Jefferson County clerk accuses some in county leadership of stonewalling her; officials reject characterization

Dec. 16—WATERTOWN — The Jefferson County Clerk Gizelle J. Meeks is accusing some county leaders of routinely ignoring her requests and mistreating her in private.

In an interview last week, Meeks said she has been routinely stonewalled and shut out when she has attempted to make changes, like improve software or make equipment purchases, and has found that county Administrator Robert F. Hagemann III and county legislator and Finance and Rules Committee Chair Michael Montigelli are prone to putting roadblocks in her way.

The two men said they don't agree with Meeks' assessment at all, and said they hope to maintain a positive working relationship with her.

The accusations come after tempers flared at a meeting of the county board's Finance and Rules Committee in early December. Meeks had approached the county Board of Legislators committee to ask for clarification on her pay, following adjustments made to the pay scale for non-union county staff this year. When she answered a question posed by another board member, Montigelli shut the conversation down.

"The precedent it sets is a problem," Montigelli said, slamming the gavel and visibly startling Meeks.

He was referring to the precedent of allowing a conversation between someone speaking during the public comment section of a county meeting and a board member. County officials have long enforced a rule that there is to be no back-and-forth between legislators and members of the public during meetings.

There were a few moments of further back-and-forth between Meeks and Montigelli, when she said she agreed with his position that public comment shouldn't include a back-and-forth, and he continued to demand an end to the discussion.

"We're not setting precedent tonight where we're going to have a debate," he said.

"So why are you yelling at me?" Meeks asked.

"Because you came to ask questions of members, who now want to respond," Montigelli replied.

The outburst prompted Meeks' husband Brad to address the board as well.

"You were hostile," he said. "By being hostile, you take away from the integrity of this floor."

He questioned if the chair would have yelled at a man in the same position, and Montigelli continued, with a raised voice, to demand an end to the back-and-forth.

"If you have nothing new to offer, I would ask you to sit down as well," he said.

In an interview on the Monday following that meeting, Meeks said she was disappointed the situation had occurred, but was not overly surprised. She said she has had other interactions with Montigelli she described as "hostile," and she said she felt he should not hold a position of leadership because of it.

"This is consistent behavior from Mike Montigelli," Meeks said. "He's screamed at me before, he's screamed at legislators before. He gets mad when I go before the whole Finance and Rules Committee."

She also accused him and Hagemann of putting roadblocks in her way when she has attempted to get things done for her office. She accused the two of ignoring and delaying responses while she was putting together a request for proposals to improve her office's records management system, and said they had even delayed when she was attempting to purchase a set of $300 printers to replace old equipment that no longer worked with the clerk's office computer systems.

"The harassment from Bob Hagemann and him for every ask that I have has been unfortunate and very stressful," she said.

When reached for comment by email, Montigelli said he doesn't think those accusations hold merit, but said he didn't want to debate the allegations with Meeks in a public forum.

As for the tension at the Finance and Rules meeting, Montigelli said he had some regrets but stood by his position that the meeting cannot devolve into a back-and-forth argument between speakers and legislators.

"There is an opening portion of county meetings that allows for the public to speak to the legislative body," he said. "It is a privilege granting the floor to the public. It is not intended as a forum for debate. Although I regret raising my voice, it was incumbent upon me to maintain the integrity of meeting procedure."

Meeks is an elected official as the county clerk, but her position operates in much the same way as other department heads who are appointed by the county legislature. She is responsible for managing the county's records, including real property documents, court filings for the local state Supreme Court and the county court. She manages the Department of Motor Vehicles and provides notary services. The county legislature has power over the funds for her office, including salaries for her position and her staff, taking her input each year as they craft the annual budget.

Meeks said her work in the office has been made more difficult by Montigelli and Hagemann at a few junctures this year.

