Burr Ridge Meeting Appears To Follow Law

BURR RIDGE, IL – Through village records, it appeared the Burr Ridge Economic Development Committee held an unadvertised meeting in June.

Under state law, such a meeting must be publicized.

But on Friday, Village Administrator Evan Walter emailed Patch information that indicated the session did not break the state's open meetings law.

An expenditure report indicates that $76 was spent June 19 at Patti's Sunrise Cafe in Burr Ridge for an item labeled "EDC Meeting."

It turned out it wasn't really a meeting of the committee.

Only one of the committee's nine members attended – its vice chairman, Russell Smith, an elected trustee. Also taking part were Walter himself and Mayor Gary Grasso, neither of whom are members.

In his email, Walter said he regularly meets with trustees to listen and understand their perspectives on village issues. Sometimes, he said, the mayor also takes part.

"At this particular meeting, Trustee Smith offered several ideas for business appreciation, recruitment, etc. that would naturally fall to the Economic Development Committee to consider in a public forum, thus why the receipt was labeled as it was," Walter said.

Walter also released a calendar invite to Grasso and Smith for the meeting.

Recently, Burr Ridge received a public records request for all correspondence related to the June 19 meeting and any documents showing who attended the session, where it was held and what happened.

In response, the village provided the expenditure report with the restaurant item and a credit card receipt. But the response included no correspondence or any indication of who attended. The calendar invite was the missing information.

Patch wrote a story Friday about the lack of information about the committee meeting. Walter said he hadn't noticed Patch's inquiry about the issue emailed a few days earlier.

Earlier in the summer, expenditure items listed as either "Trustee Breakfast" or "Trustee Meeting" were questioned. The village explained the spending.