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“Most people in Wisconsin, including public officials, have grown to appreciate the state’s traditions of open government,” said Bill Lueders, council president. “These awards are meant to encourage this trend.”
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, the chief author of Wisconsin’s Open Records Law and a strong advocate of the Open Meetings Law, has been named the 2013 recipient of the Distinguished WisconsinWatch.orgdog Award.
Wisconsin’s status as an open government hot spot is reflected in the National Freedom of Information Coalition’s decision to host its annual conference here this month. The 2012 FOI Summit, also held in collaboration with the Society of Professional Journalists, will be held at the Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club in downtown Madison on May 11 and 12.
Dick Wheeler, whose career was dedicated, first and foremost, to the Public’s Right to Know, died of a heart attack Nov. 11, as he was preparing for work. On April 25 he will be honored posthumously in Madison with the Distinguished WisconsinWatch.orgdog Award, presented by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and the Madison professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is bestowing its annual “Opee” Awards for openness in government. And Wisconsin state lawmakers have been tapped for both kinds of awards — good as well as bad.
A Columbia County Board committee met secretly last month to discuss changes in work rules that would affect hundreds of county employees. But as a consequence of Gov. Scott Walker’s law stripping collective bargaining rights from most public employees, such meetings must now be held in open session.
On issues of government openness, Gov. Scott Walker’s record has been mixed. He is not running the most open administration in history, as he pledged in an interview late last year, but he’s certainly not in a bunker.
When it passed the Open Meetings Act, the Legislature reserved for itself a unique exception: Members of the same party in the Senate and Assembly can meet secretly whenever and wherever they want.