An investigation found former Sheboygan city administrator's conduct may have violated city policies. He is suing, claiming he was targeted.
SHEBOYGAN – An investigation into former Sheboygan City Administrator Todd Wolf found sufficient evidence that Wolf's conduct while responding to personnel issues after August may have violated the city's policies.
Wolf was fired in January, following the investigation's completion.
The investigation, conducted by Attorney Jill Hall, took place in November, with some follow-up communication in January. A six-page summary report of the investigation was completed Feb. 6. The council hired Hall to investigate complaints against Wolf, including a complaint of retaliation and defamation by a city director, and allegations Wolf made of bribery and extortion.
The report says there was sufficient evidence to warrant a hearing before the city council for consideration of terminating Wolf or taking other disciplinary action. On Jan. 9, the Sheboygan City Council voted 8-2 to fire Wolf without cause. Firing Wolf without cause — rather than for cause, which would involve a hearing process — saved the city money and helped “minimize the negative impact on both Wolf and other city employees,” according to the city council resolution.
When Wolf was fired, Sheboygan Mayor Ryan Sorenson said he hoped the report would be made public "sooner than later" and that once it was released, people would "understand the difficult decision" the council had to make.
In February, Wolf filed a lawsuit against 13 people, including Sorenson and Hall, in connection with his firing in January. He alleges the investigation into his conduct was launched "without any legitimate justification."
In a document augmenting Hall's report, Wolf states the investigation report was dated the same day he filed his lawsuit, and he alleges the report and its public release was a form of "retaliation" against him for taking legal action. He denied any wrongdoing.
Sheboygan City Attorney Charles Adams, who is also named in Wolf's lawsuit, said the report was not publicly published, but as a public record it is available upon request.
Two members of the Sheboygan Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Initiative filed claims for $20,000 each in damages alleging defamatory statements made by Wolf. The city denied these claims.
What prompted the investigation?
Wolf was placed on administrative leave in November following concerns about his response to personnel issues.
The controversy stemmed from an incident in August, when, during an internal meeting among city directors, Director of Planning and Development Chad Pelishek said the N-word while quoting a resident's comment from a neighborhood meeting.
The incident did not come to public attention until October, after the Sheboygan Press reported on it.
Wolf told the Sheboygan Press at that time Pelishek said the racial slur while discussing a racist incident brought to his attention. Pelishek asked other department heads about how the city can help address racial issues at the neighborhood level, Wolf said.
Immediately after the August meeting, Wolf sent an email to department heads apologizing for not immediately correcting a “misstep from a team member” but that the statement made at the meeting was not intended to be offensive. He also requested that department heads not discuss "departmental interactions" with other people.
Residents expressed concerns that Wolf's main concern after the meeting was not that a city leader said a racial slur, but that a director breached trust by sharing what happened with people who were not involved in the meeting.
In October, the city council decided to limit Wolf's responsibilities, including handing communication and media relations tasks over to the mayor.
After multiple closed-session council meetings addressing personnel issues over three weeks, Wolf wrote a letter to the city council claiming that in an Oct. 5 meeting with Jamie Haack and Alexandra Guevara, two steering committee members of the Sheboygan DEIB, Haack and Guevara demanded $70,000 for their organization and threatened to "publicly oppose" Wolf if he didn't comply.
Haack and Guevara, in response, issued a joint statement saying Wolf's allegations about them were "simply not true." They said the meeting in actuality was "polite and cordial," and they suggested to Wolf that the city consider hiring diversity, equity and inclusion experts and a Human Resources director with knowledge and experience in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
On Nov. 7, hours after Wolf sent the city council his letter, the council voted 8-2 to place Wolf on paid administrative leave, while the investigation was conducted.
The two votes against Wolf's termination were from council members Joe Heidemann and Trey Mitchell. Both Heidemann and Mitchell declined to comment for this story because of ongoing litigation.
Throughout fall 2022, Wolf was the designated person to address complaints, because the city was without a Human Resources director. The former director, Vicky Schneider, resigned in June after she sued the city, alleging Wolf retaliated against her for questioning the city's response to sexual harassment of a female city employee, according to her complaint filed with the state Department of Workforce Development. However, Wolf's actions alleged in Schneider's lawsuit were not addressed in Hall's investigation.
