Transparency the focus at council meeting, from public comment to closed-session debate

Questions about transparency and communication ran through the July 13 Rhinelander Common Council meeting, surfacing first during public comment over the city administrator’s resignation (see related story) and later in an extended council discussion — and pointed legal explanation from city attorney Steve Sorenson — over how the city words its closed-session notices.
Alderman Tom Barnett opened public comment by criticizing what he called a failure in leadership and professional courtesy surrounding the recent resignation of city administrator Patrick Reagan. Reagan tendered his resignation in a letter to Mayor Hanus dated July 7. He is leaving to take a city manager position in Ste. Sault Marie, Mich.
“While I understand there is no legal requirement to notify City Council (members) of the city administrator’s resignation before it becomes public, there is a difference between what is legally required and what is ethically appropriate,” Barnett said. He noted the council is the body responsible for hiring the city administrator, and said learning of the resignation “through local media rather than through official communication from the administration was disrespectful and demonstrated a lack of professionalism.”
“It sends the message that the council is viewed as an afterthought instead of as partners in governing our city,” Barnett said. “Good leadership is built on communication, transparency, and mutual respect.”
A second public comment, from resident Mike Hendricks of West Wind Drive, raised similar frustrations over communication from the administration, though on a separate matter tied to the Legacy Preserve development and the proposed extension of West Wind Drive.

Hendricks began by once again reiterating that he and his neighbors are not opposed to the development itself. “I’m going to start with the perception that all of us who keep speaking against this are against the development because we’re not,” he said. “We’re in favor of the development. The only thing we’re against is the extension of West Wind Drive. ... Everyone there was in favor of the development.”
He then described difficulty understanding the city’s process for weighing in before decisions are finalized. “I’ve been at two planning commission meetings and a previous council meeting, spoke at my piece, elections have — or I’m sorry — votes have gone forward, and at the end of it, Mayor Hanus has said basically that what we’re talking about doesn’t matter at this point,” Hendricks said. “My big concern is that by the time it does matter, or I have an opportunity to speak where it matters, or I understand it matters, whatever that may be, it’s too late, and since I don’t understand this process, I don’t know when that’ll be.”
Hendricks said he emailed his council representative, the city administrator and the mayor asking for guidance and got no response. “I sent our council person, the administrator, and the mayor — the three of them — an email asking for some guidance, and I heard diddly squat,” he said. “Now maybe they’re all busy and whatever. That’s fine, but I heard zip. ... “
He said the experience left him feeling that public comment carries little practical weight unless an item is formally on the agenda. “The one thing I have learned is me standing up here, whether it was four years ago talking about a trail for going from Phillip Street to West Hill or this, me standing up here talking doesn’t matter,” Hendricks said. “Whatever it is needs to be on the agenda, and then I would hope we’d have an opportunity to speak about something on the agenda, and it would matter. The ship has sailed according to our legal counsel from the very first planning commission meeting that I was at.”
(In a July 15 interview, Hanus told the Star Journal he understands Hendricks’ frustrations and is working to set up a face-to-face meeting to answer his questions).
Council debates closed-session notice language
Later in the meeting, under new business, the council took up a discussion requested by alderman Gerald Anderson regarding the statutory language the city uses when announcing closed sessions.
Anderson told the council he had researched how the city’s closed-session notices compare with the state’s open meetings statute and with examples from other local governmental bodies, mostly Oneida County. He said most of those other bodies include not just the statutory exemption being cited, but some description of the topic to be discussed.
“I talked with Mr. Sorenson, who indicated that there are concerns and legal cases about giving too much or too little information on the topic, and that there’s a balancing there,” Anderson said. “But to give nothing probably isn’t right.”
Anderson said he compared the language the city used the last time a closed session appeared on the agenda against the statute and concluded it included “both too much and too little information.” He proposed simplifying the process going forward: a presiding officer would state the specific reason for the closed session, and the council member making the motion would need only say a short, standard line invoking that stated purpose.
Alderman Stephen Jopek said he supported more clarity, telling the council that after a constituent raised concerns, he went back and reread a past closed-session notice and still couldn’t determine what the closed session had actually been about beyond a general reference to potential litigation.
