The Lakeland Union High School Board of Education likely violated the state’s Open Meetings Law when it entered closed session as part of an April 28, 2025 meeting agenda, according to Oneida County Sheriff Grady Hartman.
The board agreed after a closed session discussion on April 28 to accept the resignation of district business manager Eddie Then Jr., who was recently hired to be the business manager of the Minocqua Hazelhurst Lake Tomahawk school district next school year, according to a May 6, 2025 story in The Lakeland Times.
The Lakeland Times believes the school board violated the state’s open meetings law while doing so.
Listed on the agenda issued to the Times is a “monthly personnel report.” It was listed under the board’s “consent agenda,” which is a category typically included on the board’s agendas that aren’t discussed and usually voted on with little or no discussion, though board members will sometimes ask to move an item from the consent agenda to the “action information” category to discuss it more before a vote.
At the April 28 meeting, an item removed from the consent agenda did not appear on the publicly posted agenda. It was then transferred to closed session for further discussion, yet the personnel exemption was not included in the closed session notice.
Board chairman Shawn Umland said he wanted to “pull 9.23” and move it to the closed session; there wasn’t a “9.23” on the agenda. The agenda only listed “9.2,” which was the “monthly personnel report.”
Board and district administrator secretary Lisa Kennedy told the Times on April 29 the board came out of closed session and voted to accept Then’s resignation in open session. Looking at the April 28 agenda, the resignation of Then wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Kennedy, who organizes the agendas, clarified to the Times she’s been using a new software to do that. She explained the agenda posted on the district’s website specifically listed the personnel report, but the posted agenda didn’t have those specifics, meaning there were essentially two agendas — one agenda the board was following and another that was sent to the Times and area town clerks for public posting.
There were a total of 11 items under the board’s “monthly personnel report.” Each of the 10 other items, which ranged from hires and resignations to stipends and transfers, were approved by the board in open session, though they also weren’t specifically listed on the posted agenda.
The Times contacted interim district administrator Steve Kolden, who chooses what goes on the board’s agendas. Kolden was made aware of the Times’ concern that the board didn’t agendize its personnel report items properly and an item was moved to closed session though it wasn’t properly noticed under the closed session listed on the agenda. There, it said the board would only be discussing “pending litigation” and a “district administrator evaluation.”
Kolden also agreed there only should’ve been one agenda.
“The one I had printed in front of me had (specific items) listed out and the public version did not,” he said. “That’s where we made a mistake.”
Times publisher Gregg Walker asked Kolden to notice items properly on the board’s next agenda for the board to vote on it legally, because the votes the board took on agenda items not properly noticed constituted, the Times believes, an illegal meeting.
If that isn’t done, Walker said the Times is prepared to file a complaint with the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office for an open meetings violation.
Hartman told the Times that it sounds like the board of education was likely in “clear violation” of the state’s open meetings law.
“Whatever agenda’s posted, that’s the one you have to work off of,” Hartman said in the Times story. “There can’t be a public one and then the private one, and you have to list the items very specifically.”
