By Patricia Bogumil
Interim Editor
A letter has been sent by Southern Lakes Newspapers to commissioners of the Town of Waterford Sanitary District (WSD), warning them that further violations of the state Open Meetings Law will be referred to authorities for investigation.
“As a community newspaper, we have an obligation to help ensure that taxpayers, as well as our news reporters, have full access to district business the law says should be conducted in public rather than behind closed doors,” explained Ed Nadolski, editor-in-chief of Southern Lakes Newspapers, which publishes the Waterford Post.
If further violations of the state Open Meetings law continue, he added, the newspaper will file a complaint with authorities.
At issue is a June 13 closed WSD meeting held at the Town Hall. It had been requested by WSD Treasurer Donna Block to discuss employee retirement and other benefits that have been criticized as excessive.
But shortly after the closed meeting began, the Board abandoned the benefits discussion at the direction of Board President Bill Gerard and instead veered into a group discussion about hostile comments from the public directed at four employees who were in attendance.
The June 13 agenda cited an exemption to state law in scheduling a closed rather than open meeting to consider “employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data” of the four employees, namely “District Administrator Nelson, the District Operations Superintendent Nelson, the Accounts Clerk Thompson and the Operations Assistant Ignatowski.”
Bob Dreps, an attorney with the Madison law firm of Godfrey and Kahn, is an expert in Wisconsin’s open meetings and open records laws.
State law allows neither the general discussion of benefits expected by Block nor the actual discussion of hostile comments conducted by Gerard to be done behind closed doors, according to Dreps.
State law allows for discussion of a particular employee’s on-the-job performance or compensation to be discussed in private rather than public, he explained.
But that law does not allow a closed meeting for a general policy discussion about benefits budgeted for various positions, Dreps explained.
On June 13, the meeting started out in open session to discuss other WSD business.
But once the benefits issue came up on the agenda, a handful of residents in attendance, as well as a Waterford Post reporter, were told to leave.
The four WSD employees who had earlier been invited to attend the closed session did so.
Gerard told a Post reporter June 15 that he quickly “put a stop” to discussion of employee benefits and instead went ahead with discussing the hostile comments from the public.
The WSD board later re-convened into open session and voted unanimously to prepare a letter of support for its employees.
“This is not the kind of discussion that can legally be held behind closed doors, and in fact there was absolutely no need for the Open Meetings Law to be disregarded,” said Nadolski.
Block told the Waterford Post that she has again requested that the benefits discussion she originally requested be placed back on another agenda. She has also asked that the WSD attorney review whether that discussion can be held in closed session or if it must be done in the open.
• In a related issue, former WSD commissioner Dan Dickinson has complained to the WSD Board via email that while they officially praise the idea of openness and “transparency,” he’s having a tough time getting an open records request filled by Debbie Nelson, the WSD office administrator.
After a recent exchange of emails between Dickinson and Nelson, Dickinson on June 20 downsized an earlier open records request he made in hopes of getting some – rather than none – of the compensation and benefits information he is looking to review.
His current request asks for the employment contracts of all three full-time WSD employees, capped at a cost of $30. As of press time Wednesday, that material had not been provided.
Dickinson said he has contacted the state Department of Justice about the records request issue.
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