AG Madigan: Edgar County Board violated Open Meetings Law –

PARIS, IL. (ECWd) –

On February 26, 2015, the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor made the determination that the Edgar County Board violated the Open Meetings Act when it held a county board meeting on December 6, 2013 without providing advanced notice to the public as required by law. Another example of why we sue (read this article) – because waiting 14 months for this decision is unreasonable for any person, and we understand the workload in the AG’s office is such that it cannot keep up with these requests for review.

This meeting came to fruition when a majority of a quorum of the county board “actively participated” in open and closed sessions of the Edgar County Airport Committee meeting, effectively turning it into a county board meeting instead. No advanced notice and no agenda was posted for this now county board meeting.

The board tried claiming that the additional board members were present “for historical purposes” since they had previously served on the airport committee – but did acknowledge they all participated in the open and closed meeting.

The AG determined that since the meeting did not confine itself to committee business, but instead wandered into county board business, the additional board members who actively participated counted as a quorum for a county board meeting.

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