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October 23, 2025

Orland Park Library spent $480,000 fighting open records and open meetings laws –

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen

On April 7, 2015

Orland Park, IL. (ECWd) –

In the past fifteen months, the Orland Park Public Library (OPPL) has spent over $480,000.00 fighting Freedom of Information and Open Meetings laws in a failed attempt at keeping records from the public and keeping the public from speaking / attending public meetings, or in other words, to censor and silence critics...that’s right…this is the same library that received the “intellectual freedom” award winning library and was awarded the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award just last year by the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science even after failing to report, and admitting it, that child pornography was accessed in its library and for defending the “right” of others to view pornography on its computers in full view of other patrons – including children.

That’s just fine and dandy with them because it was your money they were spending, not their own personal money. The situation at the OPPL is a prime example of why public officials must be held personally responsible for their decisions – for if the threat of emptying their personal bank accounts by almost half a million dollars was there, none of this would ever have been an issue.

So as it stands, the OPPL has paid out $10,000.00 deductible on its insurance and $250,000.00 for their attorneys at KTJ. In addition, the insurance company for OPPL has paid out $230,000.00 in its failed defense of the lawsuits brought about by the actions of OPPL board members and OPPL employee Mary Weimar.

Below is the latest invoice from Jackson Lewis…the lawyers who represented the OPPL in the two lawsuits filed regarding FOIA and OMA violations committed by the OPPL. This invoice represents the “matter life to date” for Jackson Lewis’ representation of the OPPL in the Fox-1 and Fox-2 lawsuits (which are being settled for $55,000 and the production of the documents the library was hiding and the removal of all the illegal OMA restrictions they enacted in their policies).
The Hanover Group Insurance Company had to eat $175,000 in legal fees and costs incurred by the OPPL because the OPPL followed the terrible legal advice given to them by Klein Thorpe Jenkins…which resulted in the OPPL violating the FOIA and OMA statutes repeatedly. That led to thr lawsuits.
The Hanover Group will also have to cut a check for $55,000 this month as part of the settlement. So, it looks like Hanover Group will have to payout at least $230,000 before all is said and done…as a direct result of the incompetent legal advice given to the OPPL by Klein Thorpe Jenkins.
Remember that the OPPL has paid KTJ over $250,000 at this point in legal fees since October 2013, when Mary Weimar at the OPPL started hiding documents, violating the FOIA statute, and engaging in the pattern and practice of violating the OMA to censor and silence the library’s critics. KTJ advised the OPPL the entire way and encouraged and enabled the violations of the FOIA and OMA, and they made an absolute killing while giving this legal advice.

[gview file=”https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2015-04-07-OPPL-Insurance-costs-to-date.pdf”]

 

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