Downers Grove, IL. (ECWd) –
Yes, it’s a slow day… so here you go: There are systemic problems amongst the various park districts in Illinois and I would hope the Illinois Association of Park Districts would jump on board and communicate with their members that these items we have been reporting for the past year are in violation of the Park District Code, the Illinois Constitution, and other laws in the state.
Constitution: Article VIII, Section 1(a): “Public funds, property or credit shall be used only for public purposes.”
Downers Grove Park District’s policy on personal use of park district property is in direct violation of the Illinois Constitution and is therefore invalid. They even developed a form to use when using park district equipment for personal use – off park property.
How can there ever be a public purpose for the personal use of public property?
Their FOIA Policy needs revised:
Currently, in order for them to mail the requested records to someone, they require payment of postage – This violates the Freedom of Information Act, in that the Act specifically states the records shall be “provided”, not shall be “provided after payment of postage”, to the requester within five days. The AG has ruled on that specific issue before. Postage is the responsibility of the public body.
The District also thinks it can charge 15 cents per side of each page, and once again they violate FOIA since a public body can only charge 15 cents per page – it says nothing about each side of each page, therefore they cannot charge for each side.
Finally, the District “requires” acknowledging delivery of the records – I wonder how they will enforce that violation of FOIA?…
1 Comment
former Paris resident
Posted at 17:10h, 03 AugustJim : I’m sure glad you’re doing this but as a former Paris resident , it is depressing when I use to go to cook county and see what all their parks had compared to the dirty lake we had at Paris … Almost every suburb around Chicago has a top of the line Park system with waterslides, waterparks and pools … It always discussed me to see how we around the state supported cook county … I remember having a talk with my representative which at that time was Weaver his office was in coles county and he told me that cook county only paid 16% of assessed value on property taxes while the rest of the state paid 33.33% of assessed value and that this would never change … Now I get a kick out of watching the taxes being raised in and around Chicago … Such a trashy city , been there and wasn’t impressed …