Mayor Henyard Filed Frivolous Lawsuit Against Village Trustees and Park District –

Dolton, Ill. (ECWd) –

After last week’s Dolton Village Trustees meeting held at the Dolton Park District by a majority of the board, Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard and two trustees filed a lawsuit against three Dolton Trustees and the Dolton Park District in an attempt at forcing the trustees into meeting in Dolton village hall, and to prohibit the park district from permitting the trustees to have access to park district facilities for meetings.

We predict this one will quickly go down in flames.

First, the Attorney General recently issued a rare binding opinion that Dolton and Henyard had violated the Open Meetings Act by continuing to hold their meetings in a location (village hall) that could not accommodate the anticipated attendance at those meetings. The AG also concluded that Dolton and Henyard employed “unnecessary security measures such as street closures, parking barricades, and an excessive police presence that physically impedes members of the public from reaching Village Hall and/or creates a hostile atmosphere that may deter the public from attending meetings.”

Meeting the trustees hold at the Park District, in which Mayor Henyard is always invited to attend and preside over, are always peaceful, without street barricades and road closings, without handicap parking access blocked, and without a hostile police presence.

Indeed, Henyard herself attended last week’s meeting (after she failed having a quorum at her meeting), albeit for a brief period of time, to pronounce that she was the mayor of Dolton, the first female mayor of Dolton and then announced her appointments to police chief, special counsel, and village attorney – without giving up any names – all without those items being on the agenda as appointments and potentially in violation of a recent court’s restraining order against her unlawful appointments.

As to this specific meeting:

• the meeting is a meeting of the village board, with the majority of that board being trustees
• it did not violate the Open Meetings Act as the trustees do possess the authority to call and conduct meetings of the majority and quorum of the board
• three trustees signed an agenda with the place of the meeting location as Dolton Park District
• Henyard attended this meeting
• it was held in compliance with the recent Attorney General’s Binding Opinion
• there was no change from the required annual meeting notice of change of regular meeting “dates” – which is the only provision requiring a 10-day notice to the public. Since the “regular meeting date” was not changed, no such 10-day notice was required

As to the lawsuit Henyard filed, using an attorney purportedly representing on behalf of Henyard and two trustees – without being lawfully appointed by Henyard “with the advice and consent of the board”:

• For all Counts, Henyard asks the Court to declare the AG’s Binding Opinion did not state that future meetings could not be held at village Hall – We Agree, it only stated that there must be reasonable and adequate space to conduct the meeting, and if they had to move it to another place other than the current board room, they must do that in order to comply with the OMA
• Declare that village hall is the “main and primary place of business” of Dolton for the purposes of the Open Meetings Act – We believe this should fail, because the OMA does not recognize “main and primary place of business” other than posting of notices and/or agendas

For the individual Counts:

• COUNT ONE – prohibit Clerk from recognizing any final decisions or votes held at the Park District – We believe this will fail, as it was a meeting in compliance with the OMA
•  COUNT TWO – prohibit trustees from holding meetings or posting notices and agendas for any meetings held at the Park District – We believe this will fail as those meetings were in compliance with the OMA, and Henyard did not state, with any specificity, what violations of the OMA were committed at those meetings
• COUNT THREE – prohibit Dolton Park District from allowing any future meetings of the Dolton Board of Trustees to be held at or in any Park District facility – We believe this will fail, and consider it laughable for this to even be included in this lawsuit

In short, she wants Dolton meetings held where she wants to hold them, and in the same disruptive manner in which she holds them, with “her” police officers there to intimidate attendees, and where there can be “microphone problems” when anyone but her is speaking into a microphone.

This lawsuit cannot stand and should be summarily dismissed by the Court.

Files:

COMPLAINT – Exhibit A – Exhibit B – Exhibit C – Exhibit D –