Racine says bills for outside lawyers in sealed case also secret
Racine city officials won't say how much they're paying an outside law firm to try to punish an alderman whose fight to get public records has been sealed by a judge.
They told the Racine Journal Times that the information is all part of the same big secret.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported on the case in September, prompting several media organizations to call for the case — currently before the Court of Appeals — to be unsealed.
Racine County Circuit Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz took the unusual step of sealing an entire lawsuit filed by Ald. Sandra Weidner to obtain public records about her own emails.
RELATED:In Racine County, a court dispute over access to public records is fought in secrecy
RELATED:City of Racine seeks sanctions against alderman who spoke about secret open records case
RELATED:Judge delays contempt hearing in secret Racine open records case
RELATED:Racine elected official found in contempt for discussing secret open records case
The news organizations' motion to intervene in the case, as well as the city's response in opposition, have been filed under seal with the appellate court.
The groups include the Journal Sentinel, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, Wisconsin Newspaper Association and Wisconsin Broadcasters Association.
Meanwhile, the Journal Times made a separate public records request for the billings from Meissner, Tierney, Fischer & Nichols SC, the Milwaukee law firm that has been representing the city throughout the case.
The request only sought invoices for legal services related to the city's efforts to have Weidner held in contempt after she spoke with the Journal Sentinel, which also obtained some records from the sealed case.
The Racine newspaper reported Thursday that it got the following response:
“The records you requested were submitted to the Court by the City in support of its request for attorney’s fees incurred in relation to the motion for contempt and were filed under seal pursuant to the Court’s seal orders.
"As such, the City is not at liberty to provide these records to you, given the seal orders in this case. Thus, your request for these records is denied."
Weidner was running for mayor in summer 2017 when City Attorney Scott Letteney called a closed-session meeting of the Executive Committee and urged all council members to attend. She said he gave a PowerPoint presentation of roughly 30 emails, most of which were hers, characterizing them as improper sharing of confidential information with the public.
The committee then recommended, and the Common Council approved, asking the city's ethics board for an advisory opinion on whether the emailing activities violated Racine's ethics ordinance.
Weidner said she and her attorney sought copies of the presentation's slides but were denied by Letteney, who said he could not disclose things presented or discussed in a closed session. So Weidner filed a petition for a court order under Wisconsin's open records law.
At the first hearing on the case, in January, Gasiorkiewicz sealed the entire case. It can't be found on CCAP, the state's online court records index, and if you search by the case number, the result says only that the case is sealed.
Court access and open government advocates say the usual procedure is to leave some trace of a case — especially one over access to public records — and only redact or restrict some specific information after providing notice and some explanation of the general reasons for the restrictions.
Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, one of the groups trying to get the case unsealed, called the city's denial of the billing records blatantly wrong.
"I think the denial of the information on how much the public is paying is clearly illegal and abusive, and that people should be appalled, particularly the taxpayers of Racine."