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| 7/26/2010 3:47:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Genoa City Board to seek Attorney General opinion regarding public notices
Village accused of violating state law, could face lawsuit from newspaper
Christine Lupella
Staff writer
The Genoa City Village Board approved requesting an opinion from the state Attorney General's office regarding publication of legal notices in what may resolve the lengthy debate in the near future.
The village publishes its notices in the Lake Geneva Regional News. Under state law, the village is required to publish its notices in the newspaper certified to its own municipality, if one is available. The Genoa City Report is the only certified newspaper in the village; however, the Village Board has denied or ignored repeated requests from owner Jack Cruger to publish the village's legal notices.
The board's decision to seek the Attorney General's opinion came after a July 8 board discussion regarding a letter from Thomas Meyer, Cruger's attorney.
The letter dated May 13 and addressed to Linda Gray, Village of Genoa City attorney, suggested that the village obtain an Attorney General's opinion "whether the Village of Genoa City has or does not have the authority to publish legal notices in Lake Geneva Regional News."
The request was being made prior to Cruger filing suit against the village, according to the letter.
Cruger also noted the village is subject to a fine of $100 each time it failed to properly publish a legal notice.
Village President Barry Goad said, "If he wants the Attorney General's opinion, he can get it himself."
Village Clerk Mary Buchert said, "Our interpretation (of the law) and their interpretation are totally different."
Someone in the audience July 8 pointed out that the village's request for an Attorney General opinion on the matter would be better perceived "if we're the ones reaching out."
"I don't care what we look like to them," Goad said.
Several board members said they believed the Attorney General would put an end to the issue.
Goad then said, "I stand majorly corrected."
The board unanimously approved a motion for Gray to request the Attorney General's opinion on the matter.
After the meeting, Goad gave his reasons for refusing to publish Village notices in the Genoa City Report.
"Our worry was that the circulation was nowhere close to what Lake Geneva's was," he said. "It's because it's been that way forever.
"It got to be a legal wrestling match."
Goad said the village requested subscriber lists for the paper, and that village office staff called some of the numbers on the list and that a lot of the people were dead.
Cruger said in a separate interview, "With respect to the village president's claim that some of our subscribers are dead, I can tell you that we would have no knowledge that someone died after subscribing to the paper unless we get a call from a family member to stop mailing the paper.
"The suggestion that we would pump up our circulation numbers by mailing newspapers to the deceased is not how we increase our circulation," Cruger added.
Cruger noted that on June 16, 2009, Gray was sent a circulation summary for the Genoa City Report. "This summary showed that we exceeded the state's requirements, and at this time we continue to exceed their requirements. The Department of Administration audited our records and found us to be eligible to publish legal notices."
Cruger said he was pleased the board would seek the Attorney General's opinion.
Gray said she had not written the request for the Attorney General as of July 19. She said she would most likely do so by the end of the month.
Requests to Village ignored, denied
Since the Genoa City Report was officially certified by the state Department of Administration on April 23, 2009, as being published in the Village of Genoa City, newspaper owner Jack Cruger's requests for the village to publish its notices in The Report have been ignored or denied.
Wisconsin law defines the term "published" as the place from which a newspaper's mail permit is issued.
Municipalities must publish their legal notices in the certified newspaper, according to state law. No newspaper can be certified in more than one municipality.
Currently, the village's legal notices are published in the Lake Geneva Regional News, which holds a postal permit in Lake Geneva.
Cruger notified the village again on May 15, 2009, after the village ran its "Consumer Confidence Report" in the Lake Geneva Regional News on May 14, 2009.
He wrote: "The Lake Geneva Regional News no longer meets the qualifications to run legal notices for the Village of Genoa City, because you now have a certified paper in the village."
Thomas Meyer, Cruger's attorney, sent another letter regarding the violations in August 2009 to the village Finance Committee, specifically Don Fort, Marc Harren and Phillip Traskasi.
Meyer wrote, "We look forward to the cooperation of the Village of Genoa City with regard to publication of future notices. In the event the village chooses to ignore this letter and the statutes, Southern Lakes Newspapers LLC (parent company of the Genoa City Report) will pursue its appropriate legal remedies."
Cruger made a written Open Records request to the village for a list of all legal notices published in the Regional News from April 23, 2009 to Feb. 18, 2010 as well as the price paid for each notice.
Should the village be found in violation of state law it may be fined up to $100 per offense. An offense is each day in which a legal notice should have been but was not published as required by law.
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