LTHS Closed Meetings Still Under Investigation

LA GRANGE, IL – The Lyons Township High School board plans to vote Tuesday on whether to destroy recordings of nine 2022 closed meetings.

But it is not set to do so for three other closed sessions that year – April 18, May 16 and June 21. Those meetings, the school acknowledges in a memo, are subject to an attorney general's inquiry into whether the board illegally closed the doors.

Under state law, the board is allowed to destroy recordings that are older than 18 months.

Last April, the attorney general's office issued a rare binding opinion ordering the board to release recordings of two closed sessions from January 2023.

The meetings were about the board's controversial effort to sell its 70 acres in Willow Springs to an industrial developer.

The school also confirmed it discussed the same land in seven 2022 closed meetings, three of which were more than 18 months ago.

For the January 2023 meetings, the attorney general ruled the board could discuss setting the price of land behind closed doors.

But the board's discussion hardly involved the price. It covered such things as a board member's conspiracy theory and ways to keep information on the land deal secret from other public bodies.

After the attorney general ruled on the January meetings, Willow Springs resident Fred Whiting filed a complaint on the seven other sessions. The attorney general decided to investigate.

In a response last June, attorney Brian Crowley of the Chicago-based Franczek law firm defended the board. He said the meetings were focused on the setting of price and involved the secrecy of attorney-client communications.

Crowley acknowledged the attorney general's ruling against the high school on the January meetings. But he said the earlier sessions were before the board set the price and terms of the land sale.

"Any ancillary discussions or discussions that did not pertain to the exact dollar amount for the sale were so intertwined with the ultimate sale and price of the property that it is not reasonable to separate them from the primary topic of price," Crowley said.

Such discussions, he said, should remain secret to avoid exposing the board's negotiation strategy to potential bidders.

Crowley also argued that attorney-client privilege should be preserved, even in improperly closed meetings.

In response, Whiting described the school's "broad claims" of attorney-client privilege as an "abdication of its responsibilities."

"LTHS appears to argue that when the Board wants to talk to its attorney it should be able to do so with impunity in closed session, regardless of whether the scope of the discussion is permissible under (the Open Meetings Act)," Whiting said.

For the 2022 meetings, the board never cited the price-setting exception for closing the doors, as state law requires. It admitted last year that it should have done so.

With an overwhelming workload, the attorney general's office often takes well over a year to rule on complaints.

In the January closed meetings, board members could be heard generally agreeing that a sale of the land to an industrial developer, which was the plan, would hurt nearby homeowners.

Members also bashed Willow Springs officials, saying they may be uneducated. One member repeatedly pushed what he labeled a conspiracy theory in which various enemies of the school were behind the residents' opposition to the land sale.

The members also discussed how the school kept secret its plans to sell the land from the village of Willow Springs and other public bodies.

Another Franczek attorney, Ares Dalianis, attended the sessions, but never warned members they were violating the open meetings law.

Last summer, the board replaced Franczek as its law firm.