Hinsdale D86 Late Answering Attorney General

HINSDALE, IL – Hinsdale High School District 86 has yet to respond to the attorney general's inquiry into a complaint over the legality of the district's secrecy.

On April 3, Patch filed the complaint, saying the district appears to have violated the Freedom of Information Act.

The district declined to release an attachment to an email titled, "Follow up – Invoices for Legal Services." The email was from its former law firm, with which the district is disputing past legal bills.

The attorney general's office decided to look into the district's denial.

On Thursday, Ben Silver, a supervising attorney with the attorney general's office, emailed the district's lawyer about the lateness of the response.

"The District’s response to this Request for Review is now over one month late," he said in the message, which was copied to Patch. "Please provide a response and the contested records, as required by FOIA."

His email was to Leslie Kennedy of the Evergreen Park-based Odelson law firm, which the school board appointed as its attorney in November.

Patch left Kennedy a phone message for comment on Friday. She did not respond.

In April, Patch was seeking documents related to the board's payment dispute with the Chicago-based Robbins Schwartz law firm, which represented the district for nearly a year and a half.

Robbins Schwartz's bills were on track to exceed $1 million over a year, far higher than legal costs in even larger districts.

Last September, the firm terminated its relationship with the district, saying the district was "unreasonably difficult" to serve. Nearly $200,000 in invoices remain unpaid.

In keeping the email attachment secret, the district cited the exception for the confidentiality of attorney-client communications.

But the title of the email from Joseph Perkoski, Robbins Schwartz's managing partner, indicates it was about invoices, not legal matters.

The district also maintained that the document in question contained preliminary notes, another exception under the open records law.

The preliminary notes exception protects pre-decisional communications, which are meant to promote a free flow of ideas among policymakers. In this case, Robbins Schwartz is an adversarial party that is not part of the district's decision-making process.