Over the holidays my brother in law, who is on a downstate school board, was telling me about the changes to the Illinois Open Meetings Act. He claims the changes are the results of 'dirty school boards in Chicago'. Maybe he meant Glen Ellyn? Anyway, the act now includes:

electronic means(such as, without limitation, electronic mail, electronic
chat, and instant messaging)

Full text of law is here.

The question is, when do we start seeing these email exchanges on the D41 website?

I am assuming our school board/village president and/or members attended this wonderful presentation at the Naperville Library on these changes, right?

So how does one comply with this in regards to email? Are they printed and presented for viewing at the regular meetings or does the law require them to be viewed in "real time"? I don't suppose you can cc: all of Glen Ellyn?

Incredible story in the Herald regarding a blatant abuse of the Open Meetings Act by another district. I am glad that the Kane County state's attorney made the request of the board to play the audio tapes. While I am confident that this will not happen in District 41, I wonder how much has gone on previously in closed session. I can think of a few meetings' audio tapes would be of interest in hearing.

This should put all local government bodies on notice that abuse of the closed session cannot be tolerated.

quote:

Originally posted by middlein87:
So how does one comply with this in regards to email? Are they printed and presented for viewing at the regular meetings or does the law require them to be viewed in "real time"? I don't suppose you can cc: all of Glen Ellyn?

It would be as simple as being required to save a copy of all correspondance in the District office for FOIA availability. You can cc the District personel responsible for keeping those records.

quote:

Originally posted by jombl:


That means, for District 41, anything initiated by a board member and read by 2 other members.

Judging from an earlier posting by Bob Solak, my impression is that D41 recognizes that emails between board members that are broader than pairwise conversations will get them into trouble.

You can hear the audio tapes of the Closed Session referred to in the Herald article here.