The Illinois Attorney General is investigating the Village of Skokie for an alleged violation of the Open Meetings Act.
It’s the latest installment in a wide-ranging back-and-forth between Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen and Village Trustee James Johnson, the only member of the Village Board who is not a member of the Skokie Caucus Party that’s dominated village politics for half a century.
Last month, the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor, which enforces rules around citizen access to government meetings and records, ordered the village Ethics Commission to re-hear a complaint Johnson made against Van Dusen and village attorney Michael Lorge after the commission did not hear the complaint in open session. The commission rejected the complaint both times.
Van Dusen said he wasn’t able to give complete comments on the matter until the Attorney General’s office had done its work, but said the “board acted completely within the prescribed law” during the trio of meetings that are the subject of the investigation.
A series of letters obtained by Pioneer Press show that Van Dusen accused Johnson of violating the Open Meetings Act. Johnson countered that accusation by stating he had repeatedly requested that the village discuss the topics of the meetings in public forums.
The Open Meetings Act lays out certain requirements for government bodies to follow when they set meetings, to ensure that members of the public are informed of the meeting and have the option to attend. They must, for example, post agendas 48 hours in advance of a meeting. The act also contains some exceptions, including that government bodies may “close” meetings to discuss personnel matters or real estate transactions.
A Feb. 16 request to the Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor by Chicago resident Edgar Pal argued that the Skokie village board violated the Open Meetings Act on three occasions to discuss its appointment processes out of public view.
Pal argued that the appointment procedure writ large, as opposed to a specific person’s appointment or review, did not fall under one of the nine exceptions to the Open Meetings Act.
A Feb. 24 letter from Public Access Counselor Attorney Teresa Lim informed Mayor George Van Dusen that her office would be investigating and requested a written response from the board or its legal representative.
In a March 7 response, Van Dusen said that the first two dates Pal’s complaint cited were routine instances of discussing collective bargaining issues and annual performance reviews.
“At my request, the Village Manager requested an executive session pursuant to Section 2 c(1) and c(2) of the OMA,” Van Dusen wrote. “These sections allow a board to go into closed session to discuss the compensation of employees as well as discuss collective negotiating matters.”
On the final date of Jan. 17, Van Dusen said the Village Board had held a closed session to do a performance review of village attorney Michael Lorge and discuss his salary.
Van Dusen’s reply went on to allege that “Johnson repeatedly and abusively engaged in violations of the Open Meetings Act.”
Van Dusen, speaking to Pioneer Press, said Johnson had questioned Lorge in closed session about political matters.
“When [Lorge] finished his review, he explained what he had done the previous year, and what he was doing the next year,” Van Dusen said. “Trustee Johnson then launched into a series of questions, questions that were of a political nature, not a supervisory nature.”
In his own letter to Lim, Johnson said he found “Mayor Van Dusen’s response to be misleading and inaccurate” on the grounds that he “was the only member of the Village Board who (repeatedly) asked that we have this policy conversation publicly and not privately.”
Johnson later told Pioneer Press he believes Van Dusen is trying to prevent a discussion about the village legal department in an open forum.
Johnson also attached a handout given to the Village Board members that detailed different municipalities’ processes for hiring and compensating their attorneys. He argued that the handout was proof that the village board strayed from one of the nine exceptions to the Open Meetings Act.
Van Dusen acknowledged the same chart and said he had asked Village Manager John Lockerby to put it together in response to another board member’s question about how municipalities approach legal assistance.
“I distributed the chart and simply said this was in response to a trustee’s question,” Van Dusen said. “Then we moved on.”
Audio recordings of the closed sessions are not publicly available.