The other day, in my role as an advocate for open government, I heard from a Wisconsin resident who has waited more than five months for records he requested from a local law enforcement agency. He has gently prodded the agency several times, asking, “How much more time is my request going to take?” More than three months have passed since these queries have yielded a response.

Such long, frustrating wait times are not uncommon. Wisconsin’s Open Records Law allows any person to obtain any document in the possession of state and local government officials, with limited exceptions. But, unlike in some other states, there is no set time limit. Rather, the law simply directs record custodians to act “as soon as practicable and without delay.” 

What does that mean? Good question.

The state Justice Department has said that “10 working days is a reasonable time for an authority to respond” to simple records requests. But this is not binding advice. Moreover, no court has ever ruled that a particular wait time was excessive.

I tell people experiencing long wait times to practice their “Ps”: Be polite. Be persistent. And be pragmatic — offer to clarify or refine your request to make it more manageable. Sometimes, this helps move things along. Other times, it seems to make no difference.

That’s where Tom Kamenick comes in. He is the founder and president of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, the state’s only law firm devoted entirely to open government litigation. Since 2019, Kamenick has filed seven lawsuits alleging illegal delays in the processing of open records requests. He has lost only one case — in which the records were provided but had ended up in the requester’s spam folder. 

His other six cases ended in settlements favorable to the requestors: Records were provided, legal costs were covered and, in at least one case, the custodian apologized. The problem is that these settlement wins do not set a legal precedent that can be cited by others, although they do add credibility to threats of legal action.

Last year, Kamenick sued the Madison Police Department on my behalf after it told me to expect a wait time of 14 months to obtain records related to police discipline. The office hired additional staff and authorized overtime to reduce its backlog. Last month, Kamenick sued the Racine County Sheriff’s Department on behalf of a local resident, Mitchell Berman, over its long delays in producing records including video footage. “Delays like this are all too common,” Kamenick noted in a statement. 

Custodians often contend they lack the staff and resources to handle requests more promptly. Kamenick’s response is to say it isn’t a question of resources but priorities. One school district he sued had a $600 million budget and assigned a single staff position devoted to records requests, then allowed that position to go unfilled.  

Indeed, the records law expressly states that handling records requests “is declared to be an essential function of a representative government and an integral part of the routine duties of officers and employees whose responsibility it is to provide such information.” That means it should be more of a priority.

Eventually the courts should weigh in on this, in a precedent-setting case. The problem also cries out for a legislative solution. A revised law could still say “as soon as practicable and without delay,” but also set a time limit of, say, 30 days, for records to be provided, absent extraordinary circumstances. Perhaps the state could provide additional funding or guidance to help make this doable —  certainly there are worse ways it could spend its $4.6 billion budget surplus.

There is an old saying that justice delayed is justice denied; the same is true for records requests. If you don’t get the records until you can hardly remember what you wanted them for, the law is not working as intended. 

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders, a writer in Madison and editor-at-large of The Progressive, is the group’s president.

Your Right to Know: Long waits undercut records law is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The bill moved with lightning speed. It was introduced last December, passed the state Senate in January and the Assembly in February, and was signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers in March. 2023 Wisconsin Act 253 allows police and corrections officials to charge some requesters of video and audio recordings for the cost of redaction — that is, blurring out certain information. 

Members of the media and others objected, noting that the cost of redactions can easily run into hundreds and even thousands of dollars, making them unaffordable. The ACLU of Wisconsin warned this “could allow law enforcement to shirk their obligation to be publicly accountable, and further erode the belief that police protect communities rather than only their own.”

Just prior to the state Assembly’s vote, lawmakers approved a bill amendment that exempted videos of police-involved shootings as well as requesters “directly involved in the event” captured on video. It also allowed up to 10 requests per year without redaction charges for those who stipulate in writing that they “will not use the audio or video content for financial gain.” The bill as amended passed the Assembly 94-3.

Problem solved? Not really. Questions were subsequently raised about what this language means. Does a request for six videos count as one request or six? If multiple parties ask for the same video, do they split the cost? 

But the gravest concern was over the bill’s reference to “financial gain.” Does this mean any media outlet that still manages to make money? It’s an important question because the new law says anyone who falsely denies being out for financial gain can be fined $10,000 per violation.

State Sen. Jesse James, the bill’s chief sponsor, seemed flummoxed when asked, in a WMTV report that aired March 1, whether it applied to news media. “I don’t have an answer for you,” James said. “We try to do our best to have the legislation 100% right, but that doesn’t always happen.” He later affirmed that journalists are not exempt.

The cold, hard reality of this interpretation was driven home last month when Alice Herman, a volunteer reporter for the nonprofit news outlet Tone Madison, requested video taken by UW-Madison police officers who shut down a student protest encampment on May 1. Herman was told there would be no exemption and threatened with a $10,000 fine if she signed the form disclaiming an interest in financial gain and then used it for Tone Madison.

