Douglas County Board – FOIA Request Triggers OMA Compliance – Too Little Too Late?

Douglas Co., Ill. (ECWd) –

The Douglas County Board held their regular scheduled meeting November 20th, 2024.  During the meeting the Chairman chose to cut a person off during his comment alleging his time was up.

Considering the person who was shut down spoke for less than 3 minutes and a prior speaker spoke for over 7 minutes, and another was told they had 5 minutes, we allege the board violated the open meetings act.

A Freedom of Information Act request for their Open Meetings Act training certificates and public comment policy indicates once again, elected officials fail to comply with the most basic requirement of OMA.  (FOIA response found here and here)

The county provided 6 certificates for OMA training.  Of those provided, only two had taken their training before the FOIA request and one remaining board member, Wilson, has not provided any training certificate.

We understand the individual whose comments were stopped and told his time was up will be filing a request for review with the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor.

Of interest in the records they did provide, the By-Laws of the County Board indicate the State’s Attorney is the Board’s parliamentarian.  It appears that the State’s Attorney might need to brush up on some OMA issues in Douglas County so that the people’s rights to speak are not violated, and no arbitrary or capricious rules are in place.