City attorney responds to open meetings act violations
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ City Attorney Jeff Kerkhover recently responded to a letter, sent to him from the Randolph County Herald Tribune, regarding alligations of park board violations of the Illinois Open Meetings Act 5LCS 120 (the "Act").
A letter was sent, on August 5, 2011, to Kerkhover as well as Mayor Joe Eggemeyer, City Council Members and Park Board Members.
The letter listed five violations that the newspaper believed occurred during Park Board meetings during the months of March and April of 2011. The violations included items that were voted on, but were not listed on the agenda.
On August 12, 2011 Kerkhover sent a letter to the Park board, city council,?Mayor Joe Eggemeyer and the Randolph County Herald Tribune. The letter stated he was responding to the letter sent from the Herald Tribune.
In the letter he wrote, the open meetings Act 5ILCS 120/1 et seq required that an agenda for a meeting be posted at the principal office and provided to the news media at least 48 hours prior to the meeting.
He also included a quote from the 2011 Municipal Handbook which provides as follows: "A municipality, and its committees, must post an agenda for every regular meeting not only at the municipality's principal office, but also at the location of the meeting, at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting. The requirement of a regular meeting agenda shall not preclude the consideration of items not specifically set forth in the agenda. It is important that the agenda, furnished along with a meeting notice, be as complete as possible. The agenda should list special items and topic to be discussed and acted upon at a regular meeting. The council or board, as a regular meeting, is free to consider any matter that may legally come before it, but may not act on a matter which is not on its agenda The courts have also permitted a governmental body to consider any specific matter which is closely related to a general topic listed on an agenda or notice."
Along with the letter Kerkhover enclosed a copy of the pertinent statue 5ILCS 120/2.02 for the park board's review.
He ended his response with "As you can tell the items you wish to take action on (vote on) need to be specifically listed on the agenda. You can discuss items not listed but you cannot take any formal action on items not specifically listed. I hope this explanation will eliminate any misunderstanding as a public body the park board must comply with the open meetings act."