A state legislator appears to have been improperly given a special privilege when he was notified by the police department that the Green Bay Press-Gazette planned to release a report alleging he abused his child and then let him add a statement to the documents.
In response to a public records request from the newspaper, the Green Bay Police Department gave Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Gibson, 13 business days to add his response to a 2013 police report, write Natalie Eilbert and Chris Mueller of the Press-Gazette. Meanwhile, the records were withheld from the newspaper.
Local public officials cited the statute requiring notification of elected officials who are the subject of an open records request. However, the law doesn’t apply in this case because Sortwell wasn’t a public employee or official at the time the record was created — and he was never an employee of the police department.
