In an action brought by The Lakeland Times and publisher Gregg Walker, an Oneida County circuit judge who previously found that two Lake Tomahawk officials attended a meeting that was in violation of the state’s open meetings law has imposed no forfeitures and will require only one of the officials to take any training.
The ruling was described in detail in a June 13, 2025 story in The Lakeland Times of Minoqua.
Oneida Circuit Court Judge Mary Sowinski issued her written conclusions of law this past week, reiterating a finding that Lake Tomahawk supervisor Lenore Lopez and town chairman George DeMet attended an illegal meeting in 2023.
In her written decision, the judge further found that the state did not establish that Lopez knew the meet- ing was illegal when she attended but concluded that DeMet knew or consciously avoided knowledge that the ‘informative talk’ he not only attended but planned and executed was an illegal meeting.
Lakeland Times publisher Gregg Walker called the decision yet more proof that the open meetings laws in the state are toothless because judges opposed to transparency rarely exact any consequences for obvious violations.
“The ruling is just an abomination,” Walker said. “This is yet another of an endless string of cases in which public officials are found guilty of trampling on the public’s legal right to know but they are never held accountable by establishment judges whose mission on the bench is to protect government secrecy.”
Walker said Sowinski’s finding that DeMet knowingly violated the law — or actively avoided such knowledge — should subject him to a charge of misconduct in public office, a felony.
“Most people who violate open meetings laws do so inadvertently because they don’t know any better,” Walker said. “Those people should still be prosecuted, but, in this case, the violation is even worse because the judge found that DeMet knowingly broke the law and that’s textbook misconduct in public office. He should be prosecuted forth- with, given Sowinski’s decision.”
Walker also criticized the length of the time Sowinski took to render an opinion. The court trial was held in October 2024. “It is now about eight months since a no-brainer court trial was held and only now is Judge Sowinski getting around to doing her job,” he said. “Unless she’s related to Rip Van Winkle, there’s no excuse for this lack of judicial responsibility.”
