On July 13, several Camp Verde residents living close to the construction work at the planned sports complex, saw what they said they believed was suspicious activity at the house of Mayor Charlie German, whose property is adjacent to the future park.
The mayor’s neighbor, Carol German — who is running for Camp Verde Town Council — joined another nearby resident, Bill LeBeau — who is also running — in filming what looked like construction equipment and personnel contracted for the park project doing work on the mayor’s private property. In the video Carol German filmed, a bulldozer can be seen moving dirt into the Charlie German’s yard.
“Why did that happen? It seems to me that that’s illegal because he’s the mayor,” Carol German said. “He’s using town property — that dirt that we just paid almost $200,000 to haul down from the sewer district. For them to take dirt that we’re paying for as taxpayers, and bring it over to Charlie’s property and try to help him out — that’s illegal.”
Cheri Wischmeyer, another nearby resident who has fought with the mayor and the town over the park construction project, called Camp Verde Public Works Director Ron Long and asked him if he was aware of the construction. According to Wischmeyer, Long told her the construction equipment was not being used for work on the mayor’s property, though Town Manager Russ Martin confirmed there was work being done on the mayor’s property and that the town was aware of it.
Wischmeyer filed a complaint against Charlie German before the town council, requesting that a special session be held to adjudicate whether the mayor had improperly used town property or taken advantage of his position as mayor to get work done on improvements to his own property.
“The mayor should not have utilized any town resources for his own personal benefit. This is not only a conflict of interest, but potentially unlawful use of town resources,” Wischmeyer wrote in the complaint. “These are serious concerns and we ask that the Town Council address this matter immediately and that we receive a written response per town complaint process guidelines.”
Charlie German readily said the contractors were doing work on his property, but also said everything was above board and known to the town before the work began.
“I knew that there was going to be some work done along the edge with the buffer,” Charlie German said about why work was done on his property. According to him, the drainage ditch being constructed around the perimeter of the park ran close to his house, and left him with the potential of water pouring onto his property.
The mayor sought to build a wall on the edge of his property in order to protect his land from the park runoff. He was issued a building permit on March 29. According to the mayor, when he realized he would need to build up part of his land to the same level as the nearby park land in order to prevent water running onto his property, he contacted the public works department to ask about engaging in a construction project adjacent to the ongoing park construction.
“I told him that I would prefer that he work with the contractor that’s already on site,” Long said. “When you have a contractor and you hire them, you turn your site over to them. It’s never a good idea to bring another contractor on to a site to do something else. It was just a lot cleaner and made a lot more sense to use the contractor that was there.”
According to Long, Charlie German asked to use some of the dirt procured by the town for the project, and the two agreed upon a price German would pay the town for the use of the dirt. Long said German agreed to pay for the dirt himself, well before a complaint was filed.
According to German, the agreed-upon price for the dirt used on his portion of the project was close to $1,000, though he has not yet received an invoice for it. German also said he did not tell Long about the details of his project once he worked it out with the contractor, which he said he believes accounts for why Long did not know that the contractor was working on his land that day when Wischmeyer called.
Long compared the proceedings to requests by the Wischmeyer family to move the drainage ditch near their property, and to have input on the selection of vegetation planted near their land. He expressed the town’s desire to be a “good neighbor” to residents living adjacent to the park construction site.
Wischmeyer said she disagrees with that assertion, saying that her family had to sue the town before they agreed to the requested changes. She said she believes that even if the agreement was made beforehand, it still could be a sign of the mayor getting preferential treatment in his dealings with the town government.
“It’s a conflict of interest. It’s using his authority as mayor to get something of monetary value,” Wischmeyer said. “And if you look up the statute for conflict of interest, that is the epitome of an explanation — an elected official using their authority to get something of monetary value. And even if he did get it, I doubt very seriously if he paid fair labor value.”
“I think it’s just a misunderstanding,” Charlie German said. “She has my number. If she had called me, I could have explained everything to her right then.”
Town Manager Russ Martin is gathering relevant documents and investigate Wischmeyer’s complaint. He said he hopes to present findings before the council at a meeting in the near future. Wischmeyer has expressed mistrust of Martin in heading this investigation.
Jon Hecht can be reached at 634-8551, or email jhecht@larsonnewspapers.com
