Georgetown Refused to Sign Price County's Confidentiality Ag

Last updated: July 2026

By Price County Fun Editorial Team | Price County, Wisconsin

Price County asked its municipalities to sign a confidentiality agreement. Georgetown said no. Not once, not twice, but three times over four months.

The request came from the county, pushed by Nick Trimner. Georgetown’s board first heard about it at their August 12, 2025 meeting, where board member Ginny raised the issue. She told the board about “the Confidentially Ordinance that the county/Nick Trimner is requesting the municipalities sign.”

The board didn’t vote that night. Instead, they wanted more information. The minutes note that “more clarification is needed on the wording of the agreement before any action would be taken.”

That’s a reasonable response from a town board handed an agreement they’d never seen before. But what happened next is where it gets interesting.

The September refusal

At the September 9, 2025 meeting, the confidentiality agreement was back on the agenda. This time, the board was ready to act.

Jessica made a motion not to sign. LeRoy seconded it. The motion carried.

That’s a formal board vote. Not a postponement, not a request for more information, not a “let’s think about it.” A clear decision: Georgetown would not be signing Price County’s confidentiality agreement.

The minutes don’t capture the debate leading up to that vote. We don’t know what concerns board members raised, what alternatives they considered, or whether there was any dissent. The record shows the motion, the second, and the result.

The November reaffirmation

Two months later, at the November 11, 2025 meeting, the agreement came up again. The board reviewed it. And according to the minutes, “the board stands on its previous decision.”

No reconsideration. No new vote. Just a restatement: we already decided, and we’re not changing our minds.

Three meetings. Three refusals. First a request for clarification, then a formal no, then a reaffirmation of that no.

What We Don’t Know

Here’s where it gets frustrating. The Georgetown minutes give us the shape of what happened, but they leave a lot of gaps.

We don’t know the exact text of the confidentiality agreement. The minutes never quote it. They don’t summarize its terms. We don’t know what information the county wants kept confidential, what penalties the agreement might include, or how long it would last.

We don’t know which other Price County municipalities received the same request. Trimner is described as asking “the municipalities” to sign, which implies this went to more than just Georgetown. But we only have Georgetown’s minutes showing the response.

We don’t know whether any towns did sign. It’s possible other municipalities signed without discussion. It’s possible others pushed back too, but their minutes haven’t surfaced. It’s possible Georgetown is the only one that refused.

We don’t know what the county’s stated purpose is. The minutes don’t explain why Price County wants this agreement or what problem it’s meant to solve. There’s no reference to a specific incident, a data breach, a leaked document, or any triggering event.

And we don’t know Nick Trimner’s exact role. His name appears in the Georgetown minutes in connection with this request, but the minutes don’t identify his title or position within Price County government. He might fill any of several roles: administrator, clerk, corporation counsel, something else. Without that context, it’s hard to assess the weight of his request.

Why this matters

A county asking its own municipalities to sign confidentiality agreements is unusual. Municipalities are separate governmental entities, not county departments or employees. They have their own boards, their own budgets, their own responsibilities to their residents.

When a county wants its towns to keep information confidential, it raises a basic question: confidential from whom? From the public? From other municipalities? From the state?

Open records laws already govern what government information can and can’t be released. Wisconsin has strong public records statutes. If the county is asking municipalities to go beyond what those laws already require, that’s worth paying attention to. If it’s asking them to agree to confidentiality terms that might restrict what town boards can share with their own residents, that’s a bigger deal.

Georgetown’s board didn’t explain their reasoning in the minutes. But their actions are consistent with a posture of caution. They asked for clarification first. They voted no when they didn’t get satisfactory answers. They held firm when the issue resurfaced.

That’s either a transparency stance or a jurisdictional dispute. Maybe both. A town board that refuses to sign a county confidentiality agreement might be protecting its residents’ right to know. It might also be asserting its independence from county authority. The minutes don’t tell us which.

Broader Context

This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Price County has been dealing with other county-municipal tensions. The county’s tax collection fee increases have been a source of friction with local towns. When the county is already pushing municipalities on one front, a request like this lands differently than it would in a neutral climate.

Intergovernmental agreements can be routine. Shared services, mutual aid, boundary adjustments. Towns and counties sign agreements all the time. But a confidentiality agreement is a different animal. It’s asking municipalities to restrict information flow, not coordinate services.

The fact that Georgetown discussed this at three consecutive meetings over four months suggests the board took it seriously. They didn’t dismiss it out of hand in August. They asked questions. They waited. Then they made a decision and stuck with it.

What happens next

That’s unclear. The county could drop the request. It could approach Georgetown again with a revised agreement. It could seek other means of enforcing confidentiality expectations. Or the issue could simply fade.

What’s on the record is this: Price County asked Georgetown to sign something. Georgetown asked what it said. The answer, apparently, wasn’t good enough. Georgetown voted no. And two months later, they hadn’t changed their minds.

For residents who care about transparency in local government, that’s worth knowing. The questions that remain unanswered are worth asking. What does the agreement say? Who else was asked? Who signed? And what does Price County want kept confidential?

Those are questions for the county board, for Nick Trimner, and for any other municipality that received the same request. Georgetown’s minutes give us the start of the story. The rest of it is still waiting to be told.