OMA training for Woodstock BOFPC

Last May the City Attorney for the City of Woodstock sent a rather stern letter to the three members of the Woodstock Board of Fire and Police Commissioners (BOFPC) and its attorney about a violation of the Illinois Open Meetings Act (OMA). In that letter it advised the Board that they were to receive training in the OMA law at its next regular meeting.

That was in May. So far, no OMA training has taken place at a regular meeting. Or at a special meeting.

It seems to me that this training is not "optional" for the BOFPC. The Mayor and the City Manager were greatly displeased with the failure of the BOFPC to observe the OMA law. Since the BOFPC members are appointed by the mayor and serve the City, there shouldn't be any hesitation or reluctance to follow the letter from the City Attorney.

But it hasn't.

Will OMA training be on the agenda for the March 1, 2010, Regular Meeting of the Woodstock Board of Fire and Police Commissioners?

District 200 - Open Meetings Act violation?

Could the Woodstock District 200 School Board be violating the Illinois Open Meetings Act?

The "Meetings Agendas and Minutes" webpage of the school district indicates that the next meeting of the school board will be September 22, 2009, at 7:00PM. All well and good. The public is informed and advised in advance of this meeting. It will be held at the Clay PDC (Professional Development Center). The address for Clay Academy is 112 Grove Street, Woodstock.

OK, so what's the problem?

The problem is that the school board will actually meet at 5:30PM. When you click through to the Agenda for the September 22 meeting, you learn that the school board will meet at 5:30PM for a closed (or executive) session.

The school board must convene first in the open (requiring notice to the public), before it can go into executive session. By convening earlier than the announced 7:00PM starting time announced on the first webpage, does it automatically violate the Illinois Open Meetings Act?

It apparently does not intend to vote in public on any matter discussed in the executive session, either at the end of the executive session or during any portion of the meeting convened at 7:00PM, because no item is on the Agenda. Without that Agenda item, is the Board prevented from taking action on any disciplinary or personnel (or other) issue discussed in private?

I will guess that the Board has decided to meet earlier than 7:00PM in order not to waste the public's time while it discusses certain matters in private, which it has the right to do. But, by scheduling the starting time earlier on the Agenda than it does elsewhere, it could appear to some that it intends to do this without the public's awareness.

A better Agenda schedule would inform the public that the Board will convene at 5:30PM for a (closed) executive session and that, after that session, action, if any, will only be taken after the start of the 7:00PM session. Doing it this way assures the Board, and the public, that no unintentional Open Meetings Act violation will occur.

OMA Violations in Woodstock

OMA? The Illinois Open Meetings Act. It sets up rules and procedures (not Roberts Rules of Order) for how meetings of public bodies in Illinois are to be conducted. Last night a workshop was presented by the Office of the McHenry County State's Attorney.

In this article I'll comment on something I have observed at open meetings of two of Woodstock's commissions, the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners (BOFPC) and the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC).

First, the HPC. Last October the HPC held a public hearing to kick off the consideration of the request by a Woodstock resident for Landmark designation of Grace Hall.

In the City Council chambers where the meeting was being held and before the start of the meeting, all the Commissioners of the HPC gathered at the front of the room behind the official desks of the City Council members. Then an attorney from the Office of the City Attorney arrived and joined them. I was immediately suspicious and considered stepping forward to listen in on their discussion, but I didn't.

The meeting opened, and the attorney for WCLS made a motion to continue the public hearing. The Commissioners quickly agreed. On a different evening it was revealed at a City Council meeting that the City Attorney had directed his young associate to advise the Commissioners to agree to the WCLS request to continue the meeting.

Was the discussion at the front of the room illegal? Under the Open Meetings Act it was. And the impropriety of it was confirmed in an answer to my question at last night's workshop.

Two of the members could have had a conversation. As soon as a third joined in and the conversation was about public business, it became a "gathering" as defined in the Open Meetings Act and subject to the Act. Their conversation was obviously in private and not for those in the room for the public meeting. You can't do that.

And the BOFPC? Without going back and re-hashing earlier meetings, the same thing happened on Wednesday, May 13, when the three Commissioners huddled with the attorney for the BOFPC at the front of the meeting room just before the 5:00PM starting time.

They were in the public meeting place, and they obviously were not deciding where to go for dinner after the meeting. In fact, all of them had better not be going out for dinner, unless they hold steadfast to the rule NOT to discuss any public business while the three of them are dining.

But the three Commissioners and the attorney seemed, to me, to be discussing the public business of the meeting. Their conversation could not be heard. Again, I considered stepping forward to listen in. I can just imagine the scene, as I'm sure they would have ordered me out of their hearing.

That "gathering" constituted a public meeting, even though the public meeting had not been convened yet. Next time? I'll be sure to step forward and listen to their conversation.