UWPD spokesperson Marc Lovicott told me his department is “working through challenges” with the new law and hoping to receive guidance from the state’s Office of Open Government, part of the Department of Justice. “It’s a broadly worded law that’s really untested. We’re all trying to figure it out.” 

Lovicott noted that Tone Madison, like other news organizations, runs ads on its website, “so they’re technically taking money in. Is that financial gain?” He said redacting video footage over a period of several hours from the 30-plus officers at the scene, all equipped with body cameras, is “an exorbitant amount of work for our two-person records staff,” for which the department would like to recoup at least some of the associated costs.

Scott Gordon, editor-in-chief and publisher of Tone Madison, wrote a deeply researched article on the new law, which he said leaves “the door open to a broad interpretation that could ensnare all manner of requesters working in the public interest.”  

If media outlets and civic groups are priced out of obtaining police video, one of the primary reasons for spending millions of tax dollars to outfit officers with cameras will have been undermined. 

This bill, as written, should never have been passed and signed into law. It needs to be clarified, if not repealed. 

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the group’s president.

Your Right to Know: Redaction costs threaten police video access is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

For the 18th straight year, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is recognizing outstanding efforts to protect the state’s tradition of open government through its Openness in Government awards, or Opees.

The awards are being presented as part of national Sunshine Week, March 10 to 16. Winners have been invited to claim their award at the Wisconsin Openness Awards Dinner in Madison on March 14, part of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s annual convention. Awards are being given this year in six categories. The winners are:

Public Openness Award (“Popee”): Curt Green 

When a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigative team set out to gather information on state gun deaths due to suicide, it encountered some resistence. But Green, the coroner for Manitowoc County, grasped the value of this story and set to work providing what the paper said was “by far the most detailed” gun death data of any county in the state in the hopes of identifying patterns that could prevent future deaths. It’s great when public officials act with the “public” firmly in mind. 

Media Openness Award (“Mopee”): Jacob Resneck

An investigative reporter with Wisconsin Watch, Resneck broke the story on how police agencies in Wisconsin are citing Marsy’s Law, the state constitutional amendment meant to protect victims’ rights, to shield the identity of police officers who shot someone, on grounds that the officers are victims of the people they shoot. He also made extensive use of public records to report on a police cadet who was fired after reporting that a fellow cadet had sexually assaulted her. And Resneck wrote a column for the council about police video and accountability. 

Citizen Openness Award (“Copee”): Common Ground

This Milwaukee-based interfaith advocacy group launched a campaign last year to gather information, much of it from public records, on hazardous conditions inside affordable housing apartments. It then shared this information with tenants and journalists to push the Housing Authority of the city of Milwaukee to make  improvements. Earlier this year, the group sounded an alarm about dangerously cold apartments, a “systemic problem” the housing authority has known about for years. Now everybody knows.

Open Records Scoop of the Year (“Scoopee”): Lucas Robinson

This Wisconsin State Journal reporter uncovered multiple instances in which the local sheriff’s department sought charges against guards at the state’s Green Bay Correctional facility for offenses including smuggling items into the prison for inmates to neglecting inmates.  One inmate died after guards denied him a wheelchair to go to the infirmary, then failed to check on him. No guards were charged with crimes. Robinson’s reporting, as well as that of The New York Times and other news media outlets, prompted lawmakers to seek reforms. 

Whistleblower of the Year (“Whoopee”): Mark Gierl

This former Mequon alderperson twice sued the Mequon-Thiensville School District for denying his requests for email distribution lists. Gierl, represented by Tom Kamenick of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, won each case at both the trial and appellate court level, firmly establishing that such lists kept by government entities must be released on request. An honorable mention in this category goes to the state prison inmates who pushed to make the public aware of dire situations within the state’s correctional system.

No Friend of Openness (“Nopee”): Bonnie Kindschy

Rarely are public officials as brazen in their contempt for open government as Kindschy, the coroner of Trempealeau County. Alone among the state’s 72 coroners or medical examiners, Kindschy refused to provide records in response to the Journal Sentinel’s gun death investigation. Even after the threat of a lawsuit prompted the county to release the records, Kindschy remained defiant, saying she would “probably not” heed a future request. Arrogant and unaccountable is never a good look. 

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the group’s president.

Your Right to Know: Opees honor efforts to promote transparency is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

In mid-August, in my role as a press advocate, I received a call from the owner of a small, vibrant, online community newspaper who was worried about publishing a story that reflected poorly on a local business. The paper had checked and rechecked its facts and gave the business repeated opportunities to comment. But still, the newspaper owner was afraid of being sued.

I urged the owner to publish, despite the risk; the article did run, thankfully without legal repercussions. But the risk is real: During this very same week, the New York Times reported on a small digital newspaper in Wisconsin driven to the brink of bankruptcy by a lawsuit filed by a local businessman who is now a state senator. 

