Dan Bice, the Milwaukee Journal, reveals what former school board member Charlene Hardin was really doing when she went to Philadelphia supposedly to attend a school safety conference.
The taxpayers paid for the trip but they didn't get their money's worth.
Bice writes:
Hardin spent most of two days just sitting in her hotel room, and part of a third day driving around the city trying unsuccessfully to visit a major tourist attraction, according to a newly released independent investigation into her now-infamous junket.
"They spent approximately two hours looking for a parking space," said the seven-page report written by local labor lawyer Daniel Vliet. "By the time they reached the Liberty Bell exhibit, the building was closed. They returned to the hotel and spent the night there."
That's not all. The investigation also found that:
• Hardin failed to get proper authorization before going on the trip, even though she first expressed an interest in going a year earlier.
• She skipped the entire first day of the conference rather than use a hotel shuttle to travel seven miles across town.
• A Milwaukee Public Schools secretary, [Lolita Pearson,] apparently went along on the trip at taxpayer expense just to provide Hardin some company.
Hardin, not surprisingly, didn't talk to Vliet, who is expected to be paid $16,000 by Milwaukee Public Schools for his probe. She also did not return calls from the Journal Sentinel.
Clearly, Hardin's behavior was intentional.
She knowingly ripped off the taxpayers when she didn't go to Philadelphia to do what she was sent to do.
Vliet's findings reveal the conclusions of Milwaukee prosecutors looking into the Hardin case to be off base.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 4, 2008:
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."
Feiss has it wrong.
Incompetence?
That's not what Vliet's $16,000 7-page report discloses.
...[Hardin's] failure to show at the Philadelphia conference this past summer that prompted District Attorney John Chisholm to consider a criminal probe.
...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.
"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."
It's ridiculous to claim that Hardin and her traveling partner Pearson weren't competent enough to carry out the trip.
Spending two days just sitting around the hotel and much of the third day on a trek to visit the Liberty Bell isn't just incompetence.
Hardin knew what the purpose of her taxpayer-funded trip was. She was to attend a conference and she did not.
She intentionally stayed away.
Hardin was incompetent when it came to her effort to see the Liberty Bell. Two hours looking for a parking space? I don't know why big spender Hardin didn't give up after 20 or 30 minutes and take a cab.
By Feiss' standards, I think a case can be made that Hardin's actions rise to criminal behavior. Certainly, her actions are indicative of far more than incompetence. She knew what she was doing in Philadelphia was not an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. She was sent to a conference, not a sightseeing tour.
In December 2008, Hardin claimed that she was the victim.
Hardin used the meeting to speak out publicly about her situation. She did not directly comment on the Philadelphia trip or other travel she has taken, but said, "I have always represented the board with pride and honor."
She said Thursday was the anniversary of the end of slavery after the Civil War. But, she said, "high-tech lynching and yellow journalism is still alive and well today."
She said the district attorney had concluded no crime was committed. She said there was no need to pursue the matter further.
"You must ask yourself if this is indeed in the best interest of our district," she said
An obviously angered Danny Goldberg said Hardin's comments provided even more reason why an investigation was necessary. He said it was "just absurd" to call what had been reported a "high-tech lynching."
Goldberg was right.
There was no yellow journalism. This was not a "high-tech lynching."
It was disgraceful the way Hardin evoked the anniversary of the end of slavery and the Civil War to describe what was happening to her.
Bottom line:
---Charlene Hardin intentionally, with full knowledge, ripped off the taxpayers.
---Milwaukee prosecutors, through their incompetence, dropped the ball.
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