Glitches in Illinois Open Meetings Act

There are at least a couple of glitches in the Illinois Open Meetings Act (OMA).

First of interest is the Notice that is required to be given to the public of a meeting of a body such as the City of Woodstock Board of Fire and Police Commissioners (BOFPC). The OMA requires Notice to be given in specified ways at least 48 hours before a meeting.

This is particularly tricky when a meeting is called for a Monday at 5:00PM. Do you count the week-end hours? Must notice be posted by Thursday at 5:00PM? Actually not. And not even by Friday at 5:00PM, although that's when it is posted. The law is 48 hours before the meeting.

So, if a secretary posted the Notice in the required places by 5:00PM on Saturday, the Notice would satisfy the OMA.

Could the legislators have worded it differently, to assure the public of two full business days of Notice. They certainly could have!

The second glitch pertains to Minutes of a meeting. The OMA speaks only about required publication of the Minutes within seven days after approval. But what if a public body sits on the Minutes and doesn't approve them?

This happened with the Minutes of the September 8, 2008, Regular Meeting of the BOFPC. The December 2008 meeting was canceled, so the Minutes did not get approved them. The Minutes were approved at the March 2, 2009, Regular Meeting of the BOFPC, six months after the September meeting!

Why is this significant? Because the BOFPC did not submit the dates for 2009 Regular Meetings to City Hall and the dates are not included in the Schedule of Meetings, as required by the OMA. The City will have to address this violation of the OMA and correct it.

The BOFPC has published the Minutes of the March 2, 2009, Regular Meeting as "Draft Minutes - to be approved at the June 1, 2009 meeting."

Why weren't the March 2nd Minutes approved at the first following meeting of the BOFPC, which occurred on March 12th? And when will the March 12th Minutes be available? And if the BOFPC meets on the "tentative" date of March 23 in the O'Doherty matter, will it approve the Minutes of the March 2nd and March 12th meetings? Or, if it doesn't meet on March 23 but meets early in April, will it approve the March 2nd and March 12th meetings then?

Minutes are probably typed up the next day. It probably takes about 15-20 minutes to prepare them, because large portions are boiler-plate.

There are huge problems lurking in the shadows around the March 2nd and March 12th meetings. More about this in another article soon.