Elmbrook President and VP Emails Show Plan for Secret Voting Found Illegal by Court
Lack of transparency appears intentional by the Elmbrook Board of Education leadership.
On 5/11/2020, Elmbrook Vice President, Jean Lambert, said to Elmbrook President, Scott Wheeler:
“I still have great concerns about public voting. I’d really like to understand the legal issues around this.”
Public voting in this instance was required by law. The Board’s private voting resulted in the erroneous appointment of Mushir Hassan, who was Jean Lambert and Scott Wheeler’s preferred candidate.
Jean’s email is shown in full below and highlighted for emphasis.
One day after Vice President Jean Lambert appeared to express concerns about lawful public voting, President Scott Wheeler sent an email to the full board and Superintendent Mark Hansen, saying:
“On the issue of voting: We called our attorney, we do not need to show the community who we voted for, but a record must be kept and is discoverable by an open records request. (Anyone CAN request to see who voted for whom). So when the time comes, we will be submitting our votes from our school board emails to Christy and myself who will tabulate them.”
Scott’s email is shown in below and highlighted for emphasis.
Questions for board candidates from the email continue below:
Attorney billing records corroborate discussions between Superintendent Mark Hansen about secret ballots. Scott Wheeler’s email above seemed to imply that he was a part of this discussion when he used the word “we” but attorney records note otherwise.
“Correspondences with Dr. Hansen regarding voting for school board candidates; analysis of use of secret ballots.”
Excerpt from the attorney billing records is shown below and highlighted for emphasis.
As published by the Freeman on 5/2/25, the fees to be levied against Elmbrook Board President, Scott Wheeler, and Vice President, Jean Lambert for violating open records law are currently under discussion.
As previously covered, the court decision admonished Scott Wheeler and Jean Lambert for their unlawful behavior. The court pointed out that if “the public and other board members would have been aware of each member’s candidate preferences contemporaneously” Mushir Hassan would not have been moved forward as the sole candidate for the appointment.
The court was even shocked that Scott Wheeler and Jean Lambert spoke of transparency, saying “stunningly, Wheeler and Lambert claim the process to ultimately select their personally preferred choice of Hassan was ‘entirely transparent.’ Had the process truly been so, it would have been readily apparent to all members of the board and the public in real time that Hassan never received the four votes necessary […]”
Transparency By Lawsuit Only?
The community may only be aware of this unlawful behavior due to the lawsuit brought against the district. Could there be other incidents that have not been disclosed publicly? As previously reported, this is not the only time Elmbrook has run afoul of open records law.
As the general public is becoming more aware of government fraud, abuse and malfeasance, Elmbrook’s actions show that the local community may not be immune.
Update: Thank you to the Freeman for their update here and previous coverage here on this matter.
Related coverage:
