When Should Government Hide discussion's?

Sitting on the Lake County Board and Forest Preserve Board, we rarely go into closed session unless we are voting on a lawsuit settlement, dealing with salaries for an individual, or making an offer to buy land. This is in stark contrast to my time on the City Council of Highland Park when we spent many hours every week talking about issues that might graze subjects of personnel, (probable or filed) litigation, or land sale.

Many times over my 20 years on the City Council I protested against going into closed session. I believed that many of the Highland Park Theater discussions were policy, should have been in open, did not jeopardize the city, and were not appropriate for closed session.

The States Attorneys office of Lake County represents the County Board and Holland and Knight is the City of Highland Park's legal representation. Many of the same kind of issues we discussed at the City of Highland Park in closed session is talked about in open session at the County Board. My impression is that the States Attorney has a very high bar to go into closed session while Holland and Knights appears to me very liberal and allows a much larger bandwidth of discussions to occur. Along with compliance of the Open Meetings Act, my opinion has always been if it does not injure the public body (corporation), or an individual, we should not be in closed session.

The Highland Park Country Club discussion amongst the City Council should be fully discussed in open public sessions and not be held in any closed session meetings. After all, the Park District and City both have the same public and therefore any discussion or facts on this matter would not adversely effect us. All these public discussions would do is allow us to be informed and give public comment. I would ask that all discussions in the future on these matters be put on the agenda and held in public. Also, discussions and policy of what we want at the HP Theater site should also be as open as possible. Not something drummed up in closed session and given to us pre-baked.

Furthermore, I would suggest that the tapes from these closed session past meetings be offered to the Lake County States Attorney or the Attorney General of the State of Illinois to review and give a legal opinion if in fact there has been compliance of the Open Meetings Act. I think this would be a good exercise for all our public bodies to be sure our local governments are complying. There can be immunity given to those participating so no one would go to jail for past offenses if there was non-compliance to the open meeting act.