The newspaper, the Wausau Pilot & Review, reported that the businessman, Cory Tomczyk, “was widely overheard” using a vulgar slur to refer to a 13-year-old boy at a county board meeting in August 2021. Tomczyk denied doing so, and sued for defamation. Three people swore they heard him use the slur at the meeting, which he admitted to using on other occasions. He was elected to the state Senate last fall.

In April, Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Scott M. Corbett ruled strongly in the paper’s favor. He concluded that Tomczyk, a former school board member, was a public figure and thus needed to prove the outlet knew what it reported was false or else acted with reckless disregard for whether or not it was true. But, in fact, Corbett wrote, “it is not possible to find that the defendants had serious doubts” about the article’s veracity. 

Tomczyk has appealed, forcing the Pilot & Review to incur additional expense that it cannot recover, even if it prevails again. Shereen Siewert, the newspaper’s founder and editor, has placed the lawsuit’s costs at nearly $200,000, more than the four-person newsroom’s annual budget.

A Go Fund Me page and other donations have raised about $140,000 to keep the Pilot & Review afloat — or a-flying, as the case may be. “It’s an enormous relief,” Siewert told me, “but it’s also sickening when I think about where that money could be going instead of legal fees.”

Groups including the Wisconsin Newspaper Association and national Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have pledged assistance, and two law firms have agreed to do pro bono work, although the paper is keeping its own attorneys. Tomczyk’s first brief is due in early October and Siewert expects “a long road ahead” as the case drags on well into 2024. 

State Sen. Melissa Agard, D-Madison, and Rep. Jimmy Anderson, D-Fitchburg, have introduced anti-SLAPP legislation (the acronym stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation), similar to laws on the books in 31 other states. The Wisconsin bills, SB 414 and AB 423, would let judges dismiss frivolous lawsuits and make those who bring them pay the defendants’ legal fees.

Siewert calls the proposed legislation “long overdue in Wisconsin and especially crucial for independent journalists and organizations.” Its sponsors, so far all Democrats, have asked for a hearing, but observers see that as unlikely, given that the precipitating action concerns a GOP lawmaker. (Tomczyk has rebuffed requests for comment, including one for this piece.) 

That is short-sighted and foolhardy. Local news outlets serve an invaluable function and deserve protection against those who seek to shut them up. In 2010, the legislature put politics aside and passed a bipartisan shield law to protect journalists from revealing their sources. It should do so again to protect media outlets from being sued into oblivion — no matter who is doing the suing.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the group’s president.

Your Right to Know: Protect the press against bogus lawsuits is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

In early April, I requested some records from the Madison Police Department regarding what it said was the sole disciplinary action taken against an MPD officer or employee in the first three months of this year. 

It was an exceedingly minor matter — a sergeant who got a one-day suspension for sending an “unprofessional email to command staff.” And all I wanted was to see the complaint that would disclose what the email said and some document that explained how the matter was concluded. Just a few sheets of paper.

The response I received said the request had to go through the MPD’s records custodian, Julie Laundrie, who informed me: “I am currently at 14 months for personnel requests to receive [a] reply.”

Fourteen months? 

Laundrie’s official explanation is that she puts requests for personnel records into a queue with other, often voluminous requests, which are handled in order. (The office now says it may just be a few more weeks.) But the real reason for the delay is that the department, like too many other public agencies in Wisconsin, does not devote enough resources to handling records requests.

It’s a problem that has grown markedly worse in recent years, as agencies have gotten bolder in exploiting the lack of specificity in the state’s open records law regarding the question of “How long is too long?”

The Madison Metropolitan School District, for instance, has been sued at least five times since 2021 for long delays in responding to records requests, while a staff position for records work went unfilled. Like some other records custodians, the district seems to think “We’re busy doing other things” is an acceptable reason for not providing records in a timely fashion. It isn’t.

The state’s open records law, enacted in 1981, directs all state and local government officials to respond to records requests “as soon as practicable and without delay,” but sets no precise time frames. The state’s attorney general’s office, which has statutory authority to interpret and enforce this law, has long advised that “a reasonable time” for responding to most simple requests is ten working days, although actually providing the records may take longer. 

Gov. Scott Walker passed executive orders in 2016 and 2017 that set tighter response times for state agencies — requiring them, for instance, to fulfill and not just respond to “small and straightforward” requests within 10 business days when possible. But those rules did not apply to local governments and are no longer considered binding past Walker’s term.

The AG’s Office of Open Government, under both Democratic and  Republican leadership, has not taken a hard line against records custodians for taking too long. And indeed, a report by the Wisconsin Examiner found that the office itself had more than three dozen records requests that remained unfulfilled after more than a year. The office met its own 10-day guideline for just 46% of the 924 records requests it received in 2022.

This is not okay. A vital but often overlooked part of the open records law says providing records in response to requests “is declared to be an essential function of a representative government and an integral part of the routine duties of officers and employees whose responsibility it is to provide such information.”

