Two attempts to peel back the veil of secrecy over the proliferation of data centers, including one by Wisconsin Watch reporter Tom Kertscher, are being honored in this year’s Openness in Government Awards, or Opees, bestowed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council.

In advance of national Sunshine Week (sunshineweek.org), March 15-21, the council has named the winners of its 20th annual Opees. These recognize outstanding efforts to protect the state’s tradition of open government, as well as highlight some threats to it. Winners have been invited to appear at a free public event in Madison on March 19. (See WFOIC website for details.)

The winners are:

Public Openness Advocate (Popee): Vilas County District Attorney Karl Hayes. District attorneys in Wisconsin are statutorily empowered to enforce the state’s open records and open meetings laws, but in practice rarely do so. Early this year, Hayes showed how it can be done, warning officials in the town of Presque Isle that they needed to comply with a nearly year-old request from the Lakeland Times newspaper for records regarding the town’s computers. His intervention succeeded, and the records were released. Other DAs might look for occasions where they can turn the lever in favor of openness.

Citizen Openness Advocate (Copee): Midwest Environmental Advocates. This nonprofit public interest law firm last year filed two pivotal lawsuits challenging the secrecy surrounding data center projects. The first, against the city of Racine, forced the prompt release of water usage projections for Microsoft’s Mount Pleasant campus. The second lawsuit, against the state Public Service Commission (PSC), contested the “trade secret” status of energy demand data for Meta’s proposed data center in Beaver Dam; that case is pending. Kudos to MEA for insisting on the public’s right to know.

Media Openness Advocate (Mopee): The Badger Project. In recent years, this nonprofit news outlet has been requesting records from police departments around the state about internal investigations of police officers and suing when they are not provided. In 2025, it filed three such lawsuits — against a police department in Racine County, the state Department of Transportation and St. Croix County. All led to the release of records. The Badger Project is now appealing St. Croix County’s refusal to pay attorney fees, which could lead to the overturning of a deeply problematic state Supreme Court decision. Fingers crossed. 

Open Records Scoop of the Year (Scoopee): Tie: Tom Kertscher of Wisconsin Watch; Danielle DuClos of The Cap Times. Among much other good reporting on openness issues, the work of these two journalists stands out. Kertscher pulled back the curtain on the secrecy surrounding data centers, including at least four projects in which local officials signed nondisclosure agreements with the companies. And DuClos reported on how the state Department of Public Instruction secretly investigated more than 200 Wisconsin K-12 educators accused of sexual misconduct or grooming behaviors toward students, prompting a statewide audit and legislative action.

No Friend of Openness (Nopee): Deborah Kerr, superintendent of the St. Francis School District. While there were other contenders for this award, there was also little question that Kerr would be the winner and new champion. Last June, she threatened to have a TMJ4 News reporter and camera operator arrested for wanting to film a school board meeting “because you did not give us any notice or tell us why you were here,” neither of which is required. The jaw-dropping video (see for yourself at https://tinyurl.com/zvam889a) went viral, and Kerr issued a weak apology, but her eruption is one for the ages. Credit reporter Megan Lee for her deft handling of the situation.

Whistleblower of the Year (Whoopee): John Sigwart. This former Port Washington city council member refused to keep the public in the dark about a clandestinely proposed microchip production facility, revealing that local officials had signed nondisclosure agreements. The city’s mayor retaliated by stripping Sigwart of his committee appointments, precipitating an end to his many years of public service, said an editorial in the Ozaukee Press. Sigwart died in August at age 80, but his example of courage will live on.

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.

Your Right to Know: Opees highlight good works, and bad is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

If we care about addressing alcohol addiction in Wisconsin, we must start thinking about it as a public health issue. Alcohol use is deeply embedded in Wisconsin’s history and has maintained its prevalence through the socialization and normalization of drinking culture. 

Rather than focusing on an individual’s capacity to remain sober in a state known for its beer-battered you-name-its, pub crawls, wine walks, and pedal taverns, we need to shift our focus toward making our communities more welcoming spaces for sobriety.

To consider something a public health issue, it must pose a physical or mental health risk to populations rather than just individuals. 

