Henry's Email Meeting

Apparently Mayor Henry was discussing city business with council members via email, and  hit the "reply all" button by mistake, sending out the email to more people than originally intended. I haven't seen the email but if Mayor Henry sent it out to all city council members, he was definitely in violation of the Illinois Open Meetings Act, which  makes it illegal to call a meeting of public officals without public notification, meeting in this case defined as:

"Meeting" means any gathering, whether in person or by video or audio conference, telephone call, electronic means (such as, without limitation, electronic mail, electronic chat, and instant messaging), or other means of contemporaneous interactive communication, of a majority of a quorum of the members of a public body held for the purpose of discussing public business or, for a 5-member public body, a quorum of the members of a public body held for the purpose of discussing public business

Under this definition, sending an email out to all council members certainly qualifies as a meeting and is in violation of the Act. However, I will adhere to the old saying "Never ascribe to malice what can just as readily be ascribed to ignorance", and will assume that Mayor Henry simply forgot his duties under Illinois law. I do know he is familiar with the law as every Illinois public official, even those serving unelected on commissions, is required to complete a course on the Act and file a certificate acknowledging they did so.

Open Meetings Act

It appears the Illinois Open Meetings Act does not apply to CCTB meetings (or other tax supported organizations) as long as it is a private not for profit organization that has no direct governmental control:

OMA does not apply to private, not-for-profit corporations, even if such corporations administer programs funded primarily by governmental agencies and are required to comply with government regulations, as long as the board of directors and employees of such corporations are free from direct governmental control.

Thanks to a couple of readers of the blog for passing this along.

Bye Bye Debbie

It appears the CCTB board met the night after the city ended its contract with the CCTB and fired executive director Debbie Moore. Looks like an olive branch extended towards the city.  However, I have to wonder if, given the support of the CCTB by tax revenues, if meetings such as this are in violation of Illinois' Open Meetings Act, which requires public notice of meetings by any organization supported by tax monies.  Organizations covered by the act include:

 all legislative, executive, administrative or advisory bodies of the
state, counties, townships, cities, villages, incorporated towns, school districts and all other
municipal corporations, boards, bureaus, committees or commissions of this State, and any
subsidiary bodies of any of the foregoing including but not limited to committees and
subcommittees which are supported in whole or in part by tax revenue, or which expend tax
revenue, except the General Assembly and committees or commissions thereof

As has been noted before, most of the funding for the CCTB comes from Carbondale's motel tax, which certainly seems to cover the CCTB and by extension, its governing board.

According to the Southern's story, Councilman Chris Wissmann, a voting member of the board, was not notified of the meeting, which also appears a violation of the Act.