» Open meetings violation:

Natural Resources Board held talks in private

A judge rules the Natural Resources Board violated the state’s open meetings law by discussing whether to allow snowmobiles in a state park during private dinners members have attended on the night before their public meetings with staff from the Department of Natural Resources.

MADISON - A Dane County judge this week ruled the Natural Resources Board violated the state’s open meetings law by discussing in private whether to allow snowmobiles in a state park.

At the heart of the case are private dinners board members have attended on the night before their public meetings with staff from the Department of Natural Resources.

“What may have originally been intended as a social gathering was converted into an opportunity for the department to conduct its business behind closed doors,” Dane County Circuit Judge John Markson wrote. “This puts the public on an unequal footing to address the underlying rationale of government decision-making.”

The board stopped holding the dinners in October, a month after critics filed a complaint over the practice.

Markson found in Thursday’s ruling that taxpayers will have to cover the legal fees for those who brought the lawsuit, as often happens when officials are found to have violated open government laws.

The lawsuit was brought by Kenneth Wade and Karl Heil, frequent visitors to Blue Mound State Park who are opposed to allowing snowmobiles at the park out of concerns it would interfere with “silent sports” such as cross-country skiing. Heil is a former superintendent of the Dane County park.

Snowmobile enthusiasts had sought to have a trail opened for their use in the park and the issue became controversial. A board member and DNR staff discussed the issue at a January 2016 dinner that was closed to the public.

The judge noted the DNR acknowledged its staff attended the dinners to answer questions from board members about issues that were slated to come up in the public meetings the next day.

“Given these admissions, I cannot conclude that the board dinners were purely social and not intended to evade the requirements of the open meetings law,” Markson wrote.

He also found the board had violated the open meetings law on 12 occasions because it had been too vague with its public notices about what would be discussed in closed meetings. The board is obligated to tell the public specifically what will be discussed in those meetings, he wrote.

Markson found that the DNR’s briefing of board members one-on-one did not violate the open meetings law.

Jim Dick, a spokesman for the DNR and its board, said the agency was pleased with that part of the judge’s ruling. The department is reviewing whether to appeal the other aspects of the decision, he said.

The board initially adopted a plan last year that would allow snowmobiles to be used at the park. It revisited the issue this year after the complaints were raised about how meetings were conducted and again concluded that snowmobiles could be used at the park.