THEUWMPOST est. 1956
the student-run independent newspaper
April 30, 2012
Featured photo page 12
Issue 28, Volume 56
Murray hill meeting page 3
Baseball recap page 6
Personnel foul Poor leadership within athletics alleged cause of athletic director’s resignation
By Jeremy Lubus and Zack Garhart Sports Editor and Staff Writer sports@uwmpost.com
UW-Milwaukee administrators were scrambling Monday morning following former Athletic Director Rick Costello’s decision to resign late Sunday night. Vice Chancellor of Media Relations Tom Luljak strongly urged department members not to talk to the press about the resignation with some anonymous sources expressing fear of retribution if they did. The resignation took place during an investigation of the department conducted by thirdparty company Iconic. Luljak did not say who is taking over the position of interim athletics director, but Student Association Vice President Sana Khan said that Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Michael Laliberte is currently in charge of the department. Despite the media blackout, information has begun to leak out about the troubling circumstances enveloping the sports program at UWM. A former athletics department employee, who asked for anonymity discussing
Rick Costello poses for a photo in September with Speaker of the Senate Rick Banks (middle) and LeVar Ridgeway, Assistant Athletic Director - Marketing. the matter, said that Costello’s handling of player complaints against former men’s soccer coach Chris Whalley was the last straw for UWM administration. Another former employee said that Costello was in over his head and was simply not a good fit for the university. “Sports at UWM have never been about bricks and mortar” the source said, referring to Costello’s push for a new sports arena on
campus. “It’s always been about blood and flesh and there are a lot of gaps in the blood and flesh these days.” Costello was hired in December 2010 and earned a yearly salary of $201,000. He was the third athletic director within a four year span. Sources alleged that Costello’s resignation followed almost a year of mismanagement and fiscal instability.
“I have just heard that Costello made promises coming into this position, which was a year ago, and he has yet to fulfill any of them,” a former basketball player said. “He was supposed to be a fundraising guy, and the athletic department has lost money instead of gained it.” The athletic department has had a messy
vironment within the athletics department. Emails sent or received by Costello regarding former men’s soccer coach Chris Whalley and assistant coach Ben Shepherd, requested by the Post on March 6 under Wisconsin’s public records law, have also not been received. Although the statutes governing public records do not specify a specific timeframe for compliance, the Department of Justice recommends fulfilling simple requests within 10 business days. Amy Watson, UWM’s records custodian, said the information could not be provided sooner because an unprecedented number of requests have been submitted this semester and the legal complexity of the request. Speaker of the Senate Rick Banks, who has worked closely with the athletics department, has also requested the climate survey. As of press time, Banks’ has received neither the survey nor acknowledgment that his request was accepted. According to Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31-19.39, “all persons are entitled to the greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those officers and employees who represent them.” The law’s finer aspects – what constitutes a record, which is an authority, who is a requester – are nuanced, but the law is meant “to be construed in every instance with a pre-
sumption of complete public access.” “The denial of public access generally is contrary to the public interest, and only in an exceptional case may access be denied,” reads statute 19.31. The UWM Post first sent a formal request to Watson on March 6, requesting all of Costello’s emails from November 2011 and February 2012 that mentioned Whalley or Shepherd, including attachments. Watson confirmed receiving the request that same day. On March 23, she said via email that the request would incur a $69 to $139 processing fee, based on the time it would take Costello to gather all the pertinent emails and Watson to redact sensitive information. The request was narrowed down on March 25 to mitigate the costs. The Post asked for emails from November but only the last week of February, a request Watson said incurred no cost on April 3. On April 6, Watson said she received the emails from Costello and anticipated the review process would be finished the next week. The Post requested an update on the process on April 12, and Watson said she was not finished with the review process and that she, “may be required to provide statutory notice to the subject of the emails as required by Wis. Stat. 19.356(2)(a)(1).” According to Wis. Stat. 19.356, an authority must provide notice to an employee
that information regarding a disciplinary investigation is being requested for release. That employee then has 10 days to seek a court injunction barring the information’s release. Watson said some emails may not be subject to notice, but on April 19 said that a virus had left her without a computer and that she had still not completed the review process. On April 23, the UWM Post sent a final notice to Watson, stating that the timeframe had long passed during which a request could be complied with and a complaint would be filed with the DOJ if the records were not received within three days. Watson said that she was not intentionally delaying the response. She said she had been inundated with “an unusually high number of requests” and did not receive emails from Costello until April 5. Furthermore, she said the virus left her without her computer, where her working files are kept, and the request raised “complex record law issues.” On April 26, Watson released two emails and one attachment, none pertinent to the athletics department investigation, and said she would need to provide notice to Whalley before the rest of the emails could be released, as per Wis. Stat. 19.356. Only after 12 days have passed will she be able to release the most pertinent emails, Watson said.