Alcohol use is a highly socialized activity and has been embraced by Wisconsin since its inception, due largely to its population of German immigrants in the 1800s. German-founded breweries laid the economic groundwork in Wisconsin’s early years, supporting farmers, employing families, fostering community and generating profit. With a culture that has prospered from the industrial, financial and social aspects of brewing throughout the years, it is no wonder that Wisconsin carries on this tradition.

In a state where drinking runs generations-deep, so do the health effects, and addressing a widespread issue calls for widespread changes. 

Alcohol addiction must be considered a community risk rather than an individual’s shortcoming. The majority of Wisconsinites, more than six in 10 adults, reported consuming alcohol within the past month, and nearly 20% reported binge drinking. In 2024, alcohol-related hospitalizations in Wisconsin reached their highest number since 2015. Reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that more than 3,450 Wisconsinites die from excessive drinking each year.

Wisconsin is the only U.S. state in which every county has reported engaging in excessive alcohol consumption among at least 23% of its adult population. We are also home to 10 out of 20 of the “drunkest cities in America” as reported by 24/7 Wall St. last year. 

The average number of alcoholic beverages consumed throughout Wisconsin has decreased in recent years, but people are consuming more ethanol over the same time span. This means people are tending to consume drinks with higher alcohol content. As the data illustrates, this is a statewide concern, not a private matter.

We can make our communities easier places to be sober, not only in the interest of addiction recovery, but for the sake of promoting community well-being. On a structural level, this looks like advocating for greater access to recovery facilities and services. It also looks like supporting and sustaining local third spaces that are sober-friendly. 

Want to be part of the solution? Then consider hosting alcohol-free gatherings, socializing at a café or a mocktail lounge and welcoming conversations about your choice to do so. Setting the bar starts with us, and this time, it’s not a bar with alcohol.

Kayla Doege is a graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Master of Social Work program. She lives in Neosho and has spent five years working in youth mental health and substance use intervention.

Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.

Opinion: To curb alcohol harm, Wisconsin must rethink its drinking culture is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

If you’re following recent national headlines, you know that attacks on press freedom are having a moment — from the FBI’s raid on the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson and seizure of her devices to the arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort following their coverage of a protest at a Minneapolis church.

But some positive news is emerging in Wisconsin: State legislation is advancing that would make it harder to use the courts to silence people speaking on matters of public concern — whether they’re journalists or private citizens — by draining their time and resources.

About 14 months ago, I wrote about how Wisconsin is particularly vulnerable to these kinds of lawsuits, one of just 11 states without legislation to shield residents from them. Our friends at the Wausau Pilot & Review felt the consequences firsthand, spending $200,000 to defend themselves against a since-dismissed defamation lawsuit.

There was little momentum for anti-SLAPP legislation when I wrote the column. But that has since changed. 

Lawmakers last year introduced bills that would create a clearer process for quickly dismissing SLAPP suits and require defendants’ legal fees to be paid by plaintiffs who bring meritless claims: AB 701/SB 666, introduced by Republican Reps. Jim Piwowarczyk and Sen. Eric Wimberger, with a suite of co-sponsors, including Democratic Reps. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez and Randy Udell.

The Assembly passed AB 701 last month with unanimous consent — a rare show of bipartisan agreement. The legislation still requires Senate passage before reaching Gov. Tony Evers’ desk.

If it makes it to the finish line before the Senate wraps up for the year, its impact would extend well beyond newsrooms. Everyday people face SLAPP risks, too. People in other states have been sued for leaving negative reviews online. 

As a fiercely independent newsroom, Wisconsin Watch doesn’t typically opine on specific policies; we assemble information on matters of public concern so residents can form their own views through their own value systems. But free expression is fundamental to what we do — and fundamental to a functioning democracy.

That’s why Wisconsin Watch is joining other newsrooms and free speech advocates in urging the Senate to enact protections against frivolous lawsuits.

Have thoughts about this legislation or this moment for free speech in Wisconsin and the U.S.? I’d love to hear from you. Reach me at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

Opinion: How Wisconsin can slap down efforts to silence speech is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

I have visited many after-school and summer programs across Wisconsin, from large urban sites to small rural schools, and what I’ve seen has stayed with me. I’ve watched students immersed in creative writing, acting and robotics. I’ve observed staff working one-on-one with kids navigating intense emotional challenges. And I’ve seen the smiles on middle schoolers’ faces as they reconnect with trusted mentors at the end of the school day. These programs are not “extras”; they provide crucial support to kids, families and entire communities.

