College of DuPage lies to Illinois Attorney General –

Glen Ellyn, IL. (ECWd) –

Updated with video of my comments to the board on the subject…

The law firm of Robbins-Schwartz submitted a nine page response to my Open Meetings Act complaint to the Attorney General in reference to the College of DuPage’s September 25, 2014 board meeting. In this response dated October 29, the College, thru their attorney Kenneth M. Florey,  lied to the Attorney General.

Adequate Seats Available?

The first lie to the AG was about my complaint that there were not enough seats for the public in the actual meeting room. In response to that allegation, Florey penned this gem: “There are 30 general public seats available…from time to time the college reserves a few seats…there has remained numerous seats for the general public…” This person must be blind, because since August, about half of those 30 seats have been reserved for people other than the general public. Also, in the email to me, below, he claims that all seats are first-come-first-served (please view picture below for the actual truth).

Dec 18, 2014 – Look at all the seats available for the general public!

The picture above is typical of what we see at these meetings – typically, half or more of the 30 seats are reserved and the people stay until executive session.

We will certainly move to a larger space!

In their second lie, the College, thru Florey, wrote to the Attorney General claiming that “Certainly, if the College had adequate advanced notice that a large crowd greatly overwhelming the board room was planning to attend a meeting, and that the planned attendees preferred to see the meeting live instead of by broadcast, the College would make appropriate arrangements to move to a larger space. This is what is required by the Gerwin decision and the College takes no issue with this requirement.” (read it here)

The interesting part in this is that the college attorney recognizes and admits the requirement to move to a larger space, then they send me an email the morning of the meeting basically stating that they have no intention of moving the meeting to a larger space because the board room is where they have their meetings.

The College did receive adequate advanced notice, mine was sent on December 4, 2014 (click here to read it) and at least two others sent a request for larger meeting room, but COD decided they would disregard the advanced notice and disregard what they wrote to the Illinois Attorney General. Email to me is below:

[gview file=”https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/COD-WeWontMove.pdf”]

Finally, Mr. Florey lied to me in the email about the seats in the board room. The statement about all seating in a first-come-first-served basis is laughable considering how low the college stooped in their attempt at redefining “media” to fit their agenda (article here) – is anyone to believe they would not be threatened with police action if they were there first and filled the meeting room prior to the people with reserved seats showed up?.

If the Trustees of the College of DuPage cannot even be trusted to honestly answer questions from the Attorney General’s office, how can they be trusted to managed the finances of the District?

Endorsing Lies Thru Silence…