District illegally withheld email addresses on its newsletter distribution list

In a win for government transparency yesterday, Rock County Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey S. Kuglitsch ruled that the School District of Beloit violated Wisconsin’s Open Records Law when it denied a request for email addresses from one of its distribution lists. The Judge ordered the district to produce those records and pay the requester’s attorney fees, court costs, and $100 in statutory damages.
Local resident MaryAnn Sveom brought the case after the district sent multiple emails promoting its $33 million referendums. In April of 2023, she requested the list of email addresses to which the newsletter had been sent, citing a recent Court of Appeals decision requiring the Mequon-Thiensville School District to release the same kind of records. When the district denied most of the request (releasing only its staff emails), Ms. Sveom sued in August of that year.
Judge Kuglitsch noted that this case was very similar to the Mequon-Thiensville case. In both cases, he noted, school districts had used taxpayer resources to send one-sided messages out to the public while denying the public access to the same audience. That was particularly troublesome, he reasoned, where the district was using the newsletter to promote its own view on the referendum.
“The public deserves access to the same channels of communication that our representatives use our money to develop,” said Tom Kamenick, President and Founder of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, which represents Ms. Sveom. “Districts and other government agencies across the state should know by now that their distribution lists are public records and must be disclosed.”
Ms. Sveom expressed her pleasure with the ruling while noting that Beloit’s illegal behavior had needlessly delayed release of this information at the taxpayer’s expense.
Judge Kuglitsch issued his ruling from the bench, with a written order to follow.
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