Ozaukee County Clerk of Courts Mary Lou Mueller said an investigation sparked by Judge Joseph Voiland’s false accusations against her and two other court officials cost her more than $30,000 in legal fees. Neither that investigation nor a criminal probe that preceded it found any evidence to support Voiland’s claims that Mueller, Ozaukee County presiding […]
Tag: Wisconsin
Data tool aims to make operating budget ‘meaningful’ for city residents
The Madison city announced an interactive data tool Tuesday for residents to get a better idea of how the city is using its money. Read more… […]
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Wisconsin panel votes to purge cases from state online court database
Wisconsin's courts director is considering removing records of criminal cases that ended in dismissal or acquittals from the state's popular online courts database within months, rather than decades, out of concern that people are abusing the information.
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Important open meetings case before Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is to hear arguments in a case that could give school boards and other governmental bodies a way around the open meetings law.
The case up for argument Wednesday focuses on whether meetings of a committee created by employees of the Appleton Area School District to review books for use in a ninth grade class should have been open to the public.
More broadly the court will examine whether committees created in the same way that the one in Appleton was brought together allows them to be exempt from the law.
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Wi: State still slow to respond to some public records requests
Most state agencies are now systematically tracking requests for public records but can still take weeks to respond to relatively straightforward queries, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has found.
The newspaper made a records request to 22 key state agencies and officials to track their compliance with an order by Gov. Scott Walker in March 2016 seeking to strengthen the state's most important tool for providing information to the public.
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WI: Records of former teacher, subject of earlier Supreme Court decision, must be released, appeals court says
A former teacher and school district administrator whose personnel records were the subject of a state Supreme Court ruling 20 years ago cannot block release of those records, a state appeals court said Tuesday.
The District 3 Court of Appeals said that the New Richmond School District can release the personnel records of Thomas Woznicki, finding that he failed to show that public interest in disclosure of the records was outweighed by public interest in keeping them secret.
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Public Records Cases Among Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Docket for 2016-17
The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently released a table of 36 pending cases to be decided in the 2016-17 term. More cases will likely be added. A few of the high-profile cases involve open records and public law enforcement officials.
For instance, this week the court will hear oral argument in Democratic Party of Wisconsin v. Wisconsin Department of Justice, a case that began when Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel was the District Attorney for Waukesha County.
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WI: State agency violates records law
A Dane County judge on Monday ruled a state commission violated the open records law last year when it refused to quickly turn over information about a union election.
“I just find that (this case) is a violation of the open records law. I do believe it is appropriate for this court to enter a declaration to that effect,” Dane County Circuit Judge Peter Anderson said.
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Wisconsin Supreme Court to hear open records case
An open records case being fought by Attorney General Brad Schimel will go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The Republican who tries to position himself as a strong advocate of transparency and regularly holds training sessions for government officials on the open meetings and records laws is appealing to keep secret a pair of law enforcement training videos made when he was working as the Waukesha County district attorney.
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Court rules for disclosure of Wisconsin accident reports
A federal law protecting driver's license data does not allow Wisconsin police departments to withhold driver information from accident reports, the Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.
But whether that law might require such redaction in other kinds of reports would depend on what function police are serving by releasing the records, and whether the information was obtained directly from department of motor vehicle records, or merely verified with that information.
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