Recent Court Decisions

“Anyone” means just that: anyone – without regard to where they reside.

A rule that requires someone to state his or her address before speaking to a public body violates the Open Meetings Act (OMA). OMA states, “[a]ny person shall be permitted an opportunity to address the public officials under the rules established and recorded by the public body[.]”

Here, public officials asked a woman trying to address them to state her home address before beginning her comments. She did not particularly wish to do so, but eventually did. Then, she filed a request for review with the Ill. Public Access Counselor.

This opinion states that any rule, whether in policy or by custom or practice, that requires a person to provide an address before addressing a public body, is not a rule that “ensures that order and decorum are maintained at public meetings,” which violates the OMA.

This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.

Photographs are not “private information” nor do they contain “biometric identifiers.

A police department denied a FOIA request for an officer’s basic headshot photographs. The department claimed the photographs were “private information” under FOIA because they contained “biometric identifiers.”

The PAC disagreed and ordered the photographs to be disclosed. FOIA does define “private information” to include “biometric identifiers.” But, the term “biometric identifiers” does not include the term “photographs.” Photographs are public records under FOIA and must be released when requested.

This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.

“Try, discuss, and explain…” is the theme of this PAC opinion.

TRY: When a public body responds to a FOIA request, its search for the requested records must be reasonably “tailored to the nature of a particular request” and “reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents.” And, the public body should be able to show that it searched all records management systems that are likely to turn up the requested information.

DISCUSS: if a public body wishes to treat a request as unduly burdensome, then it shall extend an opportunity to the requestor to discuss reducing the request. If that does not work, then timely asserting an undue burden during the timeframes outlined in the statute is required.

EXPLAIN: If the search returns no responsive records for the request, the public body should explain why no records were found. The explanation should demonstrate that there were no alternative methods to find the requested records or why that it was not practical to search other sources for the requested information.

This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.

A public agency improperly redacted (blocked out) financial terms from contracts that it provided in response to a FOIA request. Any records that document public money being paid to entities under contracts to perform a governmental function must be disclosed under FOIA.

This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.

A public body must disclose public records in its possession that pertain to public business. While requested records in this opinion were in the possession of a Student Government Association (SGA), the SGA was managed and controlled by a Student Activities Center, which was ultimately controlled by the public University. The PAC found the University’s ultimate control over the SGA made SGA’s records subject to disclosure under FOIA.

This opinion is binding only to the parties involved and may be appealed pursuant to State law.