URBANA, IL. (ECWd) –
We recently published the Attorney General’s opinion that Urbana recently violated the Open Meetings Act twice by their content-based prohibiting of certain public comment during meetings. We redacted the AG’s opinion by blocking out the victim’s home addresses and personal email addresses.
The City of Urbana, through its City Administrator, Carol Mitten, published the AG Opinion on its website without redacting the personal home and email addresses of the victims of the city’s unreasonable prohibitions on public speech.
It is almost as if the city is trying to send a message to those who may complain, that their personal information will be on full display should they file a complaint.
What draws us to that opinion and makes this newsworthy?
In a recent Court filing answering our Freedom Of Information Act lawsuit against the City of Urbana for unlawfully redacting the names of people who paid money to the city to receive responses to FOIA requests, the city argues: “That disclosing the information requested by Plaintiff and redacted by Defendant would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, and that such disclosure has not been consented to by the individual subjects of the information. 5 ILCS 140/7(c).”
So in a Court filing the city wrongly claims that disclosing simply the names of individuals who paid money to the city would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” – the city turns around and actually publishes to their website the names and personal addresses of the victims of their abusive public comment policy.
In the case of the FOIA lawsuit: the Constitution, the Local Records Act, and the Freedom of Information Act all require that the names of those who pay money to, or receive money from the city are public records and shall be disclosed – Urbana redacted them and will now lose a lawsuit for their poor decision.
In the case of publishing the home address and email addresses of victims of their unreasonable public comment policy; while the city is not required to redact that information, they certainly look the fool for publishing it while arguing the opposite to the Courts.
Cover photo for this article from “CheckCU.org“
7 Responses
JDSupra
April 30, 2021
by Franczek P.C.
PAC Rejects Public Body’s Limitation on Criticism of Public Officials Absent Actual Disruption
“In a recent decision, the Public Access Counselor (PAC)—the division of the Attorney General that reviews appeals regarding the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Open Meetings Act (OMA)—found that a city council violated the OMA by muting community members during public comment.”
http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/pac-rejects-public-body-s-limitation-on-4628106
Our government… increasingly waging war on the citizens. This can’t end well…
Initially, after viewing various many City of Urbana meetings recorded on Zoom, the crux for the administrative incompetence was unclear. This news caused me to realize that the former city attorney AND the current city administrator may be equal contributors.
The Urbana city administrator confuses government transparency and accountability with her own poorly conceived notion of leadership in public service.
Only worse than liars in government are hypocrites
SECTION 5. RIGHT TO ASSEMBLE AND PETITION
The people have the right to assemble in a peaceable
manner, to consult for the common good, to make known their
opinions to their representatives and to apply for redress of
grievances. ~ (Source: Illinois Constitution.)
Urbana’s local elected government must OBEY and HONOR the Illinois state constitution too. Local govt doesn’t get to suspend the declarations in the Illinois Bill of Rights.
Persecution of the victims for wanting to use their right to petition government, Mitten is trash!