If an agency lacks staff to handle the volume of requests it receives, it should allocate more staff, as happened recently with the city attorney’s office in Green Bay, which had fallen behind in handling requests. 

Responding promptly to record requests is not just a good government best practice. It’s the law. And sooner or later, the courts are going to have to enforce it.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the Council’s president.

Your Right to Know: Record delays are contrary to the law is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A group of residents concerned about the impact of a local park redevelopment, a school board member who blew the whistle on his colleagues for being too secretive, and a longtime city official who has made a habit of accessibility are among the winners in this year’s Openness Awards, or Opees, bestowed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. 

Also being honored are news outlets that fought for and used records to break important stories. Meanwhile, a school district that has demonstrated “casual contempt for the public’s right to know” is being singled out for negative recognition. 

The awards, announced today in advance of national Sunshine Week (sunshineweek.org), March 12-18, recognize outstanding efforts to protect the state’s tradition of open government — and highlight some threats to it. 

This is the 17th consecutive year that Opees have been awarded. Winners will receive a certificate suitable for framing and be invited to attend the Wisconsin Watchdog Awards annual reception and dinner, which will take place sometime this fall. 

“This was an uncommonly flush year in terms of the number of nominations that were received and it was not easy to decide on just a few,” said Bill Lueders, council president. “There is much that is happening to advance the cause of open government in Wisconsin.” 

The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan group that seeks to promote open government, consists of about two dozen members representing media and other public interests. Sponsoring organizations include the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and the Madison Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. 

The judging committee for this year consisted of Lueders, Wisconsin State Journal editor Kelly Lecker, Capital Times editor Mark Treinen, former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “Ideas Lab” editor David Haynes, and Sam Martino of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Awards are being given this year in six categories. The winners are: 

Public Openness Award (“Popee”): Jim O’Keefe 

This longtime legislative analyst for the city of Madison and now director of its Community Development Division was nominated by Judith Davidoff, editor of the? Isthmus newspaper in Madison, for his “extraordinary” accessibility under four mayors. In an era where, she noted, “it is now rare for public administrators to answer their own phones and talk directly to reporters,” O’Keefe goes the extra mile, even intervening to help a reporter who was having trouble getting a call-back from someone else in city government. In recognizing O’Keefe, we also acknowledge the many other public officials in Wisconsin who regard transparency as a blessing and not a burden. 

Media Openness Award (“Mopee”): The Badger Project 

This nonpartisan, nonprofit and citizen-supported investigative reporting outlet, led by managing editor Peter Cameron, pulled back the veil on police officers who are disciplined and even fired for misconduct only to be hired by other law enforcement agencies. It has filed lawsuits to pry loose relevant records against two police departments (La Crosse and Wausau) and used a list maintained by the state Department of Justice to shine a light on these cases. The outlet’s reporting on this issue began in 2021, when it revealed that nearly 200 Wisconsin officers have been rehired after being fired or forced out, and it is ongoing. 

Citizen Openness Award (“Copee”): Friends of Frame Park 

Concerned about a proposed baseball stadium that would have transformed a local park in Waukesha, this group of local residents fought all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to defend the public’s right to access records regarding the details of the plan, such as how much it would cost taxpayers. Sadly, the court’s conservative majority, in a 4-3 vote, reversed an appellate court ruling and gutted the fee-shifting provisions in the state’s open records law, for which a legislative fix is now being sought. 

Open Records Scoop of the Year (“Scoopee”): “Cash Not Care,” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 

The state’s largest newspaper proved its mettle for the umpteenth time in this powerful series of articles by reporters Cary Spivak and Mary Spicuzza. They examined the high infant mortality among Black people in Wisconsin while exposing malfeasance in a shadowy network of businesses known as prenatal care coordination companies. They spent months filing public records requests, reviewing thousands of pages of documents, conducting interviews and doing shoe-leather reporting. The series led to increased scrutiny of these companies by state officials.

Whistleblower of the Year (“Whoopee”): Mike Meier 

This member of the Wauwatosa School Board alleged that the board met improperly to discuss how to respond to a records request and that he was punished by the board president for being more open than necessary. Meier is a quoted source in several articles about a school administrator who helped steer a contract to consultants who employed her husband. In the end, both the administrator and board president resigned. Pushing back against the charge that he revealed too much, Meier said, “Our whole system counts on the elected officials being watched in the public square as to how they conduct their business.” 

No Friend of Openness (“Nopee”): The Madison Metropolitan School District

It’s rare for a public institution that depends on taxpayer support to be as awful as this one when it comes to public records and accountability. The district, through spokesperson Tim LeMonds, has become notorious for outrageous delays and excuses, prompting multiple lawsuits alleging violations of the records law. Tom Kamenick, the president and founder of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, wrote in an email to the Capital Times that he has “received more complaints about MMSD than any other government agency.” It is time for the district’s casual contempt for the public’s right to know to come to a screeching halt.

Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council names ‘Opee’ winners is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Many people in Wisconsin are under the impression that the disastrous probe into the state’s 2020 presidential election conducted by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman is over, as are its costs to taxpayers. They’re wrong.

The probe, conducted over 14 months by Gableman at the behest of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, failed to find any evidence of significant fraud. It did, however, reveal ample evidence of incompetence on the part of Gableman and his team, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), including multiple spelling errors. It also led to contempt charges against both Vos and Gableman, and to a judge’s referral of Gableman to the office that regulates attorney conduct for his disgraceful behavior during a court proceeding.

Vos, whose name the OSC routinely rendered as “Voss,” fired Gableman last August, after relations between the two had soured to where Gableman endorsed the speaker’s GOP primary opponent. At the time, the cost of the probe and associated records battles was tallied at more than $1.1 million, all paid for with taxpayer dollars. Remarked state Sen. Melissa Agard (D-Madison): “I’m glad that Speaker Vos has stopped the bleeding for these tax dollars going to a sham investigation.”

In fact, the bleeding never stopped. The amount paid by taxpayers now stands at more than $2 million, including nearly $1.5 million in legal fees, according to a report by WisPolitics.com; it could yet rise by hundreds of thousands more. That’s in part because Vos and attorneys for OSC are continuing to drag out litigation over the four records-related lawsuits brought by American Oversight, a liberal watchdog group.

One case, involving contractors’ records controlled by Vos, awaits resolution on various issues, including whether American Oversight can recover its in-house counsel fees. Vos is arguing, against logic and history, that attorneys who work for a group bringing a fight cannot recover their fees. A second case, involving records in Vos’ own files, is being briefed in the circuit court on attorneys’ fees; which Vos is contending are too high, though they are well within the norm. 

A third case, in which a judge ruled in American Oversight’s favor and awarded it $197,510 in attorneys’ fees, is being appealed over every aspect, including attorneys’ fees and a contempt finding against the OSC. The group’s attorney, Jim Bopp, received permission from the court to file a 35,000-word brief, more than three times the usual limit. In this case, according to WisPolitics.com, “Assembly Republicans have already spent more fighting a judge’s order that they cover legal fees for American Oversight than the $197,510 taxpayers are currently on the hook to pay.”

A fourth case, regarding preservation of OSC records, remains pending.

In all of these legal challenges, taxpayers are footing the bill for the outside counsel; if American Oversight prevails, which I think is likely, taxpayers will also have to cover the group’s legal costs.   

“All of this could have been avoided if Speaker Vos and OSC had simply followed the law” by preserving and providing records of their investigation, says Heather Sawyer, executive director at American Oversight.

Enough already. It’s time for Vos and the Legislature to truly turn off the spigot of tax dollars flowing into this ill-begotten cause.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the council’s president.

Your Right to Know: Wisconsin taxpayers still paying for election fraud probe records fights is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Most of the time, public officials in Wisconsin obey the state’s openness laws. Sometimes, they need a little prodding from the courts. But the recent conduct of Robin Vos and Michael Gableman is something altogether new, and deeply disturbing.

Both Vos, the speaker of the state Assembly, and Gableman, whom Vos hired at taxpayer expense (more than $1 million and counting) to look for fraud in the 2020 election, have been cited for contempt of court regarding open records requests.

Vos, the architect of a failed 2015 attempt to gut the state’s open records law, was held in contempt by Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn, for failing to produce records as ordered or explain why he couldn’t. He responded by lashing out at Bailey-Rihn, calling her “a liberal judge in Dane County trying to make us look bad.” Bailey-Rihn later opted not to impose penalties for contempt, but Vos (read: taxpayers) might yet have to pay associated legal costs.

Similarly, Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington found Gableman’s Office of Special Counsel in contempt over its handling of records requests and referred the former justice to the Office of Lawyer Regulation for possible disciplinary action for his disgraceful conduct during a court proceeding.

Gableman sneeringly refused to answer questions from Christa Westerberg, an attorney representing American Oversight, a group seeking records regarding Gableman’s probe, and vice president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

Gableman’s conduct was “misogynistic” and “an affront to the judicial process and an insult to Atty. Westerberg,” Remington wrote in his contempt order. “The circus Gableman created in the courtroom destroyed any sense of decorum and irreparably damaged the public’s perception of the judicial process.”

Gableman is appealing the $2,000-per-day penalty as “grossly disproportionate to the violation.”

At a subsequent hearing in which he managed to maintain his composure, Gableman admitted that he has routinely destroyed records he considers not relevant to his investigation.

“Did I delete documents? Yes, I did,” he told the court. These include his notes from trips he took on the taxpayer’s dime to Arizona to watch the widely ridiculed recount and to South Dakota to hear My Pillow founder Mike Lindell make baseless allegations of electoral fraud. (“I didn’t find anything that I could use during that seminar,” Gableman testified.)

