The leadership of the Elmbrook School Board will pay small fines, and the attorney for the woman who filed a complaint against them will receive more than $13,000 under an agreement filed in Waukesha County Circuit Court to resolve a five-year-old case that arose out of a violation of the state Open Meetings Law.
The agreement was detailed in the June 10, 2025 issue of The Waukesha Freeman.
According to the article:
The Elmbrook School Board met in May 2020 to decide between Mushir Hassan and Leanne Wied on who would be appointed to fill a vacancy. After a series of votes by email, the board appointed Hassan. Because votes were cast by email, Wied sued Elmbrook School Board President Scott Wheeler and Vice President Jean Lambert alleging a violation of the state open meetings law because the public wasn’t allowed access to the deliberations in real time.
Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel initially ruled in favor of Wheeler and Lambert, but an appeals court reversed that decision earlier this year, ruling that the process of conducting votes by email during a meeting kept residents “in the dark” about what occurred and who voted for whom.
As a result, the appeals court returned the case to the circuit court level to determine the appropriate amount of fines that should be imposed, ranging from $25 to $300.
On May 30, attorney Joel Aziere, representing Wheeler and Lambert, and Wied’s attorney Brandy Henderson jointly filed an agreement seeking for Wheeler to be fined $50, Lambert to be fined $25, and for Henderson to receive $13,247.
Henderson based his request on $547 in related costs beyond the time he put into the case, billed at a rate of $200 an hour. He compared that to the rate of $250 to $300 an hour the district paid attorneys in other cases related to the Elmbrook School Board, including Azier, who represented the district in the case.
The stipulation also meant that Henderson withdrew his request last month in which he sought a $300 fine against Wheeler, and a $150 fine against Lambert.
Attorneys for the parties did not immediately return a message seeking comment, nor did a spokesman for the Elmbrook School District.
The article also detailed an error in the voting process. Once the candidates were narrowed to two, the school board voted on them, deadlocking 3-3 on an email vote. Another vote took place, in which two board members switched their preferences, but the vote remained tied. But Wheeler announced Hassan had received four votes, and minutes later, a motion was made and passed to install Hassan onto the School Board.
Wheeler said a delay in the emails meant he did not learn of the new tie immediately, but never announced Hassan had received only three votes and a tie remained in place, the appeals court found.
During an April 8 court hearing, attorneys for both sides expressed a willingness to work together, online court records indicate. In its decision, the Court of Appeals noted the $25 minimum and $300 maximum are the same penalties that were in effect in 1976, when the law was enacted. In today’s dollars, that minimum and maximum would be just under $140 and just over $1,650, the court said.
