Feb. 20, 2026 11a
(WGTD)---A lawsuit that had been filed by a blogger against Kenosha County Executive Samantha Kerkman and Clerk of Courts Rebecca Matoska-Mentink has been dismissed.
Kevin Mathewson had gone to court seeking an unredacted copy of a memo Matoska-Mentink had written. The memo summed up an investigation she had undertaken of an allegation that Mathewson had photographed without permission a document that had been sitting on the desk of a clerk in intake court.
Per his open records request, Mathewson was given the summary of Matoska-Mentink’s investigation, but the copy was heavily redacted to protect county employees from harassment and intimidation. At least that’s what the county’s attorney had argued.
In his ruling, Racine Judge David Paulson noted that Mathewson, by his own admission in court filings, was already aware of the identity of the court clerk in question and the circumstances. “If the petitioner already knows the redacted information, then what purpose does this mandamus serve except to intimidate or harass employees,” Paulson wrote. “By petitioner’s own admission the requested information is no longer needed.”
In dismissing the request, Paulson said the county properly applied the ‘balancing’ test in the release of public documents.
In a somewhat related action in federal court, Mathewson is objecting to a ruling from Deputy Kenosha County Judge Chad Kerkman that bans him from taking photographs in the county’s intake court. That suit is pending.
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