Indiana attorney James Bopp Jr., representing Gableman’s Office of Special Counsel, argued in an April 8 letter that, absent a pending records request, there is no statutory requirement that records be preserved. But the Wisconsin Legislative Council, a nonpartisan service agency, had previously determined that this office was required to retain these records.

That’s right: Bopp declared from his perch in Indiana that he knew more about Wisconsin’s rules than the state itself. Gableman attained the same level of hubris in contending to reporters, “If I had to keep every scrap of paper I would do nothing else. I would need a warehouse.”

Really? A warehouse? How many taxpayer-funded records has Gableman destroyed?

In fact, released records reveal, among other things, that the work for which Gableman was pocketing $11,000 per month (it has since been cut in half) was, in the estimation of Judge Bailey-Rihn, “minimal.” Gableman is now being sued again by American Oversight, over his destruction of records.

Clearly, the state Legislature must do a better job of ensuring that those it hires are complying with their obligations under the state’s transparency laws. And Robin Vos and Michael Gableman should be held accountable for treating these laws with contempt.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders, former editor and now editor-at-large of The Progressive, is the group’s president.

Your Right to Know: When transparency is treated with contempt is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A citizen concerned about plans to develop a city park, an alderperson who felt his
colleagues broke the law and a district attorney who filed charges against a town
for open records violations are among the winners in this year’s Openness Awards,
or Opees, bestowed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

The awards, announced today in advance of national Sunshine Week
(sunshineweek.org), March 13-19, recognize outstanding efforts to protect the
state’s tradition of open government — and highlight some threats to it.

This is the 16th consecutive year that Opees have been awarded. They will be
presented at the Wisconsin Watchdog Awards reception and dinner, on Thursday,
April 21, at the Madison Club in Madison, beginning at 5 p.m.

Online registration for the 2022 Wisconsin Watchdog Awards reception and dinner

“Like all areas of civic life, the pursuit of transparency in government has heroes
and villains, both of whom deserve recognition,” said Bill Lueders, council
president. “Our openness laws are only as strong as our willingness to defend
them.”

The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, a nonpartisan group that seeks to
promote open government, consists of about two dozen members representing
media and other public interests. Sponsoring organizations include the Wisconsin
Newspaper Association, Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and the Madison
Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Awards are being given this year in six categories. The winners are:

Citizen Openness Award (“Copee”): Christine Brennan

When a proposed Fond du Lac park redevelopment didn’t pass the smell test, this citizen asked to see the records of communications between public officials and project backers. When the city asked her for $6,888 on top of the $1,000 she had already paid to locate these records, she balked. Her experience helped raise public awareness of abusive location fee costs and led to better methods for archiving records in Fond du Lac. And the released records spurred a backlash against the project and the city council members who supported it.

Political Openness Award (“Popee”): Winnebago County District Attorney’s Office

While state district attorneys have statutory authority to bring open records and open meeting enforcement actions, they seldom do. But Eric Sparr, the deputy district attorney of Winnebago County, and his boss, District Attorney Christian Gossett, cut against the grain when they charged Town of Omro officials on eight counts for open records violations. A hearing on the charges is set for March 11.

Honorable mention: Tony Evers

Wisconsin’s governor this year vetoed a bill that unanimously passed both houses of the Legislature to create a new legislative human resources office with built-in secrecy provisions. He also proposed in his budget to raise the threshold for when records custodians can tack on location costs from $50 to $100.

Media Openness Award (“Mopee”): Isiah Holmes, Wisconsin Examiner

Holmes and this online news outlet have made prodigious use of the state’s open records law to unearth often shocking information on Wauwatosa’s police department, which deemed Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride a “target” and maintained a watchlist of protesters and that Holmes himself was on for covering the protests as a journalist. Exposing such abuses serves the highest purpose of our open records law.

Open Records Scoop of the Year (“Scoopee”): The  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin’s largest daily paper and reporters including John Diedrich, Raquel Rutledge and Daphne Chen used city inspection reports and other records to produce a series of stories that exposed how dangerous electrical wiring has for years been causing fires and claiming victims in Milwaukee rental units. The series, “Wires and Fires,” spurred city officials to seek ways to prevent these fires from occurring.

Whistleblower of the Year: Douglas Oitzinger 

This alderperson in the city of Marinette stood up to his fellow city council members in favor of transparency when he filed suit in December alleging that they had improperly gone into closed session to discuss water supply options. “This is about open government,” he told the local paper. “That’s all it’s about.”

No Friend of Openness (“Nopee”): Michael Gableman and Robin Vos

What exactly is Gableman, a former state Supreme Court justice, doing for the $676,000 in taxpayer funds that Vos, the speaker of the state Assembly, agreed to pay him? Neither Gableman nor Vos seem to want people to know, despite a judge’s finding that their “denials, delays, and refusals” violate the records law. In fact, so few records have been provided in response to records requests that there is speculation that records are being destroyed. So is the state’s tradition of open government.

