An empty meeting agenda taped to a wall.
When Isthmus brings on new interns, I usually make it a practice to introduce them to the city’s online legislative information center. Legistar, as it’s commonly called, is truly the portal to city government. It hosts information on city committees, tracks legislation, and posts notices of upcoming meetings.
The intern and I go through that week’s list of committee meetings to review the agenda items on each meeting notice. These are key to identifying issues that are of interest to community members and worthy of coverage. It’s a first step in determining whether we should proceed with a preview article — which gives readers a heads up about the pending item and the opportunity to attend the meeting and provide public feedback — or cover the meeting itself.
The exercise can be hit or miss. Some agendas are helpful; others contain vague action items and jargon. Unfortunately, the notices no longer include the name of and contact info for the city staffer assigned to the committee. In the past I would tap these staffers for context on agenda items or ask about procedural matters — for instance, the likelihood that the issue will be referred to a future meeting.
Dane County also has a Legistar where committee meetings are posted with agendas. Here, too, the agendas are a mixed bag. Take the May 22 agenda for the Dane County Health and Human Services Committee, an important panel as health and human services comprise nearly 40% of the county’s entire budget.
“Reports to Committee” listed three items referring to “ARP Funded Projects Report” for different quarters of 2024 and 2025. I’m guessing the acronym refers to the American Rescue Plan, also called the COVID-19 Stimulus Package, from 2021. None of the items are linked to supporting documents that might provide more information. This notice does get points for including a staffer’s name and phone number on it.
Former Ald. Brenda Konkel has been tracking local government action for many years on her Forward Lookout blog; she also does a weekly feature with the same name on WORT 89.9 FM. On a recent episode, she was going through the list of meetings for the week of April 7 with host Christina Lieffring.
“Moving on to tomorrow, Tuesday, April 8, at 8 a.m., Henry Vilas Zoo Commission is meeting,” Lieffring said.
“They certainly are,” Konkel responded, laughing. “I have no idea what they are doing. There’s a template for the agenda and literally there is nothing in the template. So they just published the template so I don’t know if they are going to be talking about anything or not.”
“Interesting, well, if anyone wants to find out…,” Lieffring trailed off.
“It’s 8 a.m.,” said Konkel, suggesting people might not make a meeting that early in the day.
“Well, we’ll find out eventually,” concluded Lieffring.
But “eventually” is not soon enough. This is information the public has a right to know, in a timely and efficient manner.
The requirements for meeting notices are spelled out in Wisconsin’s open meetings law, which recognizes that “a representative government of the American type is dependent upon an informed electorate.” The law further states that the “public is entitled to the fullest and most complete information regarding the affairs of government as is compatible with the conduct of governmental business.”
Section 19.84 of the law pertains to the public notice required for meetings. In most cases, notices must be published 24 hours in advance of any meeting and include “the time, date, place and subject matter of the meeting. If there is the expectation of a body going into closed session to discuss, for instance, personnel issues, that should be noted as well.”
The law also states that the information in the notice should be in a form that is “reasonably likely to apprise members of the public and the news media thereof.”
That language derives from a 2007 ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in State ex rel. Buswell v. Tomah Area School District. Former assistant city attorney Roger Allen wrote in a memo to city staffers that the ruling “substantially alters the amount of detail or specificity required of meeting agendas.”
“The state Supreme Court ‘explicitly overturned’ [an earlier Court of Appeals] ruling and ‘explicitly rejected’ the use of general topics such as ‘new business,’ ‘old business’, ‘licenses,’ ‘contracts,’ etc.,” Allen wrote. “The Court ruled that agendas must be detailed and specific. The new rule is that agendas must contain such detail as will reasonably inform the public of the specific items to be considered or placed before the public body.”
This advice mirrors guidance provided in the state Department of Justice’s Wisconsin Open Meetings Law Compliance Guide, which states that “purely generic subject matter designations” are “insufficient because, standing alone, they identify no particular subjects at all.”
Public bodies, according to the Supreme Cout ruling, should consider three factors when determining the appropriate level of detail to provide, including whether the subject matter is of particular public interest. If it is, a more detailed notice should be prepared.
Allen, who retired in 2020, acknowledged in his memo that these kinds of “tests” are often not useful in practical terms. He did his best to set a clear standard:
“When considering whether any agenda item is adequately stated, ask yourself the following question, ‘Would someone who knows nothing about the history of this item be able to tell generally what this item is about?’ If the answer to that question is yes, then you probably have provided enough detail in your agenda. If the answer is no, then you will need to be more specific in stating the agenda item.”
I looked at a random sample of agendas for city and county committee meetings in May to see how well they conform to these specs. Some do, some don’t.
The May 29 meeting agenda for the city’s Disability Rights Commission contained vague language (Beyond Compliance Subcommittee Liaison Report) without linking to the cited documents to provide context. The city’s new housing policy committee, meanwhile, put together a pretty good agenda for its kickoff meeting May 22. The items listed were clear (“Madison’s Housing Situation & City Efforts — Staff Presentation and Discussion”) and included attached documents.
The May 21 agenda for the Henry Vilas Zoo Commission was blank except for a number of items listed under “Reports to Committee,” including “2025 RPT-077,” “2025 RPT-078” and so forth. No other information was included. The May 28 agenda for the Dane County Parks Commission, on the other hand, was well done with clearly described action items (“Authorizing donation of funds for Morton Forest”) and attached supporting documents (resolution and fiscal note).
The agendas for the county’s seven “standing committees,” including Health and Human Needs, and Environment, Agriculture and Natural Resources, are created by a department staffer and the committee chair, says Cecely Castillo, chief of staff for the board office, which provides training and support to these committees, including help on agenda preparation. (The Zoo Commission is not under the board’s purview.)
Castillo says that “transparency and accessibility is a big priority” of the county board and its chair. The language used for agenda items, she adds, does “matter.” In a follow-up email, Castillo reports that since our interview she has already spoken with legislative services staff about the need for specific agenda language and appropriate attachments.
At the city level, a staffer is also assigned to each committee and charged with creating meeting agendas with the help of the committee chair, confirms City Attorney Michael Haas. He says the city hasn’t held in-person training for city committee staff since COVID but is now updating its training protocol and hopes to resume in-person training soon.
Haas’ office regularly reviews the lengthy agendas for city council meetings, but only weighs in on other committee notices when asked. “Sometimes,” he says, “we will ask them to make corrections or do it next time.”
As fewer and fewer reporters are covering local news, it’s all the more important that the business of government is accessible and understandable to all. So to all who prepare committee agendas, when in doubt about how specific to be, please ask yourself one question: “What would Roger Allen do?”
