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March 29, 2024

(VIDEO) Village of Wheeling and Attorney James V. Ferolo (Klein Thorpe Jenkins) Confronted with OMA Violations

By KDuJan

On October 21, 2017

WHEELING, ILLINOIS –(ECWd) –

On October 16th, the Village of Wheeling and its attorney, James V. Ferolo of the law firm Klein Thorpe Jenkins (“KTJ”), were confronted with a rundown of what we believe are their recent spree of Open Meetings Act (OMA) violations. The Village Board and its attorney decided in the past to take a very hostile approach towards public comment that included shouting at the public, threatening the public with the police when they didn’t like what the public was saying, denying the public the right to speak about certain topics, and generally trampling the OMA (and the US Constitution) in a myriad of ways. As reported, the Attorney General’s Office of the Public Access Counselor wrote to Village President Pat Horcher on October 13th informing the Village that an inquiry had been opened into the Village’s apparent OMA violations. The Village’s written response is due by October 20th. Video of the October 16th meeting can be found here:

We have seen this pattern before, where all of the bluster and vinegar that public officials aim at the public magically evaporates shortly after receiving official correspondence from the Attorney General’s office. In Wheeling, a clearly chastened Village Board did not engage in any further interruptions or bullying of the public on October 16th after having received notice from the AG’s office.

Compare and contrast the behavior of KTJ attorney James V. Ferolo prior to October 16th and then after the Village was ordered by the AG’s office to respond to a Request for Review pertaining to the Village’s apparent OMA violations. At the October 16th meeting, instead of interrupting the public, threatening people, berating citizens who came to address elected officials, and otherwise behaving in a caustic and off-the-wall manner (as he had done at previous board meetings), Ferolo was subdued and sedate on October 16th. This is another pattern that has held with the Klein Thorpe Jenkins law firm in the past, where once one of their attorneys is caught on video behaving horribly during an open public meeting, a conversation appears likely to be had at some level behind the scenes where the attorney then seems to be told to be quiet and to stop engaging in such inappropriate behavior going forward (at least when cameras are rolling).

Perhaps other members of the KTJ firm take these guys aside and tell them to knock it off or maybe some of the saner heads on the Board ask their own attorney to stop making a jackass of himself on video (that is posted to YouTube forever). Whatever happens out of public view, it remains remarkable that an attorney like Ferolo can completely flip his personality 180-degrees from one meeting to another…going from aggressively interrupting and bullying the public to meekly scribbling notes in his seat and no longer saying a word.

One concerning thing that the Village of Wheeling continues to do is to post what we argue is an illegal notice chilling public comment before a public meeting. This notice was projected again on October 16th on a large screen in the meeting room and was displayed until the meeting began; the public is forced to stare at this looming notice before the meeting starts. We argue this Orwellian slide projection on the large screen is contrary to the OMA in the following ways:

  • No public body can decide or define what is “relevant” when it comes to what the public wants to speak about or otherwise restrict or limit what the public can say during public comment period. Therefore, the Village of Wheeling has no right to post a notice limiting the scope of public comment to what is “relevant to Village business.” This restriction is unreasonable and is over-broad, in that a public body that does not like being criticized can easily claim that whatever criticism they don’t like is “not relevant.”
  • Requiring people to sign-in so that they would be allowed to speak does not comply with the OMA. Here, the Village is mandating that people must write their names on a sheet of paper before the meeting begins or they will not be allowed to speak. The public is also told their names will be called aloud. This is problematic in two ways for the Village: (1.) the US Constitution does not allow a public body to insist someone provide his or her name in order to be allowed to speak (as such a requirement has a chilling effect on people who fear retaliation if they give their names when coming to criticize a public body) and (2.) the OMA does not require someone to have signed-in before a meeting begins in order to be allowed to speak. What happens if someone didn’t know he or she had anything to say until the meeting started? There are occasions when someone hears something said during a meeting and only then has the motivation to speak. While a public body is allowed to create a speakers’ list so that an order for whose turn it is to speak next can be created, such a list does not require anyone’s name and that list should not be closed until the public comment period on the agenda has ended. The same list can be achieved with “Man in red shirt” or “Person in grey baseball cap” in place of requiring people to write their names and once all people who expressed an interest in speaking have had their say, the Village Board should ask if there is anyone who did not sign-up before the meeting who wishes to speak (before public comment period is ended for the night)..

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4 Comments
  • Bob Judd
    Posted at 14:17h, 22 October

    Where in the OMA can I find the rules you stated in the last 2 paragraphs. I have looked for them but can’t find them.. We have a couple of the same violations happening in the Chatham Village Board and Committee Of The Whole meetings.. I would like to file a R/F/R with the AG if they don’t change.. We have a new Trustee that seems to think his shit is special and I’d like to let him know it is simply nothing but good ole farm manure..

    • Kevin duJan
      Posted at 17:20h, 22 October

      Bob —

      You should read this article I did a few weeks ago, where I included a PDF of about 10 different recent determinations where the Public Access Counselor told various public bodies they could not restrict the content of speech. http://3.133.133.226/2017/10/attorney-generals-office-public-bodies-may-not-restrict-content-of-public-comment/

      Any rule that a public body writes that violates the US Constitution is not a reasonable rule; the OMA only allows public bodies to write reasonable rules and no rule can be reasonable if it can’t pass constitutional muster.

      A public body may only limit the amount of time a person can speak (such as saying 5 minutes max), the place on the agenda where public comment will be heard, and the total time for public comment per meeting (such as saying there can be 30 minutes of public comment).

      They are not allowed to restrict what the public may say or who can speak or what topics people want to talk about. That is unconstitutional.

  • Bob Judd
    Posted at 18:45h, 22 October

    Kevin d. ; Thank you very much for the link.. I haven’t had time yet but I will read it shortly.. Hopefully it will help us here in Chatham.. There is no limit to what these local Boards think they can do and get away with..

    • Kevin duJan
      Posted at 21:04h, 22 October

      Go through each of the determination letters at that link I gave you. Look for situations similar to what Chatham is doing. Write a Request for Review to the AG’s office and cite those other letters of determination when listing what you believe are violations by Chatham. Also, you can go to an attorney and show them how Chatham is breaking the law and sue in chancery court. In my experience, Villages do not seem to care about the OMA or FOIA statute until they are sued. Because I think they have lawyers like Klein Thorpe Jenkins that appear to tell these Boards they can get away with lawbreaking…until they get sued. Once they get sued over this stuff, the Boards seem to stop listening to bad lawyers and start taking the law seriously. But it takes them being sued for most of them to listen.

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