College of DuPage may admit Open Meetings Act violations on Breuder's contract

College of DuPage trustees on Monday are expected to vote on whether to accept a court order that says a previous board violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act two years ago when it agreed in closed session to extend the contract of then-President Robert Breuder.

The proposed agreement says the board broke the law with its secret vote on March 6, 2014, and declares the extension of Breuder's contract null and void.

Chairwoman Deanne Mazzochi, who was not on the board at the time, said approval of the proposed consent judgment would end pending litigation brought by DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin.

"I hope the board takes advantage of this opportunity to resolve a past issue and keep its focus on the future," she said Friday.

Berlin declined to comment Friday.

He filed the original complaint in March in DuPage Circuit Court alleging the board acted improperly during the 90-minute executive session two years ago.

A majority of trustees on the seven-member panel at that time voted by a show of hands to extend Breuder's contract by an additional year to 2019 and to authorize then-Chairwoman Erin Birt to relay word of that decision to Breuder, according to Berlin's complaint.

Berlin said the "showing of hands was ... a vote resulting in a 'final action' within the meaning of Open Meetings Act since the board of trustees did not subsequently repeat the vote in an open session."

Because the board took final action in the closed session, he asked the court to declare that it violated the act and to overturn the contract extension.

The proposed agreement further calls into question the $762,868 severance package Breuder received in January 2015, in which the remaining time on his contract was a factor. The buyout sparked a firestorm of controversy and fueled the election of three new trustees last spring. The new board fired Breuder in October. It also voided Breuder's contract, including the buyout package.

In his complaint, Berlin said he reviewed minutes and verbatim records of four closed meetings - two in February 2014 and two in March of that year. Most of the deliberations during those meetings were appropriate for closed sessions, he said.

In the March 6 closed meeting, however, Berlin said the board "recognized that taking final action to authorize such notice in closed session would be contrary to the Open Meetings Act."

But the board's lawyer, who was not identified in Berlin's complaint, asked trustees for a show of hands to reflect support for extending the contract.

"The contract calls for authorizing the chair(woman) to extend," the lawyer told trustees. "I don't want a voting in a closed, so why don't we just raise hands as to who would be willing to authorize the Chair to extend the contract."

Berlin said Friday that, if the agreement is approved by the COD board Monday, it could go before a judge within a few weeks.