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Town of Waukesha - In a community where voter dissatisfaction swept out the old guard in a 2010 recall election, the new Waukesha Town Board has been governing this town of 9,000 with a large measure of secrecy.

In December, the board conducted 26 hours of meetings behind closed doors, away from the public eye. It met for 50 minutes in public on its usual meeting night.

In January, there were nearly 30 hours of closed-door meetings but just a single publicly attended, two-hour informational meeting on contesting an attempt by the Town of Brookfield to incorporate as a village, swallowing up some Town of Waukesha territory.

In February, 10 hours of closed meetings stacked up against 98 minutes open to the public.

Many of the closed-door meetings - 28 in 2011 and already 13 in the first 11 weeks of 2012 - have focused on multiple lawsuits tended by several $150- to $415-per-hour attorneys. Their fees boosted last year's legal bills to about $190,000, more than twice the budget and three times the $64,500 spent in 2010.

Waukesha Town Chairwoman Angie Van Scyoc, who says operations and services are getting more efficient and cost-effective, doesn't apologize for the board's record of meetings.

"It is difficult to have so many important issues that need attention," she said. "I guess what you're witnessing is people doing what they need to do to protect the community."

With nearly all of the employees or contractors who operate town functions - from clerk to attorney, snow plower to auditor - having been replaced under the new regime, the board also attends weekly staff meetings essentially inaccessible to the public and with ill-defined but legal ly required agendas. The meetings typically start at the end of closed meetings that usually last hours. That makes it impossible to know a real starting time for the public session.

No minutes are kept for the board's staff meetings, and agendas for them often list dozens of items that may or may not be discussed.

"I will agree with you that there's a laundry list they don't always pick up on, but they sometimes do," town attorney Hector de la Mora said.

Van Scyoc said so many legal cases and closed sessions are unusual but necessary because "we're under attack from a lot of different directions." She said the board is only acting to protect its borders and natural resources - issues that were central to the recall of the former board.

She also defended the nature of staff meetings attended by the board where agendas have, meeting after meeting, reached 36 items as specific as "review of generator" and as general as "review of current and pending issues." They reflect supervisors' learning curve in their first year on the board and their desire to be thorough in finding ways to make government more efficient and services less costly, she said.

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said, "I think the Town of Waukesha Board is violating the spirit if not the letter of the open meetings law. They're certainly on thin ice with regard to not having a clear meeting time for the public parts of their meetings. It can't just be whenever they finish their secret business. That's simply not OK. It's not in keeping with what the law is asking them to do."

Under the state's open meetings law, citizens are entitled to reasonable notice of the time, place and subjects to be discussed by their governing boards. Agendas that don't reflect what the board discusses - whether in open or closed meetings - is not in keeping with the law either, Lueders said.

The town's legal challenges, which have prompted many of the closed meetings, have fallen short of their aim.

A judge ruled in January against the Town of Waukesha's attempt to stop the Town of Brookfield incorporation petition from moving forward. Last month, the Town of Waukesha was thrown out as an interested party in the legal fray because its attorneys failed to file with the court adequate, timely proof that the Town Board had approved its intervention in the case. Waukesha town attorneys said approval had come during one of its many December closed meetings.

Opposing attorney Jim Hammes, who quit a year ago after decades as the Town of Waukesha's attorney, argued that town officials had destroyed minutes of the critical meeting and crafted after-the-fact approval documents.

The town's breach-of-contract suit against its snow-removal contractor of more than a decade, who in turn countersued for $355,477 in unpaid bills from last winter, was settled last month with the town paying the contractor $297,500. Van Scyoc called it a win because the town got out of the remaining two years of the three-year contract.

In November, a judge dismissed another town effort to block the City of Waukesha from using a parcel in the town for future high-capacity shallow wells.

