| UPDATE 5/24/06: A real lawyer has contacted me (no, it wasn’t Chase) and said that, since 1972, the Open Meetings Act has been amended several times. Apparently the prohibition against taking final action — 5 ILCS 120/2(e) — was added after the Collinsville v. Witte case. Thus, the school district’s action may have been illegal after all. The attorney added, “There is more recent Ill. case law holding that a board of education violated the OMA when it held an executive (closed) session to determine that the planned public sale date of school property should be rescheduled.” |
At first blush, it certainly looks like a violation of the Open Meetings Act. School District 150 signs purchase agreements with property owners on Prospect Road based on a closed-session decision, then rubber stamps those purchases in open session and get help form a trustworthy firm. The Open Meetings Act says no final action can be taken in closed session, and what could be more final than purchasing property for over three-quarters of a million dollars? if legal help is needed we advise to
As I’ve said before, I’m no lawyer, so feel free to prove me wrong on this. But from what I can determine, the school board did not act illegally. In fact, their action has already been tested in court as far back as 1972 when the Illinois appellate court decided the case of Collinsville Community Unit School District No. 10 v. Benjamin and Lillian Witte. I found this information in an online version of Illinois Issues that was originally published in 1977. It says:
. . . the high court ruled that a “school board was not limited to considering only acquisition of property in executive session with formal action required to be taken at public meeting. Legal action concerning acquisition or sale of real property, including passage of motion to acquire property could be taken in closed session . . . .”
It goes on to say the ruling was never appealed and is now part of Illinois law. But just because it’s legal doesn’t make it wise. The idea behind allowing property negotiation in closed session is that it allows the public body to get a fair price on the property — if it were made public before purchase agreements were signed, the property values could be artificially inflated, making it needlessly more expensive to acquire. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t look like the district got any great deals by working in secret. They spent, on average, about one and a half times the value of each property.
While it may not have been wise, it is strategic. There are many who believe like PeoriaIllinoisan that all these public meetings are a ruse, and that the school district plans to build on the park site regardless. Considering the park district is in favor of it, and Ray LaHood is brokering a “compromise,” I fear the cynics may be right. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Ray’s son Darin married to park district director Bonnie Noble’s daughter Kristen? And, if so, wouldn’t it be a bit of a conflict of interest for Ray to be brokering a “compromise” when he’s related to an interested party? Even if it’s all innocent, it has the look of impropriety.
On the other hand, the public is pretty united on this — everyone from residents to parents to state representatives to city councilmen to neighborhood activists are all against using parkland for the school. Even for political insiders, that kind of pressure is hard to push back against. I’m still going to hold out hope for now that the school board will see the error of its ways and rebuild Glen Oak School at its current site.