(C) Wisconsin Watch
This story was originally published by Wisconsin Watch and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Your Right to Know: Opees honor efforts to promote transparency [1]
['Bill Lueders', 'Wisconsin Watch', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2024-03-06 12:00:00+00:00
Reading Time: 3 minutes
For the 18th straight year, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is recognizing outstanding efforts to protect the state’s tradition of open government through its Openness in Government awards, or Opees.
The awards are being presented as part of national Sunshine Week, March 10 to 16. Winners have been invited to claim their award at the Wisconsin Openness Awards Dinner in Madison on March 14, part of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s annual convention. Awards are being given this year in six categories. The winners are:
Public Openness Award (“Popee”): Curt Green
When a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigative team set out to gather information on state gun deaths due to suicide, it encountered some resistence. But Green, the coroner for Manitowoc County, grasped the value of this story and set to work providing what the paper said was “by far the most detailed” gun death data of any county in the state in the hopes of identifying patterns that could prevent future deaths. It’s great when public officials act with the “public” firmly in mind.
Media Openness Award (“Mopee”): Jacob Resneck
An investigative reporter with Wisconsin Watch, Resneck broke the story on how police agencies in Wisconsin are citing Marsy’s Law, the state constitutional amendment meant to protect victims’ rights, to shield the identity of police officers who shot someone, on grounds that the officers are victims of the people they shoot. He also made extensive use of public records to report on a police cadet who was fired after reporting that a fellow cadet had sexually assaulted her. And Resneck wrote a column for the council about police video and accountability.
Citizen Openness Award (“Copee”): Common Ground
This Milwaukee-based interfaith advocacy group launched a campaign last year to gather information, much of it from public records, on hazardous conditions inside affordable housing apartments. It then shared this information with tenants and journalists to push the Housing Authority of the city of Milwaukee to make improvements. Earlier this year, the group sounded an alarm about dangerously cold apartments, a “systemic problem” the housing authority has known about for years. Now everybody knows.
Bill Lueders
Open Records Scoop of the Year (“Scoopee”): Lucas Robinson
This Wisconsin State Journal reporter uncovered multiple instances in which the local sheriff’s department sought charges against guards at the state’s Green Bay Correctional facility for offenses including smuggling items into the prison for inmates to neglecting inmates. One inmate died after guards denied him a wheelchair to go to the infirmary, then failed to check on him. No guards were charged with crimes. Robinson’s reporting, as well as that of The New York Times and other news media outlets, prompted lawmakers to seek reforms.
Whistleblower of the Year (“Whoopee”): Mark Gierl
This former Mequon alderperson twice sued the Mequon-Thiensville School District for denying his requests for email distribution lists. Gierl, represented by Tom Kamenick of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, won each case at both the trial and appellate court level, firmly establishing that such lists kept by government entities must be released on request. An honorable mention in this category goes to the state prison inmates who pushed to make the public aware of dire situations within the state’s correctional system.
No Friend of Openness (“Nopee”): Bonnie Kindschy
Rarely are public officials as brazen in their contempt for open government as Kindschy, the coroner of Trempealeau County. Alone among the state’s 72 coroners or medical examiners, Kindschy refused to provide records in response to the Journal Sentinel’s gun death investigation. Even after the threat of a lawsuit prompted the county to release the records, Kindschy remained defiant, saying she would “probably not” heed a future request. Arrogant and unaccountable is never a good look.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the group’s president.
Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Close window X Republish this article This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Scroll down to copy and paste the code of our article into your CMS. The codes for images, graphics and other embeddable elements may not transfer exactly as they appear on our site. *** Also, the code below will NOT copy the featured image on the page. You are welcome to download the main image as a separate element for publication with this story. *** You are welcome to republish our articles for free using the following ground rules. Credit should be given, in this format: “By Dee J. Hall, Wisconsin Watch”
Editing material is prohibited, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and in-house style (for example, using “Waunakee, Wis.” instead of “Waunakee” or changing “yesterday” to “last week”)
Other than minor cosmetic and font changes, you may not change the structural appearance or visual format of a story.
If published online, you must include the links and link to wisconsinwatch.org
If you share the story on social media, please mention @wisconsinwatch (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram), and ensure that the original featured image associated with the story is visible on the social media post.
Don’t sell the story or any part of it — it may not be marketed as a product.
