Scott Williams, swilliams@wolfrivermedia.com
Citing the community’s right to be informed on public health issues, The Shawano Leader on Thursday asked a district attorney to examine closed-door meetings of the county health board to discuss local cases of tuberculosis.
The newspaper’s action follows meetings of the Shawano County Board of Health and Veteran Services that excluded the public during discussion of the tuberculosis cases on Aug. 17 and Sept. 21.
In both cases, the health board invoked a provision of the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law that permits closed meetings to deliberate on real estate dealings or investment of public funds. Board members later said that no such discussions took place and that the board instead reviewed the tuberculosis situation — Shawano County’s first confirmed cases of the deadly disease in nearly 10 years.
In a letter Thursday to the Shawano County district attorney, Leader publisher Greg Mellis alleged that the closed-door meetings violated the law, and he asked the district attorney to investigate.
Mellis wrote that he does not want health board members prosecuted or subjected to fines of up to $300 each, as allowed under the law.
“We ask that you look into this matter and provide an appropriate remedy,” he wrote. “We are not seeking prosecution or punishment, but rather education of the health board regarding its responsibility to the public.”
District Attorney Gregory Parker was out of the office Thursday and could not be reached for comment.
Health board chairman Jon Zwirschitz, who previously said the meetings were closed to protect the confidentiality of tuberculosis patients, said Thursday that the meetings were legal, in his opinion, although he declined to elaborate.
“There’s nothing we violated,” he told a reporter. “Don’t bother me any more.”
The Leader has never asked county officials to identify either tuberculosis patient, but only to explain how the county is handling the situation and working to prevent the disease from spreading.
Beth Bennett, executive director of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, said the open meetings law requires government bodies to conduct business in the open, and there is no exception for discussions about how government employees are managing a public health problem.
The law does allow closed meetings to protect an individual’s private health information, but that does not mean officials can exclude the public from all related deliberations, Bennett said. Especially when the general public has an interest in how a communicable disease outbreak is being controlled, she added, the government should not conduct itself in secrecy.
“To have no public discussion whatsoever is not acceptable,” she said.
The head of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council similarly said last month that the health board’s closed meetings were inappropriate under the law.
Mellis said officials at The Shawano Leader gave careful consideration to the matter before deciding to get the district attorney involved.
“We do not take this action lightly,” he said. “But our mission as a newspaper goes beyond just reporting the news. We also are the reader’s advocate for open government and the public’s right-to-know.”
The Shawano-Menominee Counties Health Department has disclosed that one case of tuberculosis was confirmed in April and another in August. The two cases, which are believed to be unrelated to each other, are the first confirmed incidents of tuberculosis in the county since 2006.
Health officials also have reported an unspecified number of additional patients with “latent tuberculosis infections,” which means those people have tested positive but not actually developed the disease.
Tuberculosis, also known as TB, is a bacterial disease that commonly attacks the lungs and can be spread by an infected person coughing or sneezing around others. Officials have said both patients in Shawano County — both described as men in their 50s — have agreed to remain in isolation during their treatment to avoid spreading the disease, which can be fatal if not treated properly.
The county health board, a seven-member panel responsible for overseeing the health department, met behind closed doors on Aug. 17 and Sept. 21, both times indicating on agendas that the closed sessions were for discussion of “communicable disease investigation and control.”
For both meetings, the board cited a provision of the open meetings law that authorizes closed-door discussions regarding “the purchasing of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other specified public business, whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session.” That part of the law makes no mention of communicable diseases.
County Corporation Counsel Tony Kordus, who declined to comment Thursday about the Leader’s complaint, previously defended the health board’s closed meetings. In a Sept. 22 email to the newspaper, Kordus wrote that the closed meetings were authorized by the provision cited, as well as others in the open meetings law and elsewhere.
Kordus noted that the health board did not consult his office before holding the closed meetings. He added: “What is important is that the public had notice of what was being discussed in closed session, and the item discussed in fact falls within one of the sections allowing for a closed session.”