Angry AFSCME call tied to firm with long-running state contract

According to state records, the man who allegedly called AFSCME Council 5 and left a series of obscenity-laced voicemail messages with an invitation to today’s Tea Party event, has a long history as a vendor with the state’s court system.

“Hey you [expletive] piece of [expletive],” the angry caller said in a message left with the labor union (mp3). “Your days are [expletive] numbered sucking at the public tit.”

But the phone number on the AFSCME voicemails points to someone who’s benefited from public dollars: Ed Motch, president of Minneapolis-based Bachman Printing Company, which has a contract with the state to bind legal documents.

Motch’s company may have taken in $42,000 or more in state funds over the years. According to a vendor search at the state-run Transparency and Accountability Project for Minnesota, his company has taken in $10,600 in state funds between 2007 and today, the only years in which the online database has been operational. Motch purchased the company in 1996, inheriting the company’s approved-vendor status, which was gained in 1983. Assuming the same contract terms — Bachman Printing takes in between $2,000 and $4,000 from state jobs each year — Motch may have made $42,000 from state binding contracts since Motch purchased the company 14 years ago.

AFSCME’s public affairs director Jennifer Munt said, “What I am confident of is that the phone call came from the home of Ed and Kristi Motch.”

AFSCME’s Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) phone system is “hack-proof,” Munt says, and saves the name and phone number of each caller — in this case a phone identified as Motch’s — that leaves a voicemail message. The Minnesota Independent is awaiting comment from South St. Paul Police Chief Daniel Vujovich on Motch’s involvement.

A screen capture of AFSCME's voicemail system caller

Motch did not respond to the Minnesota Independent’s email and phone queries Wednesday about the AFSCME call or the printer’s state business.

Munt told the Minnesota Independent that AFSCME Council 5 will continue its fair taxation ad campaign.

“We aren’t fazed” by the phone calls, she said. The group plans to provide information on fair taxation at metro-area post offices Thursday as last-minute tax filers rush to meet the IRS’ midnight deadline.

Munt also said that Toni Backdahl, a co-founder of the Minnesota Tea Party Patriots, contacted her Wednesday evening to assure that no one named Motch appeared on any of that group’s lists.

Paul Schmelzer contributed to this report.