Chali Pittman
The Village of Shorewood Hills sign.
Shorewood Hills measures less than a square mile and is nestled within Madison's west side.
In the latest sign of tumult for Shorewood Hills, the village administrator has resigned. That marks nine staff resignations from the village's administrative office in the last 12 months.
In a letter dated Aug. 18, village administrator Brian Mooney said he had once seen himself retiring from the position. Instead, just over two years into the job, Mooney said he could no longer navigate the village’s “perpetual turmoil” to the “detriment of my family life and health.”
“I can no longer tolerate the constant personal attacks, unrealistic workload demands, unappreciated efforts, uncompensated additional hours, and lack of civility and leadership from this new Board majority,” wrote Mooney, who received a master’s degree in public administration from UW-Madison before working for the villages of Merrimac, Cross Plains and Shorewood Hills.
Mooney resigned the day after the board of trustees conducted his performance review in a closed session. Earlier, in open session, residents had defended the administrator during public comments. A livestream does not reveal the outcome of the closed session; minutes of board meetings have not been posted online since May.
An Aug. 19 announcement on Nixle, the village’s alert platform, said the board had decided unanimously that trustees Kate Crowley and Carol Barford would “work closely” with Mooney. It’s not clear what they intended to work on and village President Shabnam Lofti declined to provide details.
“There were seven trustees, and all seven trustees provided performance feedback,” she tells Isthmus.
Mooney intends to use sick leave until a formal last day of Sept. 18 or Sept. 19.
Administrative services coordinator David Sykes retired last September after nearly 40 years with the village. Administrative assistant Julie Willis, who had been trained to take on some of the duties performed by Sykes, resigned in October.
In a January resignation, clerk/deputy treasurer Christina Kahl forecast that the village would continue to lose “dedicated and experienced employees” due to an excessive workload and hostile environment: “I was met with repeated challenges to my character and integrity. This is unacceptable. The continuation of this behavior is unacceptable,” Kahl wrote, referencing a November altercation where then-trustee Shabnam Lotfi verbally abused staff, slammed her fists on a desk, and threatened employees’ jobs.
The next month, deputy clerk/deputy treasurer Nichole Shipman resigned, citing an “unsafe and hostile work environment.”
Administrative assistant Katie Ballinger resigned in March. In her resignation letter, she cited “aggressive and unprofessional behavior by a trustee within a shared office space” along with “ongoing public criticism during Board and committee meetings for not meeting demands.” She cited a “consistent pattern” of“targeting, speculation, or reputational harm” from trustees.”
“This resignation is not attributable to coworkers, internal staff leadership, or the village administrator; Brian Mooney consistently demonstrated professionalism, support for staff, and commitment to ethical governance under extraordinary difficult circumstances,” Ballinger added, saying her decision to resign “rests solely with the conduct of certain trustees.”
Finance director/treasurer Julie Fitzgerald (who previously served as clerk/treasurer) resigned in April. Fitzgerald was also present during the encounter with Lotfi at the village hall in November. Fitzgerald later told Lotfi of that experience: “It is not acceptable for you to yell, to beat on my desk, to intimidate me and the rest of my staff, and use your position the way you did,” adding, “You scared the shit out of my brand new staff.”
After just a few weeks on the job, clerk/deputy treasurer Taylor Wall resigned in May, providing “earnest suggestions for the future” as he left. Alene Houser, who began as deputy clerk in February, resigned in July.
Lotfi says she has “100% confidence” in the remaining staff to keep up with administration tasks, but there is plenty to do. In what has become his final report, Mooney described a host of tasks, ranging from onboarding new staff to finalizing an audit to coordinating a response to a leaky sewer. He also described “spending multiple hours of my workweek continuing to manage the mailboxes of former Village employees.” Recently, he had also been helping to lead the village’s pool closure after a coach was arrested on child porn charges.
Who’s left in village administration to carry tasks out? Samantha Ballard, who began her position as administrative assistant at the end of April, is now the longest-serving administrative employee. Kristy Snyder, an interim finance director hired through a staffing firm, has been on staff since May. Pedro Pedroza, a limited-term employee, has been on staff since July 13 to manage records requests. Finance director/treasurer Lana Nelson started July 31, and clerk/deputy treasurer Jeanne Ritter started Aug. 17, according to a report from Mooney included in an agenda packet.
How will ongoing projects be managed? “There’s a lot of people who work in village hall,” says Lotfi, pointing to staff who could help smooth the transition: the public works director, pool manager and forester. When asked whether those positions are responsible for tasks like payroll or bond payments, she emphasizes administration staff’s previous experience in other municipalities.
In an Aug. 16 letter to the board of trustees, Shorewood Hills resident Erica Moeser — a retired attorney and former head of the National Conference of Bar Examiners — foreshadowed the latest resignation, describing the tone among village administration staff as "unsettled.”
“The customary relaxed and happy atmosphere that characterized the office is gone. As good people have exited employment with the Village this year, the clouds have lowered. The impact of the attitudes and actions by some Trustees and a few residents has robbed the office of something most residents have always taken for granted. The pall is obvious,” she said, citing the “sword of Damocles that is evidently hanging over the head of the Village Administrator” as “central to the atmospherics.”
Moeser, who had worked with village staff closely to help run the Aug. 11 primary election in the absence of a village clerk, defended Mooney: “I have heard claims that the distressing level of office attrition is somehow attributable to Mr. Mooney. That is unequivocally wrong.”
Asked by Isthmus why he stayed through the tumult, Mooney points to a professional ethic of staying with the same village for several years. His departure comes after a year of turbulence for the village. In May, trustees ousted village President John Imes in a 4-3 vote; soon after, Lotfi became village president. Imes has since filed a legal challenge in Dane County Court asking a judge to reinstate him. Christa Westerberg, Imes’ attorney, says she expects the village to file a response to the complaint on Sept. 14.
