Mattoon, Ill. (ECWd) –
The City of Mattoon, Illinois, portrayed a shocking ignorance of the Illinois Freedom Of Information Act during its meeting on November 18, 2025, when its attorney or Mayor (not sure who was talking at the time) proclaimed they would not release the job/employment application of a police officer since it was now part of his “personnel file” – and would deny any future FOIA requests for the same – see video clip below.
Sorry, Mattoon, it doesn’t work that way.
In 2014, the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor published a Binding Opinion related to job applications of public employees and stated that those applications for public employment are public records subject to be released under the FOIA. Just because you put something in a “personnel file” does not make it exempt under FOIA.
This is nothing new in Mattoon, as in 2020 it had previously showed its ignorance of the Airport Authority Act when it appointed an employee of the school district to the airport commission (he was statutorily disqualified from that appointment by virtue of his employment with the school district), and when we questioned the appointment their attorney misquoted the law, which prompted IDOT to question the appointment.
