DECATUR — Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul released a decision late Friday afternoon that the Decatur Public Schools Board of Education violated state law by holding discussions and making decisions about a proposed new Dennis School in Lincoln Park.
Continue to the bottom of this story to read the documents for yourself.
The school board and Decatur Park District revealed in June that they had been in talks for months about a plan to replace the two Dennis campuses with one new building in Lincoln Park. The project would be paid for with federal COVID relief funds, negating the need for a public referendum.
The plan drew heated opposition from neighbors and some parents, who criticized the location as well as the two governing bodies' failure to discuss the matter publicly. Ultimately, park district leaders announced in July that they would not sell the park to the school district.
Lee Ann Clary, a resident of the neighborhood near Lincoln Park, petitioned the attorney general to review closed sessions of the school board to see if the board's discussion of the plan violated the Open Meetings Act. She received a copy of the attorney's general's findings Friday and shared them with the Herald & Review.
“Everybody has to know what went on,” Clary said. “Not that it matters now for Lincoln Park. We have Lincoln Park back and are enjoying it very much, but it matters in the future.”
In her petition to the attorney general's Public Access Bureau, she contended that the school board had sought to conceal every aspect of the proposed new building from residents for as long as possible.
"The individual violations of the Open Meetings Act above are part of a concerted effort to avoid giving public access," she said. "They should be considered in combination and to be extremely egregious."
The school district provided the attorney general's office with closed session minutes and voice recordings of meetings held between Oct. 12, 2021 and June 28, 2022. After reviewing them, Raoul's office concluded that the board “improperly entered closed session pursuant to the exception in Section 2 of the Open Meetings Act and discussed various aspects of opening a new school using COVID-19 relief funds.”
The Open Meetings Act allows a board to meet in closed session to discuss acquiring real estate or selling it until negotiations are concluded.
The school board's discussions exceeded these parameters. They included the plans to build a new school and to apply for a waiver from the Illinois General Assembly to allow the use of the Elementary and Secondary Education Relief funds to pay for the project. Discussions also covered the removal of the need for a referendum, which would have allowed voters to approve or reject the project.
The exceptions to the Open Meetings Act that allow a board to discuss certain things in closed session are narrow and “strictly construed,” the attorney general's opinion read, as most business is to be conducted in open session to allow public scrutiny.
The result of the attorney general's decision is that the board must release the closed session minutes and recordings of those meetings during which discussion concerned building a new school and securing funding via legislation and the CARES Act.
The meetings occurred on Oct. 12 and 26, Nov. 16, Dec. 14, Jan. 13 and 25, Feb. 8 and 22, March 8 and 22, April 12 and 26, May 10 and 24, June 14 and 28. Portions of the discussions that concern acquisition of land may be redacted under the exceptions to the Open Meetings Act.
Attempts to contact Decatur Public Schools spokeswoman Denise Swarthout and board President Andrew Taylor Friday evening were unsuccessful.