Shhh, it's a secret II

The state department of revenue, the local version of the IRS, will keep its own counsel of what constitutes the public good. Attorney General JB Van Hollen sided with the tax collectors and agreed it was in the public interest not to release the number of people contacted regarding enforcement of the tobacco tax.

The AP had requested a review of the department's refusal to release the information, arguing that it had to disclose how many people it had contacted seeking payment of sales taxes owed on purchases of cigarettes over the Internet.

The AP was only asking for numbers of people contacted, not their names or other identifying information.

But the request was rejected on the grounds that even releasing the total numbers would harm the public good by revealing tactics related to how the agency conducts audits. The Revenue Department argued in a Dec. 20 letter to the AP that disclosure of those numbers would encourage more people not to comply with the law "in areas where they understood their chances of being investigated were particularly low."

Revenue Secretary Roger Ervin told the AP in December that releasing that number would "neuter our ability to enforce the law."

The department's reason for withholding the information is "spectacularly lame," said Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

"They're making it clear as day that the reason they don't want to give up the number is it's such a small number it would encourage noncompliance," he said. "Just because the Department of Revenue is embarrassed that it's doing so little is not reason to hide that fact from the public."

Meanwhile, the Waukesha Freeman expresses in an editorial concern over the local secrecy trend (a trend I first noted here).

Whether it involves public meetings scheduled at inconvenient times, the bungling of an agenda, the withholding of information or plain old secret meetings, it seems some local officials aren’t as interested as they should be in keeping the workings of local government out in the open.

Waukesha is refusing to release an appraisal for land in the town of Waukesha it wants to use for two wells that would help with the city’s radium problem. The Waukesha Common Council met in closed session to discuss the appraisal, but the city won’t release it for citizens to see.

Last weekend, the Delafield Common Council, aka the Breakfast Club, met to close a tax incremental financing (TIF) district at 8:30 a.m. Saturday. The time was selected for the convenience of the council members and the public’s ability to attend and participate was given a back seat.

This week we’ve seen some other troubling open meeting activities.

First, Waukesha Mayor Larry Nelson had to apologize for leaving an item off the agenda that would have allowed the council to convene in open session after interviewing a candidate for the director of public works job in closed session. The announcement of the director’s hiring had to be delayed until the next day. It seems the mayor just made a mistake, but clearly the right of the public to have open access to their government was not a priority.

Also, the building committee for the Waukesha Public Library is meeting in closed session today to meet with architects regarding a $1.5 million expansion project.

All this in just a week. Not good.

Shhh.... It's a secret.

Following up on this post, we have another uncomfortable example.

The building committee of the Waukesha Public Library will meet in closed session Thursday afternoon to interview two architectural firms regarding a $1.5 million expansion.

When asked why the interviews with Frye Gillian Molinaro Architects and Enberg Anderson Design Partnership will be closed to the public, Joan Quinlin, Waukesha Public Library, said she had been in contact with the city attorney’s office regarding the agenda.

Because the meeting will include negotiations, it falls under the exemption in state law allowing a municipality to conduct negotiations in private.

Quinlin said the building committee will interview the two firms and make a recommendation to the library board, which will make the final selection.

The project, which would primarily add to the children’s section of the library, was a source of controversy on the common council during the city’s budgeting process last fall.

Maybe we should rename the city "Roswell".

(Ht: Fox Head and Spring City Chronicle)

Nelson's shades

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Darryl Enriquez questions the need for a closed session to hire Fred Abadi as the new public works director.

The problem is that he's supposed to be intervierwed by the council in closed session, and there's no notice on the agenda to reconvene into open session to formally hire him.

So, Mayor Larry Nelson said this aftrernoon that the vote would be taken in closed session. Abadi's hiring, if desired by the council, would then be announced by the mayor's office.

Nelson said it was a mistake that a reconvened open session was not put on the agenda.

If the interview was done in open session, and the closed session skipped altogether, there wouldn't be a problem.

But Nelson said he was following legal advice from the city attorney's office to conduct the council interview in closed session, where the public cannot hear the questions.

By mistake or design, an uncomfortable veil is hiding the government of the city from prying eyes. Last Autumn when the city administrator hiring process was being debated, the mayor objected to any attempt to make the process open, even objecting to aldermen not participating in the interviews from sitting in. The mayor is also fighting the release of an appraisal of land the city might purchase for the purpose of developing more wells, another request by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (Maybe someone will ask him about it on Thursday.)

During his campaign for mayor, the mayor handed out little bookmarks, "How To Build Community" with little sayings on it. Yes, I still have mine. One of the fortune cookie fillers, "Open your shades." Perhaps instead of asking the city attorney on advice on how to keep the shades closed, the mayor should be looking for excuses to open them.