I erroneously stated yesterday, “Part of the remedy handed down [for the Park Board’s Open Meetings Act violation] by the state’s attorney’s office was that the [park] board have a policy/procedure on the proper creation, storage, and destruction of closed session recordings.” After rereading a copy of the state’s attorney’s letter to the Park Board, it turns out that’s not accurate.

What the letter actually stated was that the park board previously told the state’s attorney’s office that it already had a policy in place for destroying closed session tapes, and that was the basis upon which the state’s attorney’s office declined to take punitive action. So now the question is, if the park board already had a policy in place, why are they just now adopting a resolution?

On September 13, 2006, William W. P. Atkins of the State’s Attorney’s office wrote a letter to Tim Bertschy, who is representing the Park Board in the lawsuit over violations to the Open Meetings Act. The letter states that Atkins met with board president Tim Cassidy and park district attorney Jim Konsky to discuss the matter. In the letter, Atkins makes it clear that the Board cannot simply blame their secretary Joyce McLemore for destroying the tapes:

Ms. McLemore is not the only one to blame in this matter. The Park District failed to promulgate a policy regarding destruction of closed meeting verbatim records. Further, the Board failed to supervise the Secretary closely enough to discover the ongoing destruction of records until nearly three years of some of the recordings had been destroyed.

So the Board itself is culpable in the Open Meetings Act violation because, in part, they didn’t have a policy. So, why was no punitive action taken against the board? Read on (emphasis mine):

In this particular case, you have informed me that the Park District now has a policy only allowing destruction of verbatim recordings in compliance with the portion of the Open Meetings Act cited above. Further, the Secretary has been instructed concerning this policy to insure her obedience to the Board and the law….

Because you have reported these violations to the State’s Attorney’s Office and taken measures to prevent such violations from occurring again, no purpose would be served by any punitive action at this time.

That was September 2006. Now, in May 2007, eight months later, the board is adopting a policy that they told the State’s Attorney they already had. What kind of games are being played here? Did they already have the policy or not? If they didn’t, then they lied to the State’s Attorney in September. If they did, then why do they need to re-adopt the policy eight months later?

Between the school board and the park board, the principle of “open government” is getting a black eye.