ups by the pair, not an attempt to bilk the taxpayers.
Such is the conclusion of Milwaukee County prosecutors.
"I don't believe there's any significant dispute as to the fact that they did not attend significant portions of the conference," said Assistant District Attorney David Feiss, head of the public integrity unit. "But it appeared more a matter of incompetence rather than intentional conduct."
WHAT?
Her conduct wasn't intentional?
That's ridiculous.
Daniel Bice has documented Hardin's pattern of abuses. Her Philadelphia romp was far from her only "incompetent" moment.
Since January 2007, Hardin has billed the taxpayers more than $10,000 to jet to conferences around the country, staying in $400-per-night rooms, renting upscale cars and getting hit with special fees for lighting up in smoke-free hotels.
No other School Board member comes close to matching her frequent-flier miles.
But it was her failure to show at the Philadelphia conference this past summer that prompted District Attorney John Chisholm to consider a criminal probe.
Earlier this year, two conference officials told No Quarter that Hardin and Pearson spent no more than five minutes at the three-day event. Those officials said the pair attended no seminars or meetings.
During her brief time there, they noted, Hardin complained about not getting a conference bag, took a number of items from the food tray and sought out freebies from the vendors' section.
Feiss said investigators talked with, among others, Pearson and Barry Applewhite, the assistant principal who oversees the arts high school, which paid for the trip. MPS policy prohibits schools from using their budgets to pay for travel by School Board members.
The veteran prosecutor said he didn't look into why a data-processing secretary was sent along on the out-of-state jaunt.
"I'm not her employer," Feiss said.
He added, "Our investigation did not reveal any pre-existing social relationship between Director Hardin and the school secretary. There was no indication that the two planned the trip together and certainly no indication that the advance purpose was anything other than business related."
The probe focused on whether anyone set up the taxpayer-funded trip as a ruse.
Feiss said his office reviewed a number of documents and interviewed people at the arts high school who were involved in planning the mid-summer excursion. His office turned up "no false representations."
In the end, he said, investigators decided it was not necessary to interview Hardin.
The failure of investigators to interview Hardin is the definition of INCOMPETENCE.
"For my purposes, it's a crime if the plan was never to attend (the conference)," Feiss said. "If they weren't competent enough to carry it out, that's really an employment issue."
Even after the DA's review, much about the junket remains a mystery.
Feiss never explained what bungling occurred that kept Hardin and Pearson from attending the conference, even though it's clear they flew to Philadelphia, took out a rental car and registered for the event. It also has not been revealed where the pair stayed - they were not at the conference hotel - or how much the trip cost.
This investigation is a joke.
Not competent enough to show up at the conference?
Feiss has to be kidding, especially since Hardin and Pearson did show up.
Joe Ricci, a Philadelphia school administrator who helped plan the event, was at the registration table when Hardin and Pearson arrived on the final day of the conference.
At first, Hardin complained loudly that the staff had run out of conference bags, which contained zoo passes, city information and discounts for various items, Ricci said.
“Then she proceeded to go into the vendors’ area, get some plastic bags from them, help herself to a ton of food and cookies and candy and all that stuff from the snack tray, and proceeded to walk out the door again, making another big stink about the thing, and left,” Ricci said, estimating that the pair were there for all of five minutes.
“She never checked in . . . or showed up at any conference functions at all, her or her assistant.”
It is positively ludicrous to claim that Hardin's behavior, her travels, her expenses, and her general boorishness stemmed from her incompetence.
The woman was ripping off the taxpayers.
This is more than an MPS internal matter.
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