Mayor’s Controversial Book Purchase Went to Campaign Contributor

A book circulating around City Hall that raised concerns among city department heads because of a religious code used to interpret it was purchased from a publisher who contributed to Mayor Jeff Scrima's campaign.

The publisher, Gary Lato, contributed to the mayor’s campaign in 2010,  according to a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

 “Mr. Lato is a retired successful business man,” Scrima told Waukesha Patch. “He did introduce the book to me.”

Scrima said he purchased the book, Sequencing - Deciphering Your Company’s DNA, written by Michael Metzger, directly from Lato instead of Amazon because it was cheaper. The books would have cost nearly $540 from Amazon and, instead, Scrima said he purchased the books for nearly $430.

It is not uncommon for corporations the size of Waukesha to require its leaders to read “business and process improvement books,” Scrima said.

Scrima described the book as a “cutting-edge business book,” but did not specify why he chose the book as opposed to other books.

Scrima said he did not anticipate concerns being brought forward when he presented the book to the department heads a few weeks ago.

“There is nothing out of the ordinary here,” he said.