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Alder alleges finance report forging
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by Courtney Johnson
Friday, April 13, 2007
A Madison alderman formally filed a complaint with the Madison Ethics Board earlier this week, alleging a limited-term city clerk employee forged state campaign finance documents.
According to the complaint, Ald. Zach Brandon, District 7, said Michael Quieto "filled out, certified and falsely signed multiple State of Wisconsin Campaign Finance Reports belonging to the Teaching Assistant's Association Political Action Committee."
Brandon hopes a city investigation may lead to the passage of a Madison ordinance prohibiting city election employees from being professional political figures while performing their city duties.
The documents in question, which were campaign finance reports for the TAA PAC filed on March 26 as part of this year's city election, list the treasurer of the group as Ryan Lipscomb. However, on the line where Lipscomb is asked to print his name, someone began to write "Micha—" before crossing it out and printing and signing "Ryan Lipscomb."
Additionally, Lipscomb's printing and signature on the March 26 document looks different than it did on a campaign registration statement filed with the State Elections Board July 12, 2006. Brandon said the handwriting resembles that of Quieto.
When contacted by The Badger Herald, Quieto had no comment, and Lipscomb did not return calls as of press time.
According to the documents filed with the SEB, Quieto has also served as a committee member of the TAA and, according to the Madison TAA web site, he serves as the chair of the TAA PAC. If this is true, Quieto could be in violation of Madison's ethics code.
"The biggest glaring example for me is that he started to sign his own name and realized he had a conflict — to me, this says 'I know I shouldn't be doing this,' so you scribble it out and you write somebody else in," Brandon said.
Brandon also alleges two other campaign-related signatures may have been forged by Quieto — a pre-election report of independent disbursements and a special report of late disbursements of independent disbursements.
Before the April 3 election, Brandon said he asked for Quieto to be reassigned within the city clerk's office because he felt uncomfortable with him working with election documents, due to his possible political affiliations. Brandon now plans to introduce legislation next month that would prohibit people from doing election work for the city if they are "engaged in the profession of politics."
In response to these allegations, the TAA issued a statement saying Quieto, while a "longtime member of the TAA," is now on leave from graduate school and is not an elected officer in the organization. The statement also said the position of chair of the TAA PAC does not exist, even though the organization's web site says that is Quieto's position.
Mark Supanich, spokesperson for the TAA, said the web site information listing Quieto as chair of the TAA PAC is a typo and that the site has not been updated in quite some time.
"[A] web site is not a source, particularly if you can call someone and verify what position they are in," Supanich said. "It's possible that whoever put the content on there miswrote."
The TAA statement expressed concern about Brandon's complaint, saying the association is wary of efforts that would "restrict political activism for some public employees outside of the workplace." The TAA also said the complaint shows a lack of respect for the city clerk's office.
According to Kyle Richmond of the SEB, the SEB would only become involved in this case if it were found Lipscomb was not actually responsible for the campaign finance figures. Otherwise, this is a case for the Dane County district attorney.
Brandon spoke to District Attorney Brian Blanchard and said he plans on filing a complaint with the district attorney's office.
"[Blanchard] thinks there's enough information here for him to warrant taking a look at it — it will be ultimately his decision," Brandon said.
In addition to the complaint filed with the city's ethics board, Brandon and 10 other alders and aldermanic candidates, including Ald.-elect Eli Judge, District 8, and Ald. Larry Palm, District 15, sent a complaint letter to City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl.
Anonymous (April 13, 2007 @ 12:38pm):
Not surprised that Brandon and Judge would pull at straws to attack the TAA.
Anonymous (April 13, 2007 @ 1:26pm):
Judge would never attack the TAA, Austin.
Anonymous (April 13, 2007 @ 1:30pm):
So the TAA might be corrupt! Who saw that coming? Oh wait......
- Germain E. Stemme
Anonymous (April 13, 2007 @ 1:34pm):
This is no good to have Judge aligning himself with the notoriously anti-student Brandon attention whore faction even before he's sworn in... He's inexperienced and maybe doesn't know any better, but if this keeps up, the 8th district can kiss its influence goodbye.
Anonymous (April 13, 2007 @ 2:37pm):
Judge signed that letter what was, politically speaking, a long time ago. He's smart enough to repair ties with the TAA and not keep pouring on. If he sticks with Ald. Brandon, you're right, his influence will be nil.
Anonymous (April 13, 2007 @ 3:06pm):
@ 1:26pm
First off, this whole "every other poster here is either Austin or Ashok" schtick is so fucking tired already.
Second, to the substance of your comment, Judge was a signatory to the letter falsly naming Quieto as head of the TAA-PAC and calling for a political involvement litmus test for city workers. Quieto's association with the TAA is sine qua non for the impropriety implied in that letter, and the ensuing besmirching of the TAA has been painfully obvious in this whole witch-hunt.
Anonymous (April 13, 2007 @ 4:26pm):
Too bad Quieto just got caught FORGING documents he was IN CHARGE OF at the city clerk. I'm glad to vote for Judge, stopping this bullshit from happening.
Anonymous (April 13, 2007 @ 4:51pm):
"First off, this whole "every other poster here is either Austin or Ashok" schtick is so fucking tired already."
Shut up Ashok
Anonymous (April 13, 2007 @ 6:32pm):
One time, they did this cool trick where Austin kept talking even while Ashok took a sip of water.
Anonymous (April 14, 2007 @ 5:51am):
Quieto=fucked
Anonymous (April 14, 2007 @ 12:28pm):
At least this hot bed of liberalism shows the rest of the state how to have clean politics.
- Germain E. Stemme
Anonymous (April 14, 2007 @ 11:19pm):
The website on the TAA webpage that this article referring to has been updated, and (correctly) no longer lists Mike Quieto as having any official position. Mike Quieto was chair of the TAA's Political Education Committee until sometime around last summer. Before this, and as it was stated at its top, this webpage had not been updated since January 20, 2006.
http://www.taa-madison.org/committee.html
This issue has also been corrected by the Cap Times:
http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=/tct/2007/04/05/0704050310.php
Nick Murphy
Anonymous (April 15, 2007 @ 6:31pm):
Doesn't matter. HE FORGED THE SIGNATURES.
Anonymous (May 11, 2007 @ 3:21pm):
TAA, you fucking commies
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