Don’t extract, store or resell Wisconsin Watch content as a database.
Don’t sell ads against the story. But you can publish it with pre-sold ads.
Your website must include a prominent way to contact you.
Additional elements that are packaged with our story must be labeled.
Users can republish our photos, illustrations, graphics and multimedia elements ONLY with stories with which they originally appeared. You may not separate multimedia elements for standalone use.
If we send you a request to change or remove Wisconsin Watch content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately. *** Also, the code below will NOT copy the featured image on the page. You are welcome to download the main image as a separate element for publication with this story. *** You are welcome to republish our articles forusing the following ground rules. For questions regarding republishing rules please contact Jeff Bauer, digital editor and producer, at jbauer@wisconsinwatch.org Your Right to Know: Opees honor efforts to promote transparency
Your Right to Know: Opees honor efforts to promote transparency
by Bill Lueders, Wisconsin Watch March 6, 2024
For the 18th straight year, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is recognizing outstanding efforts to protect the state’s tradition of open government through its Openness in Government awards, or Opees.
The awards are being presented as part of national Sunshine Week, March 10 to 16. Winners have been invited to claim their award at the Wisconsin Openness Awards Dinner in Madison on March 14, part of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s annual convention. Awards are being given this year in six categories. The winners are:
Public Openness Award (“Popee”):Curt Green
When a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigative team set out to gatherinformation on state gun deaths due to suicide, it encountered some resistence. But Green, the coroner for Manitowoc County, grasped the value of this story and set to work providing what the paper said was “by far the most detailed” gun death data of any county in the state in the hopes of identifying patterns that could prevent future deaths. It’s great when public officials act with the “public” firmly in mind.
Media Openness Award (“Mopee”): Jacob Resneck
An investigative reporter with Wisconsin Watch, Resneck broke the story on how police agencies in Wisconsin are citing Marsy’s Law, the state constitutional amendment meant to protect victims’ rights, to shield the identity of police officers who shot someone, on grounds that the officers are victims of the people they shoot. He also made extensive use of public records to report on a police cadet who was fired after reporting that a fellow cadet had sexually assaulted her. And Resneck wrote a column for the council about police video and accountability.
Citizen Openness Award (“Copee”): Common Ground
This Milwaukee-based interfaith advocacy group launched a campaign last year to gather information, much of it from public records, on hazardous conditions inside affordable housing apartments. It then shared this information with tenants and journalists to push the Housing Authority of the city of Milwaukee to make improvements. Earlier this year, the group sounded an alarm about dangerously cold apartments, a “systemic problem” the housing authority has known about for years. Now everybody knows.
Bill Lueders
Open Records Scoop of the Year (“Scoopee”): Lucas Robinson
This Wisconsin State Journal reporter uncovered multiple instances in which the local sheriff’s department sought charges against guards at the state’s Green Bay Correctional facility for offenses including smuggling items into the prison for inmates to neglecting inmates. One inmate died after guards denied him a wheelchair to go to the infirmary, then failed to check on him. No guards were charged with crimes. Robinson’s reporting, as well as that of The New York Times and other news media outlets, prompted lawmakers to seek reforms.
Whistleblower of the Year (“Whoopee”): Mark Gierl
This former Mequon alderperson twice sued the Mequon-Thiensville School District for denying his requests for email distribution lists. Gierl, represented by Tom Kamenick of the Wisconsin Transparency Project, won each case at both the trial and appellate court level, firmly establishing that such lists kept by government entities must be released on request. An honorable mention in this category goes to the state prison inmates who pushed to make the public aware of dire situations within the state’s correctional system.
No Friend of Openness (“Nopee”): Bonnie Kindschy
Rarely are public officials as brazen in their contempt for open government as Kindschy, the coroner of Trempealeau County. Alone among the state’s 72 coroners or medical examiners, Kindschy refused to provide records in response to the Journal Sentinel’s gun death investigation. Even after the threat of a lawsuit prompted the county to release the records, Kindschy remained defiant, saying she would “probably not” heed a future request. Arrogant and unaccountable is never a good look.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Bill Lueders is the group’s president.
This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Copy to Clipboard
[END]
---
[1] Url: https://wisconsinwatch.org/2024/03/open-government-awards-opees-your-right-to-know/
Published and (C) by Wisconsin Watch
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-ND 4.0 Intl.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/wisconsinwatch/
