Gateway College Turns Over Records To KCE After Fight With Expensive Lawyers

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Gateway President Ritu Raju (D) and Former President Bryan Albrecht (D)

KCE was tipped off on November 17, 2022 that Gateway Technical College was holding a “woke” event. The College’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion hosted a party for staff of the college and students. While on the clock, the teachers went to Cinemark movie theater in Kenosha to watch “Wakanda Forever.” All tickets were paid for by the college and so was popcorn and food. In total, the college, funded by taxpayers, paid $1,195.09 for this event. But how is watching a Marvel film helping the diversity, equity, and inclusion cause? According to Gateway spokesman Lee Colony, “The Wakanda movie experience was a student life experience, designed to bring students together for an activity….It really wasn’t a [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] activity. It was more like an overall student experience.” To contrast this statement, here is an email that was leaked to KCE.

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We also asked the college for a copy of a political debate video that WGTD produced in reference to the a local election. WGTD is another taxpayer funded entity, and often attempts to influence elections by holding “forums.” They invite candidates to answer questions and taylor the questions for their agenda. WGTD employed a man who incited violence in Kenosha. He left in 2022. We asked for a copy of the recent video, and they denied our request, saying that the event was hosted by WGTD’s Len Iaquinta, and since the video was on his computer – it wasn’t a public record. Wrong. Of course, we threatened to sue Gateway. Maybe they saw our recent win in court against UW Parkside and got nervous, so they re-considered their denial. They hired Quarles and Brady, a high-priced Milwaukee law firm, to attempt to uncover a loophole so they didn’t have to turn over the video or receipts from the Wakanda movie outing. The law-firm billed the taxpayers $1,170, only to tell Gateway that they had to turn over the records to KCE. Here is the bill from the lawyers:

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Attorney Eric Van Schyndle and Lindsey Davis

With all of the intellectuals at Gateway, you would think they could make decisions about public records without shelling out that kind of cash. After all, most governmental organizations do.

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Gateway isn’t new to spending a lot of money on lawyers, they spent more than $135,000 to the same law firm, fighting a student with autism about a B- grade.

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Gateway President Ritu Raju (D)

We asked the new Gateway president about the waste of money. She had no comment. Her predecessor was the one who wasted the money, as she is new.

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Gateway Board of Trustees President Rebecca Matoska-Mentink (D)

We asked failed county executive candidate and Gateway Board of Trustees Chairman Rebecca Matoska-Mentink (D) what she thought of the spending. She also had “no comment.”

KCE also reached out to every other trustee. Only one would speak to us, Ram Bhatia. He was pleasant and there was a nice conversation. He didn’t want to make any comments on the record, as he says the board speaks with one voice.

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16 Responses

    1. I don’t know how to explain this to you other than to offer you a challenge. If you show me a link to the sheriff forum on wgtd from last year I will give $5,000 to your favorite charity.

  1. Buckle up, buttercups. What Steinbrink pulled is chump change compared to the money hidden and wasted in academia and as bad as it is Gateway is nowhere near as bad as some of the others.

    I could give a rat’s ass that there’s some twit you don’t like working at WGTD. Let’s look at some of the real budget blunders at Gateway. I admit to having just a little soft spot for WGTD. With how bad the Kenosha and Racine papers and radio stations have become maybe they should hire more news reporters. They’re worth more than the bloated administrators and assistants to the assistant administrators.

    1. Oh, I forgot to mention the boondoggle of how UW-Parkside (Debbie Ford) pissed away Parkside’s FM radio license. People compete for those licenses.

  2. If this is going to be the voice that the board speaks with, it needs laryngitis or new vocal cords. This is absolutely a multiple ways of property taxes, not to mention time that could have been spent on the pursuit of teaching courses that provide good jobs, which is what Gateway excels in even though they only seem to do it part-time lately.

  3. This Equity, Diversity
    and inclusion is such woke Bullshit .. it’s code for screw the white guy..So sick of the Demo-Rats ..So if your Black testing is Racist ..Gateway is Garbage overpaid POS’s … The 13% causes 90 % of the problem ..

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