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Hearing Monday for request to remove Mayor Schmitt

Posted at 5:30 PM, Feb 14, 2017
and last updated 2017-02-20 14:35:38-05
UPDATE: A judge has denied a petition from Mayor Jim Schmitt's lawyer asking the judge to stop today's hearing. 
 
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The Green Bay City Council plans to review a request to remove Mayor Jim Schmitt from office Monday night. 
 
Mayor Schmitt's attorney filed a petition asking a judge to stop Monday's hearing on the matter. 
 
The attorney claims the council has no lawful bias to proceed. 
 
It stems from the mayor's guilty pleas to campaign finance violations. 
 
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Three Green Bay aldermen pushed back against Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt over reports he held onto campaign finance reports in news conference Tuesday.

Alderman Chris Wery said the investigation was targeted against him, alderman Andy Nicholson, and Tom DeWane.

Wery accused the mayor of using his own investigation through Schmitt's attorney Bruce Langraff into the campaign finances of the three men as a diversion from his own campaign finance violations.

Alderman Wery also raised concerns about the source of funding for the investigations. He produced reports that showed expenses from Schmitt's campaign fund for "legal expenses."

The men charged the mayor with holding onto information that cleared the them for over a year, questioning his motives.

Wery said, "Yet they sat back and let the news and social media have a field day, continuing to save we were under investigation.  Their actions are dishonest, lack integrity, and are petty in the extreme."

In a statement, Mayor Schmitt said, "The information regarding the investigation by Bruce Landgraf was released to me personally. It is up to those persons being investigated to get pertinent information from the source... The DA's office. They repeatedly contacted the DA's office to check in on the status of my investigation. They should have checked on their own."