Carpentersville might weigh in on FOIA opinion

Carpentersville village trustees Tuesday are scheduled to vote on whether they should support another town’s fight to keep private the messages that public officials send at meetings via their personal electronic devices.

Village President Ed Ritter says that while he’s got nothing to hide, he deserves a little privacy.

“There’s a limit to how much people can peek into my life,” Ritter said. “Just because I got elected to the village board president and I don’t take that lightly at all, but on the other hand, I didn’t get elected to have my whole life be inspected by every person out there that wants to sign a FOIA request.”

The discussion originated from a Freedom of Information Act request filed by a reporter last July at The Champaign News-Gazette which sought access to all electronic communication sent and received on the city council’s and mayor’s private electronic devices during city council meetings.

Champaign released emails but denied the reporter’s request to see the other electronic communications, because the private devices don’t belong to the city.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan later released a binding opinion, which said information that’s deemed government business and is sent during meetings on officials’ personal and government-issued devices should be released.

“Electronic records relating to the transaction of public business are ‘public records’ subject to disclosure under 2 (c) of FOIA notwithstanding that they are generated on public officials private equipment and/or maintained on personal electric accounts,” Madigan wrote.

Champaign officials are in the midst of appealing Madigan’s opinion and are reaching out to several towns for support, Assistant City Attorney Laura Hall said.

“We have a lot of interest in ... pursing the appeal of the decision,” Hall said. A list of the towns Champaign has contacted was not immediately available Monday.

According to Carpentersville Village Clerk Therese Wilde, the village has fielded just one related FOIA request.

When it comes to the review process, it would have to be decided who at the village level would read through the messages and determine what could be released to the person or entity that made the original inquiry.

Trustee Brad McFeggan is concerned about the reviewer seeing trustees’ sensitive medical or financial records.

“I feel fine giving out all public business ... but I do have a problem with someone randomly viewing (personal) business,” McFeggan said.