Hagemann, as the county administrator, is the lead bureaucratic official managing offices and operations. He's not elected, but appointed by the county legislature and serves in a strictly non-political capacity as the executor of the board's decisions. Montigelli, as an elected county legislator and county finance board chair, is one of a group of 15 legislators in a political position who lead the county decision-making process.

Meeks said she has tried to implement a new record management system to replace the aging, outdated system, which she said poses some data security concerns. She said the process took months, was met with constant delays because of non-answers from Hagemann and Montigelli, and ultimately fell apart after she'd already asked for the money to complete it in the 2024 county budget.

Record management systems are typically expensive, sold as a software service to local governments. To procure a new one, Meeks had to go through a request for proposals process, where she solicited bids from software providers to find the best, least expensive option. Meeks said this process required active input from Montigelli and Hagemann, but was met with repeated delays throughout the process because neither consistently responded to her outreach, she said. She shared messages between her, Hagemann, Montigelli and other county officials that seemed to demonstrate long gaps between her initial outreach and their response.

Detailed in emails shared by Meeks, a contract between the county and Tyler Technologies, a software provider, had been drafted in March, but progress had not been made by June on finalizing the process. Ultimately, the contract was rejected because Tyler Technologies, after submitting a proposal, said they needed to change the details of the product they were offering. The final verdict to reject the contract wasn't delivered until August, after Meeks had submitted a budget proposal for 2024 including $160,700 for the contract.

"I had no choice but to add to my budget due to the lack of response," she said. "This negatively impacts my fund balance, which I believe to be intentional. Even after the denial, I pushed to have this expense removed and was later at the (Finance and Rules) committee meeting."

But Hagemann said he's not sure why Meeks is critical of him for this process. RFPs, and the process to approve contracts between private vendors and government entities, can take months to hammer out, especially when complications arise. Additionally, he said the process was on track until the bidder, Tyler Technologies, started to make changes to the proposal.

"Everyone I know of has been most supportive of that initiative," Hagemann said. "However, post bid submittal, several very technical and legal issues surfaced that became very problematic because the vendor was seeking to change several important aspects of its original bid. Ultimately, the decision had to be made by our legal department to cancel out that potential contract."

Hagemann said as the bid, and eventual rejection, progressed, his contacts with Meeks remained positive. He said he only got involved with the details once time came to make a decision for the 2024 county budget.

"I got involved a little bit because we needed to make decisions on the budget, towards one set of numbers or the other, which was a concern of Gizelle's, which is appropriate," he said. "It wasn't anything negative, and I'm just kind of surprised now two months later that she's expressing frustration."

In emails shared by Hagemann, Meeks thanked Hagemann and his deputy Sarah Baldwin for helping her amend her 2024 budget, which she said was "easier than I anticipated" in the message.

She said she would not be pursuing another RFP for a new document system immediately, and is hoping that other providers will develop the kind of technology she was hoping to use from Tyler Technologies.

She finalized the message by thanking Hagemann and Baldwin for advocating on her behalf through the process.

In an interview, Meeks also expressed concerns that a position in the DMV has been open since March, and she hadn't been permitted to hire new staff to fill the position.

"They admitted they dropped the ball and never advertised the position, but they advertised other people's positions," she said.

Hagemann pointed out that the county legislature had moved to amend the 2024 county budget to address needs in the clerk's office, including adding a $65,000-per-year deputy position for the DMV.

"How does that show animosity?" he asked. "Where does that show us not working with her?"

Ultimately, Hagemann said he hopes to put the entire issue in the past and move forward productively with Meeks and her office. He said he likes her personally, and he feels there is no reason they can't continue to work together well in the future.

"She's delightful to talk to, and there's nothing between us I am worried about," he said.

Meeks said she stands by her statements, but hopes to work productively into the future with county officials to serve the needs of county residents in a modern, effective and secure way.

"My issue was not the negative response but rather the lack of response, which is the real problem," she said. "I would like to add that Mr. Hagemann's response assures me that we, the county clerk's office, sill be able to move forward with modernized technology for the security and safety of county records."