The access gap

And yet, for far too many Wisconsin families, these opportunities remain out of reach. According to the latest America After 3PM report, nearly 275,000 Wisconsin children who would participate in after-school programs are not enrolled because none are available. Four in five children who could benefit from these supports are missing out. Parents cite cost, lack of transportation and a simple lack of local programming as the biggest barriers.

The benefits are clear

The impact of these programs is undeniable. Parents overwhelmingly rate their children’s after-school programs as excellent or very good, reporting that they keep kids safe, build social skills and support mental wellness. Research in Wisconsin shows that students who participate in extracurricular activities are less likely to report anxiety or depression and more likely to feel a sense of belonging.

Out-of-school-time programs often provide the space for deep, long-term mentoring, a powerful protective factor in a young person’s life. While teachers are often stretched thin during the academic day, out-of-school-time staff can focus on the relational side of development.

The cost of instability

When funding is unstable, it undermines the very connections that make these programs transformative. Recently, a Boys & Girls Club director shared the human cost of budget constraints: They were forced to reduce a veteran staff member to part-time. This didn’t just trim a budget; it severed a multi-year mentorship. When that bond was broken, several youths stopped attending entirely.

Wisconsin lags behind national trends

Across the country, after-school and summer programs are increasingly viewed as essential to youth development. Twenty-seven states provide dedicated state funding for these programs; Wisconsin provides none. States as different as Alabama and Texas recognize that federal funding alone is not enough. So do our Midwestern neighbors.

• Minnesota and Illinois have invested in these programs for years.
• Michigan established a $73 million grant program to expand before-school, after-school and summer learning statewide.
• Pennsylvania created the $11.5 million Building Opportunity through Out-of-School Time (BOOST) program.

The opportunity to act

Public support for these programs is strong and bipartisan. Families across Wisconsin want safe, enriching opportunities for their children. With a significant budget surplus, Wisconsin is uniquely positioned to invest in its future.

State leaders should view out-of-school programming as a foundation for safety, mental health and long-term economic opportunity. We have the resources; now we need the will. By committing to consistent state funding, we can ensure that every young person in Wisconsin has a place to belong when the school bell rings.

Daniel Gage is a consultant with the Afterschool Alliance and Wisconsin Out of School Time Alliance, focusing on advocacy and outreach. He co-founded the Wisconsin Partnership for Children and Youth, a coalition that promotes after-school and summer programs as vital for healthy youth development and future citizenship.

Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.

Opinion: After-school programs are essential. Wisconsin should fund them that way. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The headlines are full of stories about the Trump administration’s aggressive new approach to immigration enforcement. We hear about ICE raids and mass deportations. But there’s another, less publicized policy change that’s making it difficult for immigrants to defend themselves from deportation, even when they have a strong claim for immigration relief. 

The Department of Homeland Security has changed how it responds to federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from immigrants facing deportation, in a way that deprives many immigrants of their only tool for obtaining information they need to prove they deserve to remain in the country.

Immigration court affords immigrants no formal right to discovery, the process by which the parties exchange information to ensure a fair, fact-based process. As a result, immigration attorneys must rely almost exclusively on FOIA requests to obtain a noncitizen’s Alien Registration File (“A-File”) from agencies within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

A-Files typically include prior immigration applications, enforcement records and notes from interviews. But these documents frequently contain falsehoods and inaccuracies, particularly where summaries replace verbatim transcripts and trauma affects the ability of immigrants to tell their stories. Immigration attorneys need access to their clients’ A-Files so they can identify and challenge inaccuracies in the records and hold the government to its burden of proof. 

My friend and fellow attorney Gabriela Parra practices immigration law in Wisconsin. Many of her clients are asylum seekers now living in Wisconsin who fled to the United States because they feared persecution in their home countries. Since April 2025, she has observed a marked change in how immigration agencies respond to the FOIA requests she files on behalf of her clients. 

The agencies are refusing to provide documents, or heavily redacting the documents they provide, thus denying Parra the information she needs to prepare her clients’ cases. In multiple cases, asylum seekers represented by her firm have asserted that they articulated a fear of return during border interviews, while DHS claims the opposite. 