See FOUL page 7
University slow on athletics transparency Records request stalls; employees fear talking By Steve Garrison News Editor news@uwmpost.com
UW-Milwaukee has kept a tight lid on information regarding former Athletic Director Rick Costello’s departure late Sunday night. Out of eighteen athletic department employees contacted by the UWM Post to discuss Costello’s resignation, not a single individual was willing to speak on what was anonymously referred to by one employee as, “the worst kept secret in the athletics department.” Several employees who were willing to speak on the record asked not to be named for fear of losing their job. All questions about Costello’s resignation were referred to Vice Chancellor of University Relations Tom Luljak, who has spearheaded the university’s response to the crisis. “They want to just make sure all information is coming out the university’s communications department,” Assistant Sports Information Director Kevin Conway said. Luljak said he could not provide answers to several questions submitted by the UWM Post, because of the university’s policy regarding personnel matters. He also refused to discuss the results of a climate survey conducted by third-party company Iconic, which a former athletic department member said showed the toxic work en-
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COMICS PUZZLES
Chalk it up $5,500 clean-up cost and seven citations issued By Clair Sprenger Staff Writer news@uwmpost.com Police issued citations to seven Allied Student Voice officers for spray-chalking ASV’s logo on campus as part of their election campaign. The university estimates the cleanup costs at $5,500, and each citation the officers issued was for $267. Officers of ASV said they followed rules and took all the necessary precautions by buying spray-chalk that was advertised as easily washing away. ASV officers say they consider the incident a misunderstanding. Police say the chalking is still vandalism, even if the spray-chalk brand promised to wash off. Police are using UW System (UWS) Chapter 18 policy banning vandalism on campus to issue the citations. The UWM Center for Student Involvement created an extension of that, limiting spray-chalking. The limits require student organizations to spray-chalk with brands that “easily dissipate in the rain” and only on “walking surfaces with outdoor exposure.” Although ASV Campaign Manager Michael Ludwig said police officially cited the students for violating Chapter 18, not CSI’s extension, police quoted the extension over email as further justification for the citations. ASV spray-chalkers used the brand Aervoe, which claims to “naturally disappear with water, traffic or other abrasions but will remain visible for up to 3 weeks.” Police issued citations on April 12, two days before it first rained in April and about a week after confronting campaigners while they were chalking. Ludwig and ASV presidential candidate Daniel Laughland, among three or four other witnesses, said they were chalking the big ASV logo in Spaights Plaza when several police surrounded them with vehicles, assuming they were using permanent paint. Independent Election Commissioner Anthony DeWees, Laughland and Ludwig said that police confiscated the spray-chalk, took notes and then left the scene. The police report that led to citations did not make note of this conversation. Ludwig said police called him twice to talk about the citations and to issue a clean-up deadline on the day the citations were issued. “The group was afforded the opportunity to remove the mark-
See CHALK page 3 uwmpost.com
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Mifflin? Is that in Bayview? #dontknow