Elmhurst Park Board Closed Session In Question

ELMHURST, IL – An Elmhurst Park District board member last month asked for a lawyer to determine the "appropriateness" of a closed meeting in April.

Under the state's Open Meetings Act, a public body can only close its doors for limited purposes. Over the years, the district has run afoul of the meetings law, according to the attorney general's office.

On April 14, the park board met for 15 minutes behind closed doors, saying it was doing so to discuss specific personnel, an allowable exception under the open meetings law.

In a July 14 memo, park board member Carolyn Ubriaco wanted the issue of the April 14 closed meeting put on a meeting agenda. She suggested the board consider having the Elmhurst-based Citizen Advocacy Center review the meeting recording, which she said the group would do for free. (The center did not return a message for comment.)

The group has an attorney on staff, so his communications with the district would operate under the secrecy of attorney-client communications, Ubriaco said.

Alternatively, the board could get its longtime lawyer, Andrew Paine of the Chicago-based Tressler law firm, to review the recording for a fee, Ubriaco said.

In an email to Patch, Jim Rogers, the district's executive director, said board President Kevin Graf had the district's attorney look into the matter. The lawyer, he said, found that no improper closed session discussion took place.

In her memo, Ubriaco said the board must vote on releasing the recording to an attorney. She told Patch in an email Tuesday that the district did some follow-up, which negated the need to hold a board vote to provide the audio to a lawyer.

On Wednesday, Patch filed a request for review by the attorney general's office.

Five years ago, the attorney general found the park district violated the open meetings law when its finance and audit committee met in 2019 without advertising the meeting beforehand.

In 2019, the attorney general determined the park board broke state law by discussing succession planning behind closed doors two years earlier. That discussion involved the creation of three new positions, according to district documents. Paine, the park district's lawyer, defended his client in that case.

The district released the 25-minute audio to the filer of the complaint, Edgar Pal. About half is muted, presumably because it involves discussions of specific employees.