Tonight at 7pm District 99 will once again violate the Illinois Open Meetings Act by holding a closed session to discuss a decided court case. District officials said the meeting will be held in closed session because board members will be discussing litigation.
Really?
The exception to the OMA clearly states PENDING litigation, not decided litigation. The Appellate Court did not find Error, Remand, Modify or Reverse the Circuit Court’s decision; it Affirmed. So is the board weighing whether to waste even more tax dollars in appealing to the Illinois Supreme Court? Or file a different appeal?
(2) “Litigation, when an action against, affecting, or on behalf of the particular public body has been filed and is pending in a court or administrative tribunal, or when the public body finds that such an action is probable or imminent, in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting.” 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(11). [Note: This exception operates to bring back under the Act certain gatherings which were excepted by the Appellate Court in People ex rel. Hopf v. Barger, 30 Ill. App. 3d 525 (Second Dist. 1975). The exception does not authorize the closing of a meeting merely because an attorney is present and/or legal issues are to be discussed. Litigation must be probable, imminent or pending before the exception can be used. The term "litigation" does not encompass deliberations of a public body acting in a quasi-judicial capacity on matters before it for decision. See 1983 Ill. Att'y Gen. Op. 10; but see 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(4). The phrase "probable or imminent" means "likely to occur." See 1983 Ill. Att'y Gen. Op. 82.]
Emphasis are mine.
As far as adequacy of a motion to go into closed session over litigation? From the Illinois Association of School Boards website, citation of this case as an example:
Henry v. Anderson (v. Champaign Community Unit School District No. 4), 827 N.E.2d 522 (Ill.App.4, 4-18-05).
The second meeting being scrutinized violated the Open Meetings Act because the reason given for going into closed session – “litigation” – was not supported by required information. Said the court: “The ‘litigation’ exception is a forked path. If the litigation has been filed and is pending, the public body need only announce that in the proposed closed meeting, it will discuss litigation that has been filed and is pending. If the litigation has not yet been filed, the public body must (1) find that the litigation is probable or imminent and (2) record and enter into the minutes the basis for that finding. Evidently, the legislature intended to prevent public bodies from using the distant possibility of litigation as a pretext for closing their meetings to the public.” The court remanded the case to the trial court for a remedy determination.
Again, emphasis mine.
Woodridge has said their legal bills topped $800,000. D99 so far has been mum on the total legal costs.
FOIA request e-filed Tuesday August 3
I filed an email FOIA request for a listing of the legal invoices (just the list and amounts, not copies of each bill), and have yet to hear anything back even though state law requires some sort of response within 5 business days. Note the time stamp on the reply.
Acknowledged and ignored. Business as usual.
I guess today is technically the fifth day if you ignore the day it was sent, so I could still get a response…or maybe they can’t give that complete listing because they’re not done running up the legal bills, which some have estimated at over $1,000,000 and climbing.
Might be less than that, might be more. We’ll see, but right now it looks like each member of the Gang 0f Five have cost D99 taxpayers $360,000 each; a possible $1.8 million dollars, not one dime of which was spent on anything to do with education.
Remember that come election time.
UPDATE: DGreport reader Dan Slayden and two other attorneys who choose not to comment publicly mention the decision has a 30 day period before being final. Tonight the D99 BOE chose to accept that decision.