“I would appreciate maybe a little bit more elaboration on what we’re going into, so that I know that when I’m voting to go into closed session, that I know what I’m going into closed session for,” he said.
Alderwoman Linnea Newman said her experience on the Oneida County board showed that even brief topic descriptions serve a purpose beyond informing council members. “It lets my constituents know if they want to show up before the closed session and make a public comment,” she said, “and when there’s no information, I know I’m going in if I’m a member of the city council, but my constituents don’t know if they want to show up.”
Council President Carrie Mikalauski asked to hear directly from the city’s legal counsel on the matter.
Sorenson: ‘I don’t think that we’ve ever deceived this community’
City attorney Steve Sorenson gave an extended response defending the city’s approach while acknowledging some room for improvement. He described Wisconsin’s open meetings law as serving two competing purposes — providing the public with information and protecting confidentiality — and said courts have established a “balancing test” that governs how much detail a closed-session notice must include.
“It’s my role as your attorney to balance the information that could go into that notice versus the ability to protect the person, the incident, the activity, until we know for sure that it’s really viable discussion,” Sorenson said.
He stressed that no formal action can be taken during a closed session itself. “You can’t vote on anybody or anything. You can’t demote. You can’t buy property. You can’t do anything in closed session except learn, learn information,” Sorenson said. “And if you determine that information is not confidential, then you come out and you can talk about it. That’s your right.”
Sorenson pointed to a recent instance in which the council declined to enter a closed session because members felt the notice lacked sufficient detail, saying he stood by his decision not to disclose more at the time. “I made the determination that to put the information in there would have hurt somebody, and it was somebody that since then has proven it wasn’t even an issue,” he said. “I’m kind of glad you didn’t go into closed session because some of you may have not abided by confidentiality, and that person could have been hurt. But as it is, they weren’t hurt, and they weren’t hurt by the notice.”
He then addressed the transparency question directly. “I can tell you, I don’t just randomly throw things into these notices. I don’t try to deceive the public. I’ve got no reason to deceive,” Sorenson said. “What I do is I try to protect the city of Rhinelander and the people that are involved.”
Sorenson acknowledged the city’s recent notices haven’t always been as clear as they should be, saying a past notice improperly combined three separate topics into one. “We combined three different topics into one notice. We shouldn’t have,” he said. “It should have been A is this item, B is this item, C is this item, and in the future we’ll make sure that that’s done clearly. ... I’ll take blame for that.”
He added that he has taught open meetings law to attorneys and municipal clerks across the state for more than 40 years. “So, I don’t think that we’ve ever deceived this community. I don’t think that we haven’t ever sent you into a meeting ill prepared,” Sorenson said. “But if you want more information, we can try. But I’m not going to put people in jeopardy. That’s not my role.”
Jopek followed up by asking Sorenson to clarify how the city could better state the “nature of the business” required under the state’s exemption statute without compromising confidentiality. Sorenson responded with a hypothetical example, explaining that a notice citing “possible litigation” is intentionally broad because the council itself may not yet know whether formal legal action will follow.
“That’s why that sounds generic,” Sorenson said. “I know that sounds generic, but for the public, it’s about litigation. And if it really is going to be litigation, we’ll come out and we’ll talk about it.”
He said overly specific notices in a small community can inadvertently identify the person or matter involved even without naming names. “You don’t get specific because you’re in a small town and it doesn’t take anybody more than a minute to figure out [who it’s about],” Sorenson said. “We don’t want that because that could give a misconception too. That’s the balancing test.”
Sorenson agreed to work with the city clerk going forward to give clearer, itemized notice language when future closed sessions cover multiple topics.
Anderson, closing the discussion, said his view of open government had evolved somewhat since he first joined the council. “When I ran for council, I had the idea that public business should be open to the public, and I kind of had the idea that I might vote no on all of these sort of [closed sessions],” Anderson said. “I especially learned that there is a use for them, and a need for them in some situations. But I still think it’s very important that we be fully informed of what we’re getting into, and that the public be as informed as possible.”
No formal motion was made on the closed-session notice language; Anderson said he was raising the issue for discussion rather than a vote. The public is encouraged to view the full council meeting which is available at www.hodagtv.com.