Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
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It hasn’t been a well-kept secret. For the past few years the Linn County Board of Supervisors and Linn County Auditor Joel Miller have shared numerous differences of opinion, many of which have been on full display through Miller’s facebook and twitter feeds.
Tuesday, however, the spats gained new notoriety when Miller launched a lawsuit against the other county officials. Miller is accusing the Board members — Lu Barron, Linda Langston, Jim Houser, Brent Oleson and Ben Rogers — of interfering with his powers of office, and requesting the court to intervene on a specific employment issue.
In December, and amid much local tongue-wagging, Miller effectively fired Sue Wold, a 30-year veteran of the auditor’s office, when he revoked her deputy director status Miller has stated that the move was brought on by internal office reorganization. In short, Miller wanted to appoint a new deputy who would both work in the election’s office and perform internal audits of county spending. Wold, on the other hand, described the office as “a toxic environment” in a letter to the editor.
A month later, Miller, without prior approval from the supervisors, appointed Karen Heiderscheit, an existing employee of the auditor’s office, to the reorganized deputy position. The supervisors reacted by removing one of Miller’s deputy positions, and refusing to provide payroll expenses for a temporary deputy. The supervisors have contended throughout the dispute that internal auditing should not be done in the same department that processes claims, and that any internal auditor position should answer to the board.
Adam Belz, a journalist with The Gazette, has been providing a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings for local news readers. The lone vote on the board, seemingly siding with Miller’s position, came from Brent Oleson, the only Republican in Linn County government. Oleson told Belz late last month that he saw the ongoing discourse as based in politics.
“I’ve got my own internal Republican stuff,” Oleson said. “I’m not going to wade into internal Democrat stuff.”
Miller, who has long been prolific with social media, has publicly questioned the effectiveness of the members of the Board of Supervisors on a wide range of topics. In fact, on any given day, Miller’s twitter and facebook feeds are likely to contain journalist-like reports from Supervisor meetings and direct critiques of what he believes the supervisors should be doing.
Following the 2008 elections, when Miller was challenged by a man many believed to be hand-picked by Democratic supervisors, Miller requested the local Democrats pass a policy that would prohibit elected officials from recruiting primary challengers to other elected officials. No action was taken on the proposed measure, which remains tabled.
A copy of the court filing is available on The Gazette’s site.
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