Update: Mount Pleasant Trustee Says Board Violating Open Meetings Law

Editor's Note: Patch received an email message from Trustee Karen Albeck in which she said she is reconsidering filing her complaint with the Racine County District Attorney's office given the remarks quoted here by Village President Carolyn Milkie. Here is what Albeck wrote:

I noticed your comment attributed to Carolyn regarding performance evaluations.  

Although it is true that that was listed as a reason for the closed sessions, you should (sic) really should have sought more information.

Though I have no interest in getting into an argument about this with Carolyn in the press, the truth is that no performance evaluations were conducted during those two closed sessions, therefore the sessions need not have been closed.  

I find it highly regretable that a public official would seek to misrepresent such things to the citizens and the media. The fact that that is now being done causes me to reconsider submitting my complaint to the DA.

Original post:

Mount Pleasant Village Trustee Karen Albeck says she has long objected to the number of closed session meetings scheduled and finally decided to take her concerns to the full Village Board.

At the Aug. 1 work meeting, she forced a discussion that affectively canceled the meeting and instead, board members adjourned and went home.

The meeting was scheduled as a closed session work meeting to discuss the duties and responsibilities of the Finance Department. Nothing directly related to personnel performance was being addressed.

"I believe these work meetings should be held in open session," Albeck said. "I was told they would be, but this was the third meeting scheduled for closed session."

Previous meetings to review the Clerk/Treasurer's office and Administrative were both held in closed session.

Albeck said she sent email messages (see attached) to Village President Carolyn Milkie stating her concerns, but when she received no response, Albeck contacted Racine County District Attorney Michael Nieskes. She said she learned trustees have the right to object to going into closed session and while she could have filed a formal complaint to spark an investigation, Albeck said she chose to address the issue with the board.

She was also bolstered by the 50-page document from the Attorney General's office outlining the open meeting law and reasons for closed session. Based on the information she had, Albeck felt the village board was violating the open meetings law.

"I followed the advice of Mr. Nieskes who said the whole point of bringing this up was to stop the closed sessions from happening except when necessary," Albeck said. "The issue really is about process, not people. The goal is more transparency."

Trustee Gary Feest agreed, saying he only wants a fair and open government. He wasn't comfortable with the wording for the closed sessions and didn't feel the content fit for closed session.

"Unless personal information, hiring and firing or confidential financial information is being disclosed, we shouldn't be in closed session," he said. "So I asked, after Karen raised her objection, why we were going into closed session. Had a reason been offered, I would have had something to think about, but because nothing was said, I had to vote no."

Feest said he hopes the board will re-notice the meeting as open session with the possibility of going into closed session should something come up that requires confidentiality.

But Village President Carolyn Milkie said moving forward, department heads will prepare a synopsis of what their department does for the village and that summary will be placed in a packet for trustees to review. Then, after everyone feels comfortable with the materials, a meeting will be scheduled.

"The goal was always for the board to become more familiar with what the departments do every day," she said.

Work meetings were held in closed session so trustees could have the opportunity to express their opinions of operations so a little bit of review was expected, Milkie added.

Trustee Jerry Garski said he feels the same as Albeck and the reasons for closed session meetings are severely limited.

"Unless we're talking about performance reviews or negotiating property purchases, we should be in open session," he said. "Transparency in government is too important."

Sonny Havn agreed but added that he believes Albeck should have shared her information beforehand so the meeting could have been canceled.

"I just have a problem with all that information not being shared," he said. "It only takes two trustees to cancel a meeting and then we could have moved the discussion to the next board meeting."