FOIA requests in these cases resulted in partial A-File disclosures, with interview notes withheld entirely. In other words, DHS has withheld the most important information that would help Parra prove her clients’ version of events.

Late last year, I joined Parra in filing a federal lawsuit asking the court to enforce FOIA. Our client in this case is a foreign national who filed an asylum application before he obtained legal assistance. He is now facing removal proceedings in immigration court. 

In response to Parra’s FOIA request, DHS provided some documents, but they contained serious inaccuracies. Moreover, the agency produced only eight pages of unredacted records and 14 pages that were heavily redacted. It fully withheld 31 pages of our client’s file, including records necessary to identify and challenge errors. 

Days after we filed our FOIA lawsuit, DHS provided us with some additional files. But others are still missing, and our client’s removal proceedings are looming. We are in a race against time to get our client’s records so he can make the strongest asylum case.

Immigration lawyers across the country are fighting similar battles against the administration’s FOIA practices. A December 2025 whistleblower report alleges that the government is intentionally blocking FOIA requests. It says this denies immigrants the information they need to avoid “life-altering impacts” including “family separation and prolonged detention.”

Our country’s current fight over immigration enforcement is also a fight over government transparency. Here in Wisconsin, we are doing our part.

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. Elisabeth Lambert is the founder and principal of the Wisconsin Education Law and Policy Hub (wisconsinelph.org). Thanks to Gabriela Parra for her help on this column.

Your Right to Know: A FOIA fight over immigration records is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

As media outlets that regularly report on newsworthy events, we, the undersigned, vigorously condemn the recent arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. 

Lemon and Fort were arrested after covering a January 18 protest at a church in Minneapolis. They were conducting the constitutionally protected activities of a working journalist: observing, recording and documenting a newsworthy event and attempting to obtain quotes from participants. 

Their arrest on charges of allegedly obstructing a place of worship, and even worse, under federal conspiracy law, alarms all of us who believe in the First Amendment and seek to do our jobs without fear of obstruction by law enforcement or retaliation by agents of the government. 

The principle of a free press animated the founding of the United States of America 250 years ago, and countless Americans have fought valiantly for it. We cannot allow colleagues to be subjected to spurious and unwarranted arrest for committing acts of journalism.

We call on federal authorities to drop all charges against Lemon and Fort and to publicly affirm their unqualified support for the work of professional journalists in this critical time.

SIGNATORIES:

Wisconsin Watch

Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service

Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting

Block Club Chicago

Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism

CalMatters

Capital B

Cardinal News

Center for Investigative Reporting

Dallas Free Press

Documented

East Lansing News

ecoRI News

El Paso Matters

Epicenter

FaVS News

Florida Trident

Grist

InDepthNH.org

Injustice Watch

Invisible Institute

La Voz Chicago

Lookout News

New Bedford Light

New York magazine, part of Vox Media LLC

NY Focus

Philadelphia Hall Monitor

San Francisco Public Press

South Side Weekly

The 19th

The Cityside Journalism

Initiative

THE CITY

The Guardian US

The Intercept

The Jersey Bee

The Jersey Vindicator

The Journal of Olympia, Lacey and Tumwater

The Lens

The Marshall Project

The Providence Eye

The Trace

The TRiiBE

The Xylom

Vox Populi

Wasau Pilot and Review

Wisconsin Watch joins media outlets in condemning arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin stands at a pivotal moment.

Artificial intelligence, cloud computing and hyperscale data centers are arriving quickly, bringing enormous demand for electricity and water. The real question is not whether these investments will come, but how we manage them and who pays the costs if we get it wrong.

As a purple state, Wisconsin has long shown that good energy policy is practical, not ideological. Families want affordable bills. Businesses want reliable power. Communities want clean water and economic opportunity. That same common-sense approach must guide how we respond to rapid data center growth.

An unprecedented load and a real affordability risk

The scale of proposed data centers is unlike anything Wisconsin has seen.

Just two projects, one in Port Washington and another in Mount Pleasant, have requested nearly four gigawatts of electricity combined. That is more power than all Wisconsin households use today.

Meeting this demand will require massive investments in power plants, transmission lines, substations, pipelines and water infrastructure. But under Wisconsin’s current utility model, these costs are not paid only by the companies driving demand. They are instead spread across all of us who pay electric bills, including families, farms and small businesses that won’t benefit from data center power.

