Wisconsin open government advocates present Opee Awards

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s leading open government advocate is celebrating Sunshine Week with a new list of Opee Award winners.

The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council started this week with five awards for open government and open records, and one award for fighting openness.

“Open and transparent government is a lynchpin of our democracy; it helps keep public officials honest and the public informed,” Freedom of Information Council president Bill Lueders told The Center Square.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel won two awards, one for the Open Records Scoop of the Year and the other for Media Openness.

“Even in tough times, the state’s largest paper blazed a trail for open government. It fought recalcitrant officials to do records-based reporting on COVID-19 in long-term care facilities (Daphne Chen and Rory Linnane) and meatpacking plants (Maria Jesus Perez Sanchez),” FOIC wrote. “It intervened in a lawsuit to oppose efforts to shield the names of businesses with COVID-19 cases. And it joined with other litigants in suing the state Legislature over its refusal to release records regarding misconduct investigations.”

Lueders said the awards highlight the successes of people respecting the idea of open and transparent government.

“We are now seeing, as usual, some positive and some negative trends,” he said. The award to Milwaukee County [which] went out of its way to provide useful data on COVID-19. And the awards to reporters, who had to battle bureaucracies to pry data loose.”

Milwaukee County won the Political Openness Award for being among the first in the nation to release racial and ethnic data linked to the coronavirus.

The Freedom of Information Council also recognized an anonymous lawsuit author with its Citizen’s Openness Award, and recognized Judge Peter Tharp with the Whistleblower of the Year Award. Tharp sued his tiny village of Roberts in St. Croix County over its failure to respond to more than 80 record requests made over a three-year period

Lueders said FOIC also recognized the University of Wisconsin System for its resistance to openness and transparency.

The university won the Nopee, the No Friend of Openness Award, however, for how the school conducted its search for a new president in a shroud of secrecy, until only one finalist was left. That finalist eventually dropped out of consideration.

Disclaimer: This content is distributed by The Center Square