What a "Presumption of Openness" Means

The Janesville Gazette in Wisconsin reports it battled with the Rock County corporate counsel, Jeff Kuglitsch, to obtain documents related to the resignation of former Human Resources Director John Becker. Yet it took the newspaper two months and four letters to obtain the documents, which were sitting in Kuglitsch's office the whole time.

Attorney Robert Dreps with the Wisconsin Newspaper Association was outraged when he learned of the tactics used to respond to the newspaper's records request, calling them "semantics" and noting, "Open records law provisions aren't determined by where you put the document or what you call it."

For his part, Kuglitsch maintains he followed the law.