If they want to have a "private" conversation about the public's business, then they are going to have to go into Executive Session after the public, open portion of the meeting starts. And that closed session will have to be recorded.

Speaking of recording, my question to the BOFPC is, was your Executive Session recorded on May 13? Attorneys seemed to enter and leave the Executive Session, while the rest of us waited in the Council chambers. There is no problem with that, so long as the entrances and exits were noted on the recording and in the Minutes of the Executive Session.

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.

Illinois Open Meetings Act

The Illinois Open Meetings Act is covered in the Compiled Statutes at 5 ILCS 120/. To find it easily, just Google "Illinois Open Meetings Act."

Section 2.01 states that all meetings required by this Act be public and held at specified times and places which are convenient and open to the public.

It further states that a "...quorum of members of a public body must be physically present at the location of an open meeting."

Can a public body, such as the McHenry County Sheriff's Department Merit Commission, hold an open meeting, such as a Regular Meeting or a Special Meeting, if a quorum is not physically present?

If you read the Open Meetings Act, it appears to me that it cannot. But on October 21, 2008, not only did the Merit Commission meet without a quorum physically present, not even one member (not the Chairman, not any of the other four Commissioners) was present in the room. Not one. They met by telephone.

And at that meeting they made an extremely important decision. That decision was to fire Deputy Zane Seipler.

I addressed this issue of meeting telephonically, rather than in person, with Merit Commission Janelle Crowley, who is also the Director of Human Resources for the City of Woodstock. She directed me to the attorney for the Merit Commission.

The legal fees of the Merit Commission must be huge, if a simple, straight-forward answer cannot be obtained from the Commission without the involvement of its attorney. The attorney said there was no problem.

Well, according to the actual wording of the Illinois Open Meetings Act, there is a problem!

And now the bigger question. If a Commission holds an illegal meeting and makes a decision, is that decision valid? Can any decision made at an illegal meeting be valid?

I say, "No, and No."

So maybe Deputy Seipler is still Deputy Zeipler. And he should be collecting his paycheck on time, every time.

One of these days I might meet Zane. I seem to take up a lot of causes without ever meeting the person who is being harmed.

The Purpose of the Merit Commission is: "To ensure the citizens of McHenry County that there is a fair and equal opportunity system for the employment, promotion, discipline and discharge of full-time Deputy Sheriffs."

Is there?

Sheriff's Merit Commission - Booo

This morning the McHenry County Sheriff's Department Merit Commission was to meet at 10:30AM in the Administration Building, 667 Ware Road, Woodstock. This Commission meets monthly in Regular Meetings, and these meetings appear on the County Government Calendar at http://co.mchenry.il.us

Occasionally, these Regular Meetings are canceled. About three days before a meeting the Agenda for the meeting is linked from the Calendar, so that interested parties can be informed of items and matters for discussion.

When the Agenda was posted last week, I placed this meeting on my own schedule and arranged to be in Woodstock. Should County residents and citizens have a reasonable expectation that a public Commission will meet as scheduled, once the Agenda appears?

Yes. I'll say that again. YES.

So, imagine my surprise when I arrived at the meeting room this morning and found it dark. Not a soul. Not a whisper. Not a telephone set up, in case they were going to meet telephonically. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

I hunted down the secretary for the Merit Commission in the County HR Department and learned that the meeting was canceled yesterday. (The January 2009 meeting was also canceled.) I could have checked the County Calendar this morning, but why should I? The meeting was on it; the Agenda was published.

Why was I there today?

I wanted to ask why they held an illegal meeting on October 21, 2008. I wanted to ask for assurance that the Commission would not attempt to hold a meeting illegally in the future.

More importantly, I wanted to ask if action taken at an illegally-held meeting was valid.

I wanted to ask if the Commissioners were aware of Judge McIntyre's December 17, 2008 Order, in which Judge McIntyre ruled against the Merit Commission.

I wanted to ask whether the Merit Commission would be ordering Sheriff Nygren to put Deputy Robert Schlenkert back on duty.

I'll write in more detail about these two topics in separate postings.

Will they meet in March?

Merit Commission at S/O?

The regularly-scheduled, November meeting of the Merit Commission of the Sheriff's Department, to be held today at 10:30AM, is on the County calendar.

Only now it is not scheduled for today. The meeting has apparently been re-scheduled to November 8 at 3:00PM. Of course, there are immediate problems with that date.

The date is a Saturday.
More importantly, the date is four days AGO.

Since the meeting on the calendar is noted as "rescheduled" and not as "canceled", presumably the legal notice was given by posting the new date in a public place and by notifying the media, as required by the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

Why would this Commission meet on a Saturday? And why would it meet four days before its regular-scheduled meeting?

Something smells, and I don't think it's last week's fish.