Related content: Nominations sought for 2022 Distinguished Wisconsin Watchdog Award

Online registration for the 2022 Wisconsin Watchdog Awards reception and dinner

Open Records Scoop of the Year (“Scoopee”): The Milwaukee Journal
Sentinel
Wisconsin’s largest daily paper and reporters including John Diedrich, Raquel
Rutledge and Daphne Chen used city inspection reports and other records to
produce a series of stories that exposed how dangerous electrical wiring has for
years been causing fires and claiming victims in Milwaukee rental units. The
series, “Wires and Fires,” spurred city officials to seek ways to prevent these fires
from occurring.
Whistleblower of the Year: Douglas Oitzinger
This alderperson in the city of Marinette stood up to his fellow city council
members in favor of transparency when he filed suit in December alleging that
they had improperly gone into closed session to discuss water supply options.
“This is about open government,” he told the local paper. “That’s all it’s about.”
No Friend of Openness (“Nopee”): Michael Gableman and Robin Vos
What exactly is Gableman, a former state Supreme Court justice, doing for the
$676,000 in taxpayer funds that Vos, the speaker of the state Assembly, agreed to
pay him? Neither Gableman nor Vos seem to want people to know, despite a
judge’s finding that their “denials, delays, and refusals” violate the records law. In
fact, so few records have been provided in response to records requests that there is
speculation that records are being destroyed. So is the state’s tradition of open
government.

Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council names ‘Opee’ winners is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

It happens all the time. 

A member of the public or representative of the press will file a request under Wisconsin’s open records law, which applies to all state and local government entities. But instead of records, the requester gets a bill.

“The city will require pre-payment in full before we begin fulfilling your request,” read one such response, dated March 17, to a citizen requester by the assistant city attorney of Fond du Lac. “Please remit $642.42 to cover the above-referenced costs.” The notice said this was just an estimate and, if necessary, “we will bill you for the additional cost.”

Two weeks earlier, the same assistant city attorney demanded that the same citizen requester, Christine Brennan, pay $6,887.79 on top of the $1,000 she had already remitted to cover the cost of locating records in a different request.

Wisconsin’s open records law, passed in 1981, allows records custodians to charge for the “actual, necessary and direct” cost of making and sending copies, as well as the “actual, necessary and direct” cost of locating them, if this latter charge exceeds $50. And even though these searches are supposed to be done by the lowest-paid employee capable of performing the task, they often add up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars, causing many requesters to walk away without receiving the records to which they are entitled.

In some cases, this may be the intended result.

Last November, the Wisconsin Examiner news website reported on a 2016 email it has obtained in which Wauwatosa Police Department Detective John Milotzky advised a colleague that “many departments combat the issue (of records requests) by charging a high price to fill those requests, so maybe that’s something to look at in the future.”

In years past, some custodians even charged requesters for the time it took them to pore over records looking for things to black out, until the state Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that this was not an allowable cost. But custodians are still finding ways to demand huge sums from people seeking public information.

In Fond du Lac, the $1,000 that citizen requester Brennan paid to obtain records regarding a proposed (and subsequently approved) park development project using public funds yielded a 2019 email from a city council member advising others involved in this process, “Please keep that we are in talks on this on the down low. Stakeholders should be the only people who know that these conversations are happening.”    

Officials who behave this way should not be able to escape accountability by making the cost of locating the records that prove their perfidy unaffordable.

Gov. Tony Evers, in his proposed executive budget, calls for raising the threshold at which custodians can charge location fees to $100. Adjusted for inflation, $50 in 1981 is nearly $150 today. 

This welcome measure deserves bipartisan support, as it protects the ability of all citizens to obtain public records. But the Legislature should go further, and consider ending location fees altogether. Their use invites abuse and creates a disincentive for custodians to efficiently maintain and retrieve records. 

If a government office actually must spend $7,000 of staff time to locate records, perhaps it needs a better filing system.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders, the editor of The Progressive, is the council’s president.

Your Right to Know: Record location fees invite abuses is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

For the 15th consecutive year, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is presenting its Openness in Government Awards, or Opees, recognizing outstanding achievement in the cause of transparency. Several of this years’ awards are related to the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced wholesale changes in how government officials conduct the public’s business. All are predicated on upholding the public’s right to know. 

And the winners are: 

Media Openness Award (“Mopee”): Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 

Even in tough times, the state’s largest paper blazed a trail for open government. It fought recalcitrant officials to do records-based reporting on COVID-19 in long-term care facilities and meatpacking plants. It intervened in a lawsuit to oppose efforts to shield the names of businesses with COVID-19 cases. And it joined with other litigants in suing the state Legislature over its refusal to release records regarding misconduct investigations. 

