Author: Tom Kamenick

How much does it cost to copy one piece of paper? If you ask records custodians in Wisconsin, many will tell you 25 cents. At least that’s what they charge. Is that number accurate? Commercial printers charge half that for small jobs, and bulk printing jobs can get as low as two cents per page. […]

Let’s say you request records from a public official under the state’s Open Records Law. Let’s say the official, though legally obligated to provide them, does not. Let’s say the records are not provided until after you hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit, at considerable expense. Have you won the case? Should you be […]

Imagine that a developer has been lobbying your local town board to approve a controversial development. You file a record request asking for all emails between that developer and the board’s three members. None of them have official government email accounts, so they search their personal emails. Two members each turn over more than 15 […]

Wisconsin’s tradition of government transparency rests on the state’s open records and open meetings laws. They declare that nearly every government document is open to public inspection, and nearly every meeting of groups formed to do governmental work must be open to the public. Unfortunately, those laws are woefully underenforced. District attorneys and the state’s […]