Buffalo Grove releases minutes from 2005

The Buffalo Grove village board Monday night approved the release of minutes of an April 18, 2005, executive session for which the audiotape recording is missing.

The discussion at that meeting was related to the village's anticipated annexation of the Land and Lakes Landfill. According to the executive session minutes, the meeting lasted from 8:20 to 8:40 p.m.

Village President Elliott Hartstein read aloud the minutes that stated the purpose of the meeting was for the purchase or lease of real estate and pending litigation.

There was nothing in the minutes to indicate the village board reviewed a completed environmental report prepared by Shaw Environmental on the landfill as contended by Trustee Lisa Stone, who initially requested the audiotape of the meeting.

"This was merely a status report," Hartstein said. "The best I can recall, the actual (environmental) report came out in June. The rest of (the meeting) was about litigation."

Stone, who was elected to the village board in 2009, requested to review the audiotape of that meeting because she was concerned about environmental issues with the landfill that she believes the board should have been aware of at the time.

Stone said she had proof that the environmental review of the Land and Lakes Landfill, on Milwaukee Avenue south of Lincolnshire's CityPark development, was completed in April.

Trustee Jeffrey Braiman, who at that executive session, said he had not seen any environmental report from Shaw at that meeting.

"It would have been impossible to discuss the results of that report since we wouldn't have gotten it for another two months," he said.

The landfill, which operates as a transfer station and composting facility, was annexed into Buffalo Grove in 2008, with the expectation the facility would move its operation across Milwaukee Avenue, leaving the former landfill property to be redeveloped.

Braiman said village officials decided to drop the environmental study once the park district backed out of the idea of buying the landfill.

"We were not in the business of public recreation. At that point, it would have been foolish for us to continue spending money on due diligence when we had no obligation, no idea to do so," he said. "There was nothing that we did that was unusual and we didn't try to hide anything."

Stone said she knew the meeting minutes wouldn't reveal much, which is why she wanted to hear the actual discussion.

"The audiocassette is the only memorialization of what took place at the meeting," she said. "I wanted to hear the audio and understand whether the board members who were on the board then knew what was in this evaluation."

Hartstein said Village Clerk Janet Sirabian has not been able to locate that tape, which by law is considered confidential.

Before the board voted unanimously to release the minutes of that particular meeting, Hartstein pointed out that he had asked the item be placed on Monday night's agenda last week, before a Daily Herald editorial calling for its release.

"I wish to emphasize I am not reacting in any shape or form to that editorial," he said.

Illinois law requires public bodies to make audio or video recordings of closed meetings.

Stone first tried to get gain access to the tape by filing a FOIA request with the village clerk June 4. The request was formally denied in a June 9 letter, in which Village Manager William Brimm cited the Illinois Open Meetings Act section that says the "verbatim record of a meeting closed to the public shall not be open to public inspection."

Stone made a more informal request for the tape to Hartstein. On June 10, village attorney William Raysa wrote Hartstein, saying he believes trustees should have access to verbatim records of closed meetings.

Sirabian owned up to her failure to keep the tape safe Monday night.

Sirabian said the minutes of the April 18, 2005, executive session were approved Aug. 15, 2005, and legally she could have destroyed the tape by Feb. 15, 2007.

"I did not destroy any of the tapes," Sirabian said. "I don't know where it is. It's my fault and I take full responsibility for it. No one stole it. Nobody looked at it. I don't know where it is."

Audiotapes of meetings are kept in a locked box inside a filing cabinet in the village clerk's office. But Sirabian lost her set of keys, including the keys to her car, home and the box, in May 2009 at a parking garage in Chicago.

The box was not accessed since then, until village officials broke the lock on June 8, but did not find the tape requested by Stone.

"Nobody knew these keys were lost," Sirabian said. "They are probably in a landfill somewhere."