A Chicago resident has sued the Skokie Village Board for failing to produce recordings of closed sessions that were the subject of an investigation by the Illinois Attorney General, and he alleges that the village also violated laws around public access to records.
Edgar Pal, represented by public access attorney Matt Topic of Loevy and Loevy, filed the suit June 23, per court records.
The suit recaps about six months of exchanges between Skokie officials and citizens regarding public access.
The disagreements have largely centered on whether the Skokie Village Board violated laws meant to ensure citizens can stay informed about the activities of their elected representatives.
The Public Access Counselor of the Illinois Attorney General recently ruled in a non-binding opinion that the village board should vote to release portions of non-public meetings.
The conversations at issue all deal with matters related to the office of the village Corporation Counsel, whose members have been the subject of several ethics complaints from Trustee James Johnson.
Johnson is the only member of the village board not affiliated with the Skokie Caucus Party, the political party that has controlled village politics for decades.
All three of those complaints have hit dead ends before the Skokie Ethics Commission, a panel of three appointed commissioners.
In a statement, a Skokie village spokesperson said the Public Access Counselor’s opinion was non-binding, prompting the village to engage legal assistance to examine the ruling and recommend next steps.
“The Village of Skokie will be taking action in response to counsel’s recommendations at its next meeting as the Mayor reported at the June 20th Village Board Meeting,” a statement from the village reads. “The village has always strived to comply with the Freedom of Information and Open Meetings Acts. It will continue to do so in this matter.”
Pal filed a request for review with the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor, which helps enforce laws around government transparency and access to public records, after a pair of closed sessions in which, the lawsuit and requests for review allege, the board discussed a topic that would have been appropriate to discuss in public.
That topic, according to paperwork filed by Pal and responding paperwork from Van Dusen, was the appointment process for the Corporation Counsel’s office.
The Illinois Open Meetings Act allows government bodies to meet behind closed doors to discuss employees’ compensation and job performance as part of a list of nine total exceptions to the law.
Pal’s request for review alleges that in a Jan. 17, 2023 closed session, the board discussed the overall work of the Corporation Counsel’s office, not just the job performance of the counsel.
The Public Access Counselor found in April that the board had violated the Open Meetings Act and asked the board to publicly disclose the relevant pieces of tape recordings from closed sessions when the violations had occurred. The opinion was non-binding, meaning that the board was not necessarily compelled to act.
According to the lawsuit, Pal asked the board on June 8 whether they would release the tapes. Van Dusen said the village had engaged an outside attorney to review the Public Access Counselor’s opinion and advise the village on next steps.
Van Dusen said the board would vote on whether to release the recordings July 3, according to the suit.
Pal made freedom of information requests for the relevant portions of the closed session recordings May 13, according to the suit, but the village denied those requests May 19.
“Because Skokie had no good faith basis to withhold the records at issue under Section 7(1)(l) of FOIA, Skokie willfully and intentionally or otherwise in bad faith failed to comply with FOIA,” the lawsuit states.
Johnson, who was elected to the board in 2021, has filed numerous ethics complaints against the village’s legal department, alleging that Chief Corporation Counsel Michael Lorge and Assistant Corporation Counsel Jim McCarthy had offered him an appointment to a village commission if he would drop out of the race for trustee.
McCarthy is the chair of the Skokie Caucus Party, according to information on the Illinois State Board of Elections website.
Pal has also taken legal action against a number of other public bodies, court records show. He has lawsuits pending against the City of Evanston and the Pace Bus Board of Directors and has previously sued the office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, per court records.