Editorial: Keep municipal business contracts public

As more municipalities get into areas that were once the strict purview of private business, questions arise as to what information is public and what is proprietary.

When a municipal-owned convention center attracts a trade show, are the incentives that were offered a matter of public record? When a city-owned theater is booking acts, should the contract negotiated be available for public review - down to the green M&M's the star demands in her dressing room?

The people who run these venues say no. Each client is unique, they say, based on factors like the time of year and the expense involved in preparing the facility. To disclose the financial arrangements that town officials make with individual trade shows or entertainment acts would put them at a competitive disadvantage with other clients - who might well demand as good a deal, or a better one, or play one venue off another.

In mid-November, Rosemont put this issue squarely out into the open when it passed an ordinance allowing itself to keep "confidential financial and proprietary information" private regarding the Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont Theatre and Allstate Arena.

The mayor, Brad Stephens, argued that to be forced to disclose the incentives could cause Rosemont to lose its "competitive edge." Allstate Arena competes with both public and private venues - the publicly owned Sears Centre Arena in Hoffman Estates and the privately owned United Center in Chicago, to name two - and private venues do not have to release their financials, Stephens added.

To that - and to other suburbs that refuse to divulge financial information - we say, sorry.

Rosemont isn't the only community that prefers to be a municipality part of the time and a corporate entity when it suits it, but nothing changes the fact that the village is a government, funded publicly and required to conduct its business in the open. The public must have enough information to judge whether its government expenditures are efficient and wise. Simply put, people have a right to know, even if it is inconvenient for the government to disclose.

This week, the Illinois attorney general's office weighed in on a similar matter, issuing a binding opinion that the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority was wrong to deny a Chicago Sun-Times reporter access to lease agreements for trade shows and conventions at McCormick Place in Chicago.

We believe this opinion, which will be pored over carefully by municipal attorneys, is clear. It serves as a reminder that whatever extracurricular ventures cities and towns get into, they are first and foremost public entities.