Secrecy In Hinsdale D86's Lawyer Hiring: Resident

DARIEN, IL – A critic of the Hinsdale High School District 86 board on Thursday questioned its hiring of a new law firm, alleging residents were left in the dark on the process.

In a unanimous vote last month, the board chose Chicago's Robbins Schwartz to replace Itasca-based Hodges Loizzi.

For months, the board talked about issuing a request for proposals to law firms, comparing prices and offerings.

However, without explanation, the board on Jan. 25 hired Robbins Schwartz, bypassing a search.

"You either violated the Open Meetings Act or you didn't. You could have clarified it tonight, but you didn't," Yvonne Mayer, a former Hinsdale District 181 board member, told the District 86 board. "So it seems to me it is very clear it was a predetermined decision to hire Robbins Schwartz as the attorney."

Mayer accused the board of setting up a "farcical" request-for-proposals process and then bypassing it.

Mayer urged the board to be open with residents.

"I don't know which board members here know the whole story and which ones don't," said Mayer, a lawyer. "But the community doesn't know, and we have a right to because we pay every dollar paid to that law firm. You just got rid of one (law firm) for good reason, and you've replaced it with one that perhaps shouldn't have been hired."

Under the board's policy, members are barred from responding to public comments. Patch left a message with members Thursday about the process of hiring a lawyer. No one responded.

Under state law, the board can discuss specific candidates for attorney services behind closed doors. But it cannot talk about the process in secret. That discussion must be at a public meeting.

When Mayer cited the Open Meetings Act, she was suggesting that the board may have talked about the process out of public view.

Over the years, the school board had gotten in hot water with the attorney general over Open Meetings Act violations.

In November, the attorney general found the board broke state law when it talked about goal-setting for the superintendent behind closed doors in 2022.

In 2020, the board voted on whether to go fully remote for two weeks, but did not alert the public about the vote beforehand, despite state law requiring such a notification.

After Patch wrote about the possibility of a violation, the Elmhurst-based Citizen Advocacy Center filed a complaint with the attorney general's office, which found the board was, in fact, in the wrong.

Last May, after a new board majority took control, members decided behind closed doors to suspend the superintendent and name an interim replacement. Such decisions must be made in public.

Patch filed a complaint, but the attorney general has yet to rule.