(File photo by Mike De Sisti/ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Following an order from a Racine County judge, the City of Racine must hand over full, unredacted billing statements to the Wisconsin Professional Police Association. The issue was covered in a Dec. 21, 2025 story that appeared in The Journal Times of Racine. According to the story:
The WPPA, which is the parent organization of the Racine Police Association, submitted a public records request last year to the City of Racine for documentation of the expenses the city had incurred in a separate legal dispute with the RPA.
The billing records requested by the WPPA range in date from late 2019 through February 2024.
The city complied with the request, but provided heavily redacted content based on the application of “privileged attorney work product and/or privileged attorney/client communication privilege,” according to court documents.
In a decision issued Dec. 9, Circuit Court Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz wrote that the court “has found a wholesale misunderstanding and misapplication of the privileges inserted.”
“In the present case, the City Attorney’s Office has conflated any mention of a case, topic, or subject matter with actual or inferential disclosure of specific information during such billing period. This action has resulted in the heavily redacted billing statements that were produced,” Gasiorkiewicz wrote.
He further wrote that the privilege logs the city submitted to justify its redactions “consist of boilerplate assertions of why privilege is justified in their redactions and is legally insufficient.”
The city was given 10 days from the date of the court order to provide the WPPA with unredacted versions of the billing statements.
City of Racine Communications Director Leslie Flynn said in an email Dec. 18 that the City Attorney’s Office is “seeking clarification on the ruling due to its potential implications on attorney-client privilege” and would not provide further comment until the clarification is received.
