A Muskego water main extension and connected road work in the works for several years may not seem controversial in itself, but the communications around it are a source of conflict that now has landed in the county courthouse, with the city’s mayor suing an alderman to get access to text messages related to the project.
A Jan. 21, 2026 story in The Waukesha Freeman highlighted the issue. According to the story:
Muskego Mayor Richard Petfalski Jr. on Thursday, Jan. 15, filed an action in the Waukesha County Circuit Court civil division seeking to have a judge order Alderman Dennis Decker to turn over phone records in accordance with the state Open Records Law.
Petfalski said the first-term alderman partially complied with his records request by “producing certain emails but has unlawfully failed to provide other responsive public records for which he is the custodian, without issuing a lawful written denial or citing and valid statutory exemption.”
Decker did not return repeated messages seeking comment. According to documents and emails contained in the suit, Petfalski asked Decker on Nov. 25 to turn over to him all communications he had related to the Hillendale Drive project, but a Dec. 15 message from the mayor indicated that text messages and social media communications and call logs had yet to be delivered.
Petfalski explained Friday, Jan. 16 that the Hillendale project has been going on for three years. It was funded with $2.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, with another $1.5 million to be covered by either city borrowing or using funds from the city’s Water Utility.
It was first discussed at the council in early 2023, with the ARPA funds approved that spring. But as the city approved the budget the next year, Petfalski said a miscommunication between city staff members meant the remaining local sum was not accounted for in the city’s budget presented to the council, which was passed with no one catching the oversight.
When the project went out to bid, a staff member brought up that the remaining local funding hadn’t been arranged. “It got through the whole process, no one picked up on it,” Petfalski said.
After consulting with attorneys, the city decided to use Water Utility fund balance to complete the project. But it did so in closed session, and never explained the matter in open session, Petfalski said.
“We came out of closed session; we should have done that authorization publicly. That was the stink on all this, (allegations that) this was never approved, yes it was, in closed session,” Petfalski said.
The project was completed under budget without using property tax money, the mayor said.
Petfalski said he was concerned that his now-opponent for mayor, former Mayor Kathy Chiaverotti, was using the matter as a tool against him, “and using one of her friends, an alderman, to make it big- ger than it really is.”
“Alderman Decker, he wasn’t even on the council at the time, and he is denying he had any input from anyone else on this, so I did an open records request for any texts he got regarding this because I think it’s going to show a lot of this stuff he was pushing on on this was coming from Kathy (Chiaverotti),” Petfalski said.
Chiaverotti did not respond to repeated messages left for her.
After Petfalski’s initial November request for records, Decker said he believed the information he’d sent Dec. 14 adequately complied with the request.
Decker said he did not use social media, and in a Dec. 18 email said,“as for text messages, by their typical nature, it is a stretch to call them ‘public records.’” He claimed notes and drafts are “not within scope” of the Open Rrecords Law.
“It is apparent to me that you are not so much interested in open records as defined by the law, but are rather on some kind of fishing expedition. Furthermore, your attempted use of the Open Records Law to ‘fish’ for information is an abuse of this law and an abuse of your position as mayor,” Decker wrote in his Dec. 18 reply.
Petfalski replied the next day that “texts, notes and call logs are considered records” under both state and federal law. On Dec. 23, Decker replied that he consulted with counsel on the matter, believed he had complied with the request, and again accused the mayor of a fishing expedition.
According to a Wisconsin Department of Administration guide on the Open Records Law for state employees, public records are any paper or electronic record with information about government business, even if kept on personal devices, “with a few exceptions.” Included in the definition of records are documents, videos, emails and text messages. The guide does say personal notes are not records if they are used to refresh one’s memory and are not shared with others. The guide also says, “Drafts or working papers without substantive comments, rough notes, or calculations” are not considered public records.
On Dec. 24, Petfalski replied he was “puzzled” as to why Decker thought text communications and written files were not subject to open records law. He gave Decker two more days to turn over the requested text messages, “or I will take this matter to court and charge you fees for my expenses and damages. Let’s resolve this without further escalation. I guarantee this will get expensive for you if you do not comply.”
Petfalski, who told The Freeman that it was a fishing expedition, said Decker turned over emails, which would have been accessible on city servers anyway, but he was concerned that there was more public business going on outside the public eye, “and I have a problem with that.”