Political Openness Award (“Popee”): Milwaukee County 

While some public entities embraced secrecy over COVID-19, this municipality was among the first in the nation to release racial and ethnic data linked to the pandemic. The county created a public dashboard of demographic information about cases, hospitalizations and deaths — data then used by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters and other members of the public. 

Citizen Openness Award (“Copee”): John Doe 

This unnamed person, represented by attorney Tom Kamenick of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, successfully sued the Madison Metropolitan School District to enforce the ability of citizens to get records anonymously, as the Open Records Law explicitly allows. (Too bad we’re not having an awards ceremony this year; he could have come incognito.) 

Open Records Scoop of the Year (“Scoopee”): Tie: Molly Beck, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Emily Hamer, Wisconsin State Journal 

Beck broke the story that Jim Troupis, President Donald Trump’s lead election lawyer in Wisconsin, filed a list of names of Wisconsin residents he claimed had cast illegal absentee votes which included himself and his wife. Beck checked the county’s list of absentee voters to confirm that Troupis was literally trying to disallow his own vote.

Meanwhile, the State Journal distinguished itself with Hamer’s persistent reporting on COVID-19 in the state’s prisons, including protracted efforts to procure relevant records and the development of courageous sources to reveal dangerous practices within the prison system. 

Whistleblower of the Year (“Whoopee”): Peter Tharp 

This municipal judge sued his tiny village of Roberts in St. Croix County over its failure to respond to more than 80 record requests made over a three-year period. In October, the village agreed to settle, providing more than 1,500 records and paying $7,500 in fees, costs and damages. Tharp also had his attorney, Tom Kamenick, file a complaint identifying deficiencies in the village’s Open Meetings practices, and send a letter urging improvement, which Kamenick says it has pledged to do. 

No Friend of Openness (“Nopee”): The UW System 

The state university system conducted its search for a new president in a shroud of secrecy, until only one finalist was left. Then that lone finalist backed out, in part due to the outcry over the process. The Board of Regents were forced to restart the process from scratch, urged by the Wisconsin State Journal to “learn from their mistakes.” That would be nice. 

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the group’s president.

The ‘Opees’ in the age of COVID-19 is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Last January, a person involved in local emergency management asked the Office of Open Government, part of the state Justice Department, whether emergency preparedness coalitions run by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) are subject to the state’s open meetings and open records laws.

The answer to this question, it turns out, is yes. These laws apply to the state’s seven Wisconsin Regional Healthcare Emergency Readiness Coalitions, critical entities in the age of COVID-19, meaning their meetings must be noticed and open to the public.

But arriving at this answer took nearly a year, which should not have happened.

The Office of Open Government replied to that Jan. 9 query nearly nine months later, on Sept. 29. Its response letter, one of 19 issued during the third quarter of 2020, was posted online in late October.

These long waits for response letters have been the norm for at least the last decade, even though they average only about two per week and consist largely of boilerplate used in previous letters. But eliminating this backlog has not been a priority under Attorney General Josh Kaul or his two predecessors, J.B. Van Hollen and Brad Schimel.

Moreover, these responses often fall short of providing clear answers. In the case at hand, the Office of Open Government laid out a complex analysis of operative court rulings, then said it “cannot make a definitive determination” as to whether the laws apply to these coalitions.

And so on October 28, I emailed Jeff Phillips, director of DHS’s Office of Preparedness and Emergency Health Care, asking whether the state’s openness laws applied to these coalitions. My subject line was “Quick question.” If only. 

Phillips contacted other DHS officials, prompting an exchange of emails that carefully avoided discussing the matter in any detail. This is an increasingly common strategy employed to keep useful information away from someone like me who might ask for email records (which I did). Rather, the officials arranged to meet online to arrive at a response.

After a number of these meetings took place without resolution, Phillips, who handled the matter with professionalism and cheer, emailed me on Nov. 25 to affirm that, yes, the state’s openness laws do apply to these coalitions. He said the DHS’s legal eagles will be providing the coalitions with “guidance as necessary.”

That’s good, because earlier that same day, the head of one of these coalitions responded to my request to attend its upcoming meeting by asking, “What healthcare preparedness organization are you with?” When I said I was just a member of the public hoping to observe a government meeting, there was no reply.

In my opinion, it should always have been clear that these meetings (where, truly, nothing nefarious happens) are open; public officials, in parsing these matters, should err on the side of openness, if they err at all. 

That’s the message that Attorney General Kaul and Gov. Tony Evers should be sending to state and local officials. But, in truth, both of them could do better in terms of providing leadership on issues related to open government. 

The state’s openness laws should not be seen as a burden, but as a way for public officials to build trust with the people they represent. Wisconsin needs a stronger commitment to transparency, from the top on down.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders, the editor of The Progressive, is the group’s president.

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (wisconsinwatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

Your Right to Know: State must do more to promote openness is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.