Recent Court Decisions

The Illinois Appellate Court decided that school districts are subject to cities’ zoning powers. The case arose when neighbors to a high school didn’t like the bleachers being built in the football stadium. The city issued a stop-order against the board prohibiting the continuation of the work on the bleachers. The neighbors sued the district seeking to privately enforce the city’s zoning ordinances. The court considered the board’s arguments supporting its position that the city may not restrict a school district’s land use. The court disagreed in an opinion that reads like a reply brief. The court relied on a provision in the School Code expressly allowing boards to seek zoning changes, variations, or special new uses for properties held or controlled by the school district. The court reasoned that this provision demonstrates that the legislature intended to subject the local school board to the municipality’s zoning regulations.

Here, plaintiffs alleged that a county board passed a sales tax in violation of the Open Meetings Act (OMA). The appellate court agreed with the lower court’s holdings. First, the OMA complaints by members of the public must be filed within 60 days after the alleged violation by the public body, although States Attorneys have a bit more time (60 days from their “discovery” of a violation). Second, the county’s meeting agenda titled “Superintendent of Schools Resolutions” was specific enough to notify the public that the county board planned to vote on imposing a sales tax.

For thought, see PAO 14-001, where the Ill. Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor (PAC) issued a binding opinion about another public body’s posted agenda item and its action upon that agenda item. There, the PAC held that despite the agenda item being posted, along with a readily available document online, the public body should have also provided a “verbal explanation of the significance of [the public body’s] action to members of the public who are present at the meeting before it can proceed to consider taking action” (that PAO is currently on appeal and is only binding to the parties involved).

For help with ensuring agenda items are sufficient under OMA, contact the school board’s local counsel.

This opinion is similar to PAO 14-007.

TRY: When a public body responds to a FOIA request, it must conduct a “reasonable search tailored to the nature of a particular request” and “reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents.” It “cannot limit its search to only one record system if there are others that are likely to turn up the requested information.”

TRY AGAIN: A public body cannot treat records request #2, which is identical to records request #1, as unduly burdensome when it never responded to records request #1. FOIA states that “repeat requests from the same person for the same records that are unchanged or identical to records previously provided (here, records from request #1 were never provided) or properly denied (again, records from request #1 were improperly withheld) shall be deemed unduly burdensome… .”

NARROWED REQUEST: A public body does not have to treat a narrowed request as another new FOIA request. That means that if the requestor tries to narrow the request in response to the public body’s explanation, it is not another new FOIA request but simply an extension of the conversation about the current request. While a requestor’s narrowing of his or her request does not need to be treated as a new request, the public body should continue to make efforts to respond to it.

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

A public body approved a separation agreement with its former superintendent. Initially, the vote occurred in closed session (which the PAC found to be a violation of OMA in PAO 13-007). Later, the public body attempted to rectify the situation. It posted proper notice and an agenda with an action item to vote on the separation agreement in open session. The public body voted in open session on the separation agreement, which is now the subject of this opinion. The PAC concluded that the public body did not properly “recite the nature of its action” and “inform the public of the business being conducted,” despite the fact that it informed the public that the separation agreement was available as a viewable attachment to the agenda item for the open meeting. The PAC found this practice insufficient, stating:

1. Posting the separation agreement on the website together with the meeting agenda item only satisfies the “notice and posting” requirement of OMA; it does not satisfy the duty to publicly recite the nature of the action.

2. Before a public body may take final action, it must meet two additional requirements:

a. Publicly recite the nature of its action; and

b. Provide a “verbal explanation of the significance of its action to members of the public who are present at the meeting before it can proceed to consider taking action.” This explanation should provide information from which the public might understand the purpose and effect of the public body’s action.

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

“It has been more than a month since I filed the FOIA request shown below.”

These were the words of two reporters who filed several FOIA requests to a public body that went unanswered. While the public body continued to indicate it would provide an answer to the requesters and the Public Access Counselor, it did not do so nor did it properly extend its time to respond. The public body was directed to “take immediate and appropriate action to comply with this opinion by providing records responsive to [the FOIA requests].”

See PAOs 14-007 and 14-010 for the rules public bodies must follow when responding to FOIA requests.

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