Last April, a judge dismissed a town legal action against the Department of Natural Resources based on agreement of both sides. The town had claimed the DNR wrongly approved permanent water supply wells for the City of Waukesha on town land - something the DNR denied. The agency issued a letter clarifying the issue, which Van Scyoc insists was a victory, although the DNR said fundamentally nothing had changed.

Besides closed-door meetings on lawsuits, the Town Board cites the need for secrecy to talk strategy on things such as the western Waukesha bypass route still under study, and whether the town should join Waukesha's future water-service area. Sometimes, items listed aren't discussed; Van Scyoc specifically cited examples of the bypass and hiring of a building inspector, notices which appeared on recent agendas.

Supervisor Brian Fisher, a 30-year member of the town's Plan Commission who was elected supervisor when the Town Board was expanded to five members last April, said of the many closed meetings, "We have many important issues that we didn't go looking for, but basically found us."

He credited supervisors with spending a lot of time on their public duties, adding: "There are an awful lot of things that are needed to run a local government. Without an administrator, it's a lot of work to do it properly."

He said he has voiced a desire to narrow topics on the staff meetings agenda in particular.

"I'm a little bit concerned at those staff meetings," he said. "I don't think we should be taking up a lot of issues."

Supervisor Joe Banske called the "catchall agenda" for staff meetings a necessity as new supervisors seek to understand every town issue and function, where virtually every person responsible for specific operations - clerk, attorney, auditor, public works director, assessor, engineer - and soon, planner and building inspector - has changed under the new board, either voluntarily or because they were pushed out.

"It's the way we run our businesses," he said. "Every one of us runs our businesses in a very hands-on fashion. That's just our management style, the way we operate."

Van Scyoc said such vigilance has paid off because, despite higher legal fees, the town's 2011 audit set for release at the April 10 annual town meeting for residents will show saving in other areas.

De la Mora, who became town attorney in February 2011, said in his 40 years of mostly municipal law practice, this "very, very hands-on" Town Board "is nothing like anything I've worked with before. I've never seen a group of people put in so much time as elected officials getting involved in the day-to-day operation of a municipality," resulting in part because there is no administrator.

"It amazes me how much attention to minutiae they give," he said. "I think it's an extraordinary amount of involvement, and I'm in no position to tell them, 'Don't do it this way.' "

Several board members said that despite their reliance on closed meetings, the board has opened up town government since the July 2010 recall. They said the town's website has more information on it. Citizen comments are not limited at regular Town Board meetings as they were in the past. Several public information meetings have been held on important topics like the Town of Brookfield's incorporation effort or the water-service issues.

One of the supervisors ousted in the recall, Stephen Smart, has taken note of the new ways at town hall.

"I was on the board for 15 years, and I can remember probably six closed meetings in 15 years," he said. "I find it very strange. I see a hesitation to do business in the open."

He also questioned the weekly staff meetings, comparing it to the former board, which generally had one staff meeting a month until the practice was discontinued in 2010.

Two open-government advocates who live in the town have spoken publicly to the new board on the subject.

Fay Amerson scolded the board a year ago at a March 24 meeting after she found the Town Board had locked the Town Hall doors despite carrying on a meeting inside. She encouraged the board to educate itself on public meetings law through the attorney general's office.

"I'm concerned about the number of closed meetings, and whether they should be in closed session, and whether they're talking about appropriate subjects," she said. "Strategizing" excuses for closed sessions are particularly troublesome to her, she said.

Lauri Longtine, an environmental activist, last spring complimented the Town Board on bringing a new openness to government, with special meetings on such matters as water issues. She said in an interview she was unaware that the board was having so many closed meetings in the past year.

"This Town Board in the short time it's been in place has had huge issues handed to it," she said. "The enormity of what they've been faced with is something I appreciate.

"My personal wish is that everything would be out in the open, but I see that sometimes it's necessary to meet in closed session with attorneys because you don't want to tip your hand about lawsuits you're engaged in," she said. "However, I feel that too often it's used as an excuse to keep critical information or critical decision-making away from the public."