Elmhurst Park District Violated Open Meetings Law: State

ELMHURST, IL — The Elmhurst Park District violated the state's open meetings law when its finance and audit committee met last June without advertising the meeting beforehand, the attorney general says. The district has acknowledged it did not provide notice for the June 10 meeting.

Four days after the meeting, then-Elmhurst resident Edgar Pal submitted a complaint to the attorney general, which responded with its opinion in September. Pal, who has prevailed in government openness disputes with the city of Elmhurst and the Elmhurst school board, recently released the attorney general's letter on the park district to Patch.

In its letter, the attorney general's office notes the Open Meetings Act states that it is the "public policy of this state that its citizens shall be given notice of and the right to attend all meetings at which any business of a public body is discussed or acted upon in any way."

In response to Pal's complaint, the park district in late July confirmed to the attorney general that the committee met to discuss the district's audited financial statements for its golf course and did not provide notice or an agenda for the meeting. The district said it was evaluating its committee structure to make sure all committees comply with the open meetings law.

Pal has requested the minutes from the unadvertised June meeting, but the district has not approved minutes for release. It said it does not have to release those documents until the second meeting after the one in question. Because the committee only meets once a year, Pal may have to wait as long as June 2021 for the meeting record, the district's executive director, Jim Rogers, said in an October letter to Pal.

In an interview, Rogers said it's likely the district would release the minutes after the committee meets this coming June, the first subsequent meeting.

"Minutes cannot be released until they are approved," Rogers said. "They will be released in compliance with the law, no later than the second subsequent meeting."

Through his public records requests, Pal said he found the park district's finance committee also held meetings without notice, agendas or minutes in 2017 and 2018. He said these were essentially nonpublic meetings when they should have been open.

The park district's finances may undergo greater scrutiny in the coming months as officials prepare to go to voters as early as November for a referendum to increase taxes to pay for major park projects.

Pal has pushed public records issues before. Over the summer, Pal said he noticed aldermen were looking at their city-issued laptops during public comment, so he filed a public records requests for the laptops' browser histories. The city denied him, saying they were not public records. Pal took the matter to the attorney general, which found in November that they were public records. The city then released them.

The browser histories showed the aldermen were mostly reviewing documents prepared for City Council meetings, but other items were unrelated, including an airline ticket reservation, a story about Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and a Chicago Tribune story about white nationalists.

In response to another complaint by Pal, the attorney general found the Elmhurst School District violated the Open Meetings Act when it discussed an administrative reorganization behind closed doors in June 2018. The board can discuss specific employees in closed session, but not general issues.

Despite the attorney general's opinion, the school board continued to resist releasing the meeting's minutes and audio. So Pal filed a lawsuit against the district. Last month, the district settled with Pal, releasing all that he requested. The district also picked up Pal's attorney tab, an estimated $4,000.