THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22, 2006
At Last Minute, Council Opens Meeting
By DWIGHT ESAU
Journal Reporter
Park Ridge's city council almost held an illegal closed meeting Monday night, but at the last moment threw open the doors to public view.
On the agenda was a recommended loan guarantee to PRC Partners to allow construction to begin on phase III of Uptown redevelopment. It was initially classified as a discussion of the sale of land, and some officials and aldermen were allegedly prepared to go into closed session to discuss it.
The trouble is, the Illinois Open Meetings Act permits closed meetings only for discussion of whether a parcel of land should be acquired or sold, and for the setting of a price for property. The loan guarantee is neither of those, the price of land involved in the Target Area II guarantee has already been set. After a brief discussion Monday night (Mar. 20), aldermen voted unanimously to hold the session openly.
This came after City Attorney Everette Hill advised the council they could hold the closed session. "I believe the discussion of a guarantee comes under the same parameters as the initial discussion of the sale of land, I simply disagree with the attorney general's office," Hill said.
Ald. Jeannie Markech said she learned last weekend that the meeting was initially scheduled to be closed. She complained to the Illinois Attorney General's office that such a meeting would be a violation of the open meetings act.
Assistant Attorney General Terry Mutchler agreed with her, saying the city was "precluded" from holding any guarantee discussion in closed session. Armed with this advice, Markech followed Schuenke's request and moved that the meeting be held in open session. It was unanimously approved in a roll call vote.
"I am a staunch advocate of open and transparent government," Markech said in a press statement. "I am not an attorney, but my reading of the act strongly suggested that a closed session discussion of the guaranty only would violate that law. When it became obvious to me that my own objections would not carry the day, I sought advice from the state's top law enforcement official, the Illinois Attorney General.
"If the city council is willing to accept the liability and obligation to repay a loan, on behalf of the taxpayers of Park Ridge, than the council should be willing to discuss this matter in open session before the public, on whose behalf it is undertaking consideration of that liability and obligation."
Schuenke said he did not recommend a closed session. "I merely requested that the matter be discussed," he said.
"I believe she is partially responsible for us holding the open session," said Ald. Rich DiPietro. "It's possible, of course, that we would have made the same decision on our own, despite what may have been planned or said earlier."
Ald. Mark Anderson said, however, that neither Markech nor the attorney general was responsible for the decision to go open. "We simply decided to hold an open discussion," he said.
Markech eventually voted against the guarantee proposal, which was approved by a 9-4 vote. It will extend a $4 million loan guarantee to PRC Partners by LaSalle Bank, and allow construction on phase III of the Uptown redevelopment to proceed, and protect the bank and PRC from adverse developments from a lawsuit against the project by a Park Ridge resident.