On Tuesday, December 21st, a lawsuit was filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court naming The New Berlin School District Superintendent Joe Garza as a defendant. The lawsuit, brought by a New Berlin Resident who’s daughter attends New Berlin West High School, alleges Garza violated Wisconsin Open Records Law – Wis. Stats. § 19.35(1) and § 19.37(1).
On November 29th, 2021, after years of hearing extreme dissatisfaction expressed from parents of student athletes, observing standout athletes leaving the New Berlin West High School Girls Basketball program in surprisingly large numbers, and being told of an overall dismissive response from NB West Athletic Director Jordan Napoli, a parent made an open records request of AD Napoli. The open records request sought electronic copies of the “end-of-season survey responses from parents/student athletes for the girls basketball program” for the previous 5 seasons.
The lawsuit alleges that Garza refused to provide the requested records unless the parent remitted payment of excessive fees ($140.00) not authorized under Wisconsin law. The complaint alleges Garza’s failure to abide by the provisions of Wisconsin’s Open Records Act was “willful, intentional, arbitrary and capricious” and seeks punitive damages as well as reasonable costs and attorney’s fees necessary to bring the legal action.
According to information from the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Office of Open Government: It is imperative that (governmental bodies) recognize that transparency is the cornerstone of democracy and that citizens cannot hold elected officials accountable in a representative government unless government is performed in the open…. ….Wisconsin’s open government laws promote democracy by ensuring that all state, regional and local governments conduct their business with transparency. Wisconsin citizens have a right to know how their government is spending their tax dollars and exercising the powers granted by the people.
The New Berlin Taxpayer Alliance will provide additional updates to this lawsuit and information gathered from the open records request as they become available.
New Berlin Taxpayers Alliance 
1) I strongly suggest that you proofread this blog for spelling and grammatical errors, prior to publishing it. Having spelling and grammatical errors is not a sign of professionalism, which I assume is the look you’re going for.
2) Can you please provide your 501c3 paperwork that shows you’re entitled to use a .org format? Are you now a licensed PAC?
3) Which one of you two is the mom of the daughter at NBW?
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Amie – Thank you for reading and for your interest. We appreciate your comments (constructive or otherwise) as we endeavor to be a resource for information for the taxpayers of New Berlin. For your information/understanding:
2) An entity does not need to be tax exempt in order to utilize a .org web address. As far as who is “entitled” to things (to use your verbiage), no one is entitled to information from organizations simply by demanding it on the internet. There are, however, resources online if you would like to research tax exempt status of organizations. There is no ‘licensing’ requirement for Political Action Committees.
3) Please do not attempt to dox high school students in the New Berlin District or anywhere else.
Do you have any interest in public officials potentially violating open records statutes? Or are you more interested in the actions of private entities than taxpayer funded ones?
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