Delay in Kane County meeting minutes draws another rebuke by state's attorney
The logging of official Kane County Board meeting minutes is so far in arrears county officials may face criminal charges if the delay continues.
The minutes in question involve the most intense portion of the open and closed meeting disagreements between county board Chairman Chris Lauzen and the state's attorney's office regarding Lauzen's hiring of an outside law firm. Lauzen has blocked votes on the minutes covering every discussion since August.
Kane County State's Attorney Joe McMahon sent a letter to Lauzen, the board and the county clerk's office late last week calling for a vote on the minutes as soon as possible.
The letter says Lauzen and the board have run afoul of the Illinois Open Meetings Act. The law requires approval of meeting minutes within 30 days after a meeting or at the public body's second subsequent regular meeting, whichever is later. Under that requirement, the September and October minutes are overdue. The November meeting minutes will also soon run afoul of the law, according to McMahon's letter.
Failure to approve the meeting minutes at the December county board meeting could result in all officials involved being guilty of a Class C misdemeanor. That offense is punishable by 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine.
In the letter, McMahon calls upon the board to usurp Lauzen's authority, if need be, to get the minutes approved.
"We note Robert's Rules, which the board has adopted, permits you to overrule a decision of the chair by bringing and passing a motion to approve minutes of a meeting," the letter states. "We advise if the minutes are not called for approval and approved, the board should call for approval on its own motion."
Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham is in charge of keeping the official meeting minutes. He said he wants the minutes approved as soon as possible, but is powerless to call the vote. He said any problems with the minutes should be addressed during the meeting.
"If a T isn't crossed, we'll listen to that," Cunningham said. "But I don't let anybody come into my office and edit the minutes."
Asked if any county official has tried to personally edit the minutes before a vote, Cunningham said, "I'm not going to get into that."
Cunningham also pointed to a change in the law that now lets incoming county board members view all open and closed session meeting minutes created before they took office. The county board will have four new members sworn in later this month.
Lauzen said there have been issues with written minutes being consistent with audio and visual minutes in the past. The delay in calling the minutes for a vote is only because he has fallen a bit behind in reviewing them.
"We're just being careful and getting caught up," Lauzen said. "Everybody has access to the minutes as far back as we have records. That's one of the parts of the swamp that we cleaned up these past four years. They are all available now. This situation is much ado about nothing."