For small businesses operating on thin margins, even modest increases in electric or water rates affect hiring, pricing and long-term viability. In rural communities with fewer customers sharing infrastructure costs, the impact can be even more severe.

This concern is already becoming real. Utilities are citing data center demand to justify new methane gas plants and delaying coal plant retirements. Utilities doubling down on fossil fuels should give every one of us pause.

Why costly gas is the wrong answer

Building new methane gas plants for data centers would lock customers into decades of fuel price volatility, even though cleaner options have become cheaper and faster to deploy.

Wind, solar and battery storage can come online far more quickly than fossil fuel plants and without exposing families and businesses to unpredictable fuel costs. Battery storage costs alone have fallen nearly 90% over the past decade. 

Across the country, these tools are replacing methane gas plants in states as different as Texas and California.

There is also a serious risk that we will pay higher bills for decades, even when data centers stop using those methane gas plants. In Nevada, a major utility has acknowledged that only about 15% of proposed data centers are likely to be built. When speculative projects fall through, all of us are left to pay for infrastructure we actually never needed.

This is not ideology. It is basic financial risk management, and basic fairness.

Clean energy is the lowest-cost path

Wisconsin policymakers and elected officials need to put guardrails into place to protect everyday residents from the AI bubble that’s threatening the state. The core principle? That data centers operate on 100% clean energy, not as a slogan, but because it is the lowest-cost and lowest-risk option over time.

A smart framework would require developers to:

• Supply at least 30% of their power from on-site and Wisconsin-based renewable energy.
• Offset additional demand through energy efficiency, demand response – at least 25% of peak capacity – and smart grid flexibility.
• Participate fully in utility efficiency and renewable energy programs rather than opting out.

Each data center project should require a legally binding Community Benefit Agreement that clearly defines community protections and benefits, negotiated among developers, local governments, neighborhood-based organizations, and underserved communities.

This approach reduces peak demand, lowers infrastructure costs and protects existing customers while allowing data centers to advance.

Major companies like Microsoft, Google and Meta have already publicly committed to operating on carbon-free energy. We need to hold them to that. Wisconsin risks losing our competitive advantage if we default to gas-heavy solutions instead of offering clean, flexible grids.

Water is a non-negotiable constraint

Energy is not the only concern. Water matters just as much.

A single hyperscale data center can use millions of gallons of water per day, either directly for cooling or indirectly through power generation. In communities with limited water systems, that can crowd out agricultural use and raise residents’ water bills.

Wisconsin should require closed-loop cooling systems, full accounting of direct and indirect water use and ongoing public reporting to ensure local water supplies are protected.

A practical path forward

Wisconsin does not have to choose between economic growth and affordability. We can do both if we insist on clear guardrails.

That means requiring data centers to pay the full cost of service, powering growth with clean energy first and protecting water resources and ratepayers from unnecessary risk.

Data centers are coming. The question is whether Wisconsin families and small businesses will be partners in that growth or be left paying higher bills for decades to come.

If we choose smart clean power over costly gas, Wisconsin can lead.

For more information

Check out the Clean Economy Coalition of Wisconsin (CECW) Data Center Accountability Framework, a statewide roadmap for policymakers to manage the rapid expansion of large-scale data centers in the state.

John Imes is co-founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative and village president of Shorewood Hills. He has spent decades working with businesses, policymakers and local governments to advance pragmatic clean energy and infrastructure solutions that protect ratepayers, strengthen communities and support Wisconsin’s economy.

Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff. Want to join the Wisconversion? See our guidelines for submissions.

Opinion: How Wisconsin can protect consumers and the environment during the data center boom is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch welcomes submissions of commentary pieces on issues important to Wisconsin for potential publication. 

We aim to produce journalism that helps residents navigate their lives, be seen and heard, hold power to account and come together in community and civic life. We’re looking for commentary from a diversity of voices and perspectives toward those goals. Submissions could take a variety of forms, whether a response to Wisconsin Watch reporting, an idea for solving a community challenge, a perspective you feel is missing from a public debate — or even a reflection on how you’re finding hope and community.