The city has denied Schneider's complaint. The state found probable cause that Wolf retaliated against Schneider, which advances the case to either a settlement agreement or an evidentiary hearing presided over by an administrative law judge. The DWD confirmed April 7 that the case is still open and a hearing is scheduled for Aug. 28-30.
What did the investigation report reveal?
Before the report was released, the city had shared little information about the specifics of the investigation.
According to the report, Wolf engaged in conduct that could be considered a violation of city policies by "... failing to comply with specific Council directives, and disregarding legal recommendations of the City Attorney and outside counsel, all not to discuss pending personnel matters."
The investigation found that in September, Adams and private lawyers advised Wolf that he did not need to talk with media, and if he chose to, "he should not comment on personnel matters." However, Wolf spoke with the Sheboygan Press during two separate interviews in September about the meeting where Pelishek repeated the racial slur and about possible discipline regarding a director who shared that information with people outside the meeting.
Further, the report states that Wolf's claims that Haack and Guevara engaged in extortion and bribery are "entirely unsupported in fact." The investigation found sufficient evidence to warrant the council's consideration that these accusations "constituted insubordinate and inappropriate comment against citizens, and created possible legal risk for the City, all in violation of numerous City policies," the report says.
The investigation also found evidence that Wolf publicly "ascribed unsubstantiated conduct and malicious political motives" to a city director and made comments that they should be disciplined, the report says.
A Nov. 8 news release from Wolf's attorney, Jennifer DeMaster, names the city director and states they "demanded" Pelishek repeat the full phrase that included the N-word at the August meeting and then afterward "contacted multiple people in her political network to distort the facts and target Pelishek and Wolf." Wolf and his attorney continued to make similar public comments about the city director within the following month, the report says.
However, the investigation found the director spoke about the racial slur incident to five friends right after the meeting on Aug. 22, but never spoke with media about it. And the report says during the investigation, "no attendee of the August 22, 2022 meeting, including Mr. Pelishek himself, supported Wolf's repeated assertion that (the director) 'demanded that Mr. Pelishek repeat the racial slur.'"
The report also states that the investigation found no evidence to support Wolf's allegations that the city director had political motives against Wolf.
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How has Wolf responded?
When Adams received record requests for copies of the investigation report, the city reached out to Wolf to notify him of its intent to release the document, as is required under state law. In response, Wolf filed a document augmenting the record. The document, which anyone who requests copies of the report receives as well, contains a letter from Wolf and his lawsuit complaint.
In Wolf's letter, he says the investigation report "contains several false statements and is a fabricated narrative meant to further harm my reputation" and is "nothing more than retaliation to punish me for filing a lawsuit against them for violations of my constitutional rights."
Wolf further states he "can readily and easily prove that most of Ms. Hall’s 'factual allegations' are false."
Wolf's lawsuit names Sorenson, Adams, Hall, Sheboygan Press reporter Maya Hilty, Sheboygan Area School District President Mary Lynne Donohue, council members Barbara Felde, Roberta Filicky-Peneski, Amanda Salazar, Angela Ramey, Betty Ackley, Zachary Rust, Dean Dekker, Grazia Perrella, as well as the city of Sheboygan, as defendants.
In the complaint, DeMaster alleges the Sheboygan DEIB in 2021 "installed certain individuals into trusted positions on the Common Council, the Mayoral seat, and one reporter at a local newspaper." Sheboygan DEIB-affiliated elected officials then worked together "to destroy Mr. Wolf’s reputation with fabricated allegations and remove him as City Administrator without any chance for due process," the complaint states.
Wolf is requesting compensatory damages for "lost income and benefits, severe mental and emotional distress, loss of reputation, humiliation and inconvenience," as well as punitive damages against the defendants. He also requests declarations that the defendants violated his First Amendment rights and his 14th Amendment due process rights, and a trial by jury.
No court proceedings related to the lawsuit have yet been scheduled.
Contact Kelli Arseneau at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ArseneauKelli.
This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan city administrator may have violated city policies: Probe
