Adam Grahn appeared Friday afternoon in Branch 5 at the Marathon County Courthouse without representation.
Grahn filed a petition for an injunction to block the release of records The Wausonian had requested regarding complaints filed against him while he was fire chief.
To recap, the complaints led the district placing Grahn on administrative leave and beginning an investigation, but then suddenly the story went dark.
That is, until the city announced it had hired a new fire chief. So it occurred to this reporter to wonder, what happened with the investigation?
That investigation was never concluded. Instead, Grahn signed a separation agreement with the fire district, which effectively dropped the investigation while agreeing to go his separate ways.
We reported that story here:
The Mosinee Fire Chief's resignation you never heard about
Last August, the Mosinee District’s fire commission placed Mosinee Fire District Fire Chief Adam Grahn on administrative leave.
The Wausonian, upon receiving the separation agreement, filed another records request asking for the complaints filed.
Why? Mosinee taxpayers pay for the fire department’s existence. The premise is that when public dollars are involved, more transparency is expected. Journalists pay more attention to public affairs for that reason - to make sure the public knows how it’s tax dollars are being spent.
Grahn on Sept. 2 filed a for an injunction blocking the release of the records. Grahn argues that the complaints were “unproven, unsubstantiated, and false” and that making those complaints public would damage his privacy, reputation and future employment prospects unfairly.
That’s why Grahn was in court Friday afternoon.
What happened in court?
Grahn appeared opposite the Mosinee Fire District in front of Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Mike Moran. Grahn appeared pro se, in other words, without representation. The district was represented by attorney Shane Vanderwaal.
Moran explained that the court didn’t have time in its schedule to make a decision — the hearing started at 1 pm and another hearing was scheduled for 1:15 pm.
Instead, Vanderwaal, with Grahn’s agreement, offered to provide the court with redacted and unredacted copies of the records, and both parties agreed that the records would be sealed. That would allow Moran to examine the evidence ahead of hearing oral arguments at the next hearing.
(Which makes sense. If they weren’t sealed, the court would be effectively releasing the records since they would become accessible through the court’s public record system. That would render the whole motion moot.)
Moran explained what he would like to do is examine the evidence in camera, which means in private. He mentioned a hearing next week wouldn’t be possible, and left it to the parties to schedule a hearing with the court’s assistant. According to online court records, a hearing is now scheduled for Oct. 13.
The Wausonian will be in attendance.
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Why would the court (Moran's staff) even schedule a hearing with as little as a 15 minute window? It was easily anticipated by said scheduler that such a hearing would lead to the in camera ruling Moran offered. Or, perhaps that is why it was given such short shift on the schedule...
Either way, you got the suspense hook this story deserves. Now the grounds for the separation agreement are certainly more tantalizing.