Guidelines

Guest commentaries reflect the views of their authors and are independent of the nonpartisan, in-depth reporting produced by Wisconsin Watch’s newsroom staff.

Length

We prefer that submissions run no more than 750 words and encourage clear, concise writing.

We want to hear from:

• People who live in Wisconsin or otherwise care about its future.
• People who are affected by issues of public concern. 
• Subject matter experts who can offer context about important issues and explain how systems work.

Please include:

• Concrete solutions to problems, supported by facts (such as estimated costs and proposed revenue sources), success in other places and scientific research.
• An honest assessment of the challenges faced in dealing with an issue.
• Links to authoritative, independent sources, including news reports on the topic at hand.
• Civility, grace, decency.

We don’t want:

• Misinformation, disinformation, falsehoods and logical fallacies.
• Product advertising, fundraising appeals or links to fundraising pages.
• Commentary from representatives of organizations that don’t disclose their donors or don’t clearly state their point of view.
• Obscenity, personal attacks, name-calling.

We reserve the right to edit submissions for grammar, clarity, brevity, and legal or factual concerns. We may suggest edits to improve accessibility but will not alter the views expressed by the author. We may also request additional information for fact-checking purposes and reserve the right to decline publication.

Wisconsin Watch does not pay for guest commentary.

How to submit

Please email submissions to opinion@wisconsinwatch.org. We prefer that commentaries be included in the body of the email rather than as attachments. Include a one- or two-sentence bio with your organization, city of residence and any relevant background. Feel free to reach out with questions or to propose an idea for feedback.

Add your voice to Wisconsin Watch is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Every year in Wisconsin state government, billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on programs and policies that impact every citizen, community, school and business.

While many people roll their eyes and tune out the sometimes messy, partisan, unpredictable work of state government, WisconsinEye Public Affairs Network encourages citizens to lean in. For the past 18 years, Wisconsin’s equivalent to C-SPAN has provided an inside look into the workings of state government. This inside look, which I have been involved in from the start, has included:

•  Free, live and unedited coverage of the Wisconsin Legislature, executive branch and state Supreme Court.
•  Fourteen thousand hours of searchable and shareable archived video of official state proceedings.
• An additional 16,000 hours of unedited and spin-free coverage of news conferences, interviews, campaigns, elections, and related civic events that add context and perspective. 

As the nation’s first independent, non-government-controlled state Capitol network, WisconsinEye does not favor the political left or right, but is rooted firmly in that all-important middle ground where diverse voices are welcome and informed dialogue contributes to positive outcomes for Wisconsin. The transparency that it delivers is essential to building the trust that keeps democracy functioning. Once citizens in a democracy come to understand how decisions are made, they can better use their voices and voting power to shape outcomes.

As an independent not-for-profit resource, WisconsinEye has relied on charitable donations to support its lean annual budget of $900,000. But this funding approach is no longer sustainable in what has become a highly competitive, post-pandemic philanthropic environment. That’s why the painful decision was made to shut down the functions of WisconsinEye, beginning Dec. 15, until the funding gap is plugged.

To this end, WisconsinEye is asking the Legislature and governor to reconfigure a previously designated $10 million matching grant approved in a unanimous bipartisan act, to help WisconsinEye build a permanent $20 million endowment. We are asking for lawmakers to remove the “match” requirement and instead allocate $900,000 for the network’s 2026 budget.

Additionally, we are calling on the state to invest the rest of the endowment, with earnings flowing annually to the network to cover two-thirds of its annual budget. The remaining one-third will be raised through three proven streams: annual program sponsorships, small-gift and online donations, and an annual fundraising dinner.

Meetings with state officials are underway, but it will potentially take three months to work its way through the state process.

In the meantime, WisconsinEye needs to raise $250,000 (three months of its operating budget) to bridge the financial gap and allow state Capitol programming to resume. Without this bridge funding, WisconsinEye could lose up to four highly skilled, cross-trained staff members. The domino effect would put the network at considerable risk of failure.

An alternative plan, that of a state government takeover of the network, was introduced by several Democratic legislators. Their plan, in my view, is in opposition with the decades-long commitment of the Wisconsin Legislature to provide citizens with an independent, trusted, neutral view of state government.

WisconsinEye cannot continue to provide a valued space where citizens can see for themselves, consider events and issues in context, and draw their own conclusions — if it is operated and controlled by the very entity it exists to cover.

Please consider joining the movement to save WisconsinEye by going to wiseye.org/donate. Your donation is tax-deductible. 

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. Jon Henkes is the president and CEO of Wisconsin Eye.

Your Right to Know: Protect transparency, save WisconsinEye is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

In 2018, a mobile home park owner in Stevens Point lost his operator’s license after submitting falsified drinking water samples to the state, purportedly leaving longtime residents of the park at risk of consuming excess iron and manganese. He appealed.

In 2022, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources authorized the spreading of human waste on farmland in Vilas County. A nearby Indigenous tribe contested the permit when it became apparent the state hadn’t included sufficient setbacks from tribal land.

And in 2021, a wildlife rehabilitator in Frederic, Wisconsin, who also served as a local police chief, lost her rehabilitation license after a raccoon in her care — Gimpy — bit an employee. The rehabilitator appealed.

These cases, all of which went to administrative hearings, pit state regulatory authority against individual residents. That’s why I was interested in reading them in my role as an investigative reporter. But I learned vital information in these and other cases, nearly always the parties’ names and places of work, is missing. 

Wisconsin’s Division of Hearings and Appeals, the agency that oversees administrative hearings for several state departments, has taken to posting only heavily redacted records on its website. That means readers will often see black bars drawn through the names of people and businesses, state employees who evaluate permits and licenses, attorneys who represent parties and even newspapers that publish notices related to the cases.

Division Administrator Brian Hayes told me that last year’s passage of a state law prompted the DHA to evaluate how it posts personally identifying information on its website. That law enables judges to request that their personal information, including addresses and telephone numbers, be removed from public view. 

The DHA, Hayes said, extended this protection to witnesses and petitioners, saying disclosing this information “needlessly opens up litigants to scams and stalkers.”

Hayes noted, however, that personally identifying information likely would have to be released to someone who submitted a records request for unaltered documents.

So I submitted one.

It took two months and the assistance of an attorney to wrestle the name of Gimpy’s owner from the agency. (Gimpy, however, was named.) The employees I encountered in this process offered a moving target of justifications.

First, DHA’s records custodian said she can provide unredacted documents only to parties to a case and suggested that I request the redacted version. I pointed out that the law requires her to either release the requested record or offer a legal justification for withholding it.

Another employee cited Wisconsin’s 1980 victims’ rights law, which provides a bill of rights for witnesses and victims of crime. The problem with this excuse is that the protections are situated in Wisconsin criminal code, not licensing.

In the end, I received unredacted records in the raccoon case and an apology from DHA for the difficulties I encountered in obtaining this information. But I still am moved to question the will to secrecy at the heart of this matter.

In fact, many of these cases involve public hearings. Anyone who attended could presumably observe witnesses and evidence — or see the names of parties on public notices state agencies post to announce hearing schedules.

When protective laws are zealously applied to contexts for which they were not intended, it can cause its own form of harm. The public is circuitously deprived of information related to potentially unscrupulous activity on the part of both individuals and government.

It shouldn’t take an attorney to pry open the gates for administrative decisions, even if the state means well.

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. Bennet Goldstein is an investigative reporter with Wisconsin Watch.

Your Right to Know: The problem with the will to secrecy is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Veterans Day always holds a special place for me. It’s a moment to honor two very special men, my grandfathers, who shaped my life and values and whom I was named after. 

My paternal grandfather, Richard Franklin Brown, served in the Marines, and my maternal grandfather, Eugene Preston, served in the Air Force. Every year, this day reminds me that freedom is something precious that we’ve inherited because it was earned, protected and preserved by those who came before us. 

Each Veterans Day is a time to pause and think about what they endured and fought for, not only for their families but for the ideals that define our country. It also reminds me how easily those freedoms can fade when we forget the cost of protecting them.

One story that always stands out to me is the Gulf of Tonkin incident of Aug. 2, 1964. That day, the USS Maddox exchanged fire with North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. Two days later, on Aug. 4, reports claimed that a second attack had taken place against U.S. ships. That second attack, as we now know, never happened, yet the reports swayed public opinion and led Congress to pass what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, granting President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authority to use military force in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war.

