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Outlook
Verified Open Meetings Law Complaint - Village of Arena From Valley Sentinel <editor@valleysentinelnews.com> Date Fri 2025-03-28 3:06 PM To
zachary.leigh@da.wi.gov <zachary.leigh@da.wi.gov>
Cc
I 1 attachment (5 MB) VERIFIEDCOMPLAINT OPEN MEETINGS Arena March 2025 and evidence.pdf;
03-28-2025 District Attorney Leigh, Attached is a verified open meetings law complaint per Wis. Stat.§§ 19.96 and 19.97 regarding Village of Arena officials and a series of meetings that appear to have been held without proper notice, as well as other deficiencies. Despite the particularly egregious deficiencies in notice, Valley Sentinel attempted to educate and work with the Village to get information and encourage the Village to hold future meetings with proper notice. Education and a plea to the public interest have gone unanswered, with the Village instead holding a series of subsequent meetings with the same exact deficiencies pointed out to the Board all regarding a matter of great public interest, namely public health and safety within the Village. Our counsel is of the opinion that the shortcomings we raise here are similar and more significant that the recent Oitzinger v. City_of Marinette (No. 2024AP51, decided February 18, 2025, recommended for publication) decision that has been covered by media across the state. The violations include but are not necessarily limited to those identified in the complaint. Public records requests seeking information regarding some of the meetings have, upon information and belief, been answered inadequately by the Village's clerk, with public records being forged/fraudulently altered and concealed and may be the subject of additional complaints filed in Iowa County Circuit Court as well as complaints to your office. We have attached the complaint and documentation as a pdf file, please let us know if you need physical copies of the complaint or other documentation or if you need them in a different format. Our counsel, Atty. Gary Ernest Grass, has requested that he be notified if your office is declining to pursue this complaint, in order to consider independently pursuing action State ex rel under Wis. Stat. § 19.97(4). However, we welcome your thoughtful and unrushed deliberation on this. Attorney Grass can be reached at the email address carbon copied to this email. Unless otherwise notified, he will interpret a refusal to pursue these complaints as encompassing the violations of statute included in the complaints and any other violations identified upon review of the