A subdivision petitioned to be detached from its current school district and annexed to another school district. However, sixteen of the relevant signatures deviated from the signatures recorded with the county election authority. These sixteen signatures were crucial to the eligibility of the petition. The Board granted the petition, but the Illinois circuit court reversed that decision and the appellate court agreed.

The circuit court disagreed with the Board and determined that the relevant sixteen signatures did not substantially comply with the statute. The court found that using initials for either the first or last name, omitting the first name, or writing in print rather than cursive made the signatures substantially noncompliant. Neither the ability to identify the voter by the signature, nor the voter’s willingness to testify, substantially satisfy the statute’s requirement that the signatures match the voting record.

Brennan McLoughlin, IASB Law Clerk

This opinion upheld binding opinion from the Public Access Counselor, PAO 11-6. PAO 11-6 required the City of Champaign to provide certain emails and text messages stored on public officials’ private computers and electronic devices in response to a FOIA request. The opinion narrowed PAO 11-6 by instructing that emails and text messages stored on private devices of public officials are “public records” only when the communications are sent or received during a public meeting (as opposed to being public records when they “pertain to the transaction of public business. . .”).

School officials should contact their local board attorney for assistance. It is worth noting that it may be possible to transform a private non-public record into a public record by accessing private emails and text messages that have nothing to do with the “transaction of public business” during public meetings. At the time of publication, it is unclear whether this case will be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Whenever a district provides email addresses to individual board members, all emails sent to individual email addresses are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. Read the entire decision here: www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/AppellateCourt/2013/4thDistrict/4120662.pdf

Plaintiff requested an Excel spreadsheet of IDOT’s red light camera enforcement system. Plaintiff was doing research and writing for a national report on the effectiveness of red light camera technology. IDOT produced an Excel spreadsheet in a locked version.

FOIA language is broad enough to require IDOT to produce unlocked electronic copy of the Excel spreadsheet to allow Plaintiff to fully exercise functions of the Excel program. An award of $12,561 in reasonable attorney’s fees and costs was allowed by Section 11(i) of FOIA.

A school board improperly took final action in a closed session and then ratified the improper action several meetings later during open session. During the closed session, six of the seven school board members who were present signed a separation agreement. The PAC found that signing a final separation agreement in closed session constituted a final approval by the board. While the board later took action and ratified the separation agreement in open session, the PAC found that the action taken in open session did not cure the closed session violation. That was because the school board failed to adequately inform the public of the nature of the matter under consideration prior to the vote. The PAC considered the board’s description of the matter under consideration to be vague and general because it called for a “vote to approve the separation agreement with the administrator.” Last, a reference to an administrator’s name, along with a vague reference to a “personnel matter,” violated the board’s duty to provide minutes with a “summary of discussion on all matters proposed, deliberated, or decided, and a record of any votes taken.” In addition, other violations were discussed, e.g., the verbatim recording requirement during closed session was not followed and/or failed during the closed sessions in question.