That decision marked a major escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, costing millions of lives and reshaping American politics, culture and public trust in institutions. The consequences were especially devastating for young Black men, who were recruited and drafted at disproportionate rates and, in many cases, returned home carrying trauma, addiction and lifelong hardship. It remains one of history’s clearest reminders that misinformation, when left unchallenged, can alter the course of a nation and define generations.

For me, that lesson reinforces the purpose and responsibility of a free and accurate press. Truth and trust are not only journalistic values. They are civic obligations that uphold our democracy and protect our shared future.

Wisconsin Watch takes that responsibility seriously. Our mission is to provide clear, factual and accessible information that helps people navigate their lives and strengthen their communities. Veterans and their families are one of many groups whose needs have informed our journalism. Earlier this year, our newsroom looked at how federal workforce and funding cuts could affect veterans here in Wisconsin, how homeless veterans would be affected by the closure of Klein Hall and whether the state Legislature would take steps to help. And yesterday, we published a list of 12 veteran-related bills that are currently in front of Wisconsin lawmakers. 

Much like my grandfathers’ service, our work is guided by endurance, care and the belief that truth matters in even the most trying times. 

To all who have served and to everyone who stands for accuracy, transparency and fairness, thank you! Your courage and commitment make freedom a reality and a treasured gift for us all.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.

A double legacy: Reflections on my grandfathers’ service and sacrifice is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

All too often, secrecy and confidentiality carry the day in proceedings of state and local government. 

In one recent case, the name “Microsoft” on a state Public Service Commission filing was redacted – blocked from public view – along with pages and pages of other information. The redactions served no purpose, as the company’s role in the former Racine County site formerly known as Foxconn had been announced publicly in 2024 by then-President Joe Biden and widely reported.

PSC statutes indicate that utilities can keep only certain items from the public and for very discrete reasons – for instance, to protect competitive information or trade secrets. But in practice, secrecy is extended to a wide range of records. 

This is something I encountered in my reporting on utilities for the Green Bay Press-Gazette and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from the late 1990s to 2017. And the number of confidential filings continued to be a concern in my current role at the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin, the consumer advocate watchdog for utility customers.

The problem is more urgent now, in an era of rapidly rising costs for utility customers and proposals for the building of huge, energy-gulping data centers now being proposed throughout the state. The stakes are getting higher.

Wisconsin’s utility system is undergoing a rapid-fire and massive transformation, arguably the biggest since the advent of widespread use of air conditioning 75 years ago, or even since Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla were lighting cities for the first time using electricity.

Two such data center projects in eastern Wisconsin – Microsoft in Racine and OpenAI Oracle Vantage in Port Washington – would use as much power by themselves as all of We Energies customers used last year. You read that right: Two such data center projects in eastern Wisconsin – Microsoft in Racine and OpenAI Oracle Vantage in Port Washington – would use as much power by themselves as all of We Energies customers used last year. You read that right: These two centers combined would require as much electricity as all 1.1 million industrial, commercial and residential customers used last year, including the entire cities of Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Port Washington, Waukesha and Appleton.

So it’s no wonder there’s more attention being placed, here and across the country, on the decisions being made by the three PSC commissioners in Madison and their counterparts across the country. This is especially true given that a new Marquette Law School poll found that a majority of state residents, Democrats and Republicans alike, believe that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits.

In the case of the Port Washington data center, city leaders signed a development agreement that contains a very broad definition of  “confidential information” and then binds the city to assist the data center developer in defending any lawsuit seeking to release anything it considers confidential. 

Recently, the nonprofit law center Midwest Environmental Advocates had to sue the city of Racine to get water records for the Microsoft development. Peg Scheaffer, the group’s spokesperson, said “it’s more important than ever that technology companies like Microsoft be transparent about the environmental impacts these huge data centers will have.”

Fortunately, Wisconsin’s PSC is paying heed to these concerns. At a training session for the energy legal community in Madison earlier this year, the PSC put utilities and their law firms on notice that the agency will be taking a closer look at confidential filings and scrutinizing more closely the requests filed by utilities to keep information from public view.

That transparency initiative is overdue, and welcome.

Local and state government leaders enticed by the lure of economic development should take heed. Going forward, let us err on the side of more transparency, not less.

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. Tom Content is executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin and vice president of the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. 

Your Right to Know: Data center secrecy is unacceptable is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.