{
  "id": 5409740,
  "name": "The People ex rel. Richard L. Cooper, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Carl M. Carlson, Respondent-Appellee",
  "name_abbreviation": "People ex rel. Cooper v. Carlson",
  "decision_date": "1975-05-22",
  "docket_number": "Nos. 74-408, 75-3 cons.",
  "first_page": "569",
  "last_page": "572",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "28 Ill. App. 3d 569"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.",
    "id": 8837,
    "name": "Illinois Appellate Court"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 29,
    "name_long": "Illinois",
    "name": "Ill."
  },
  "cites_to": [],
  "analysis": {
    "cardinality": 514,
    "char_count": 9451,
    "ocr_confidence": 0.746,
    "pagerank": {
      "raw": 2.4856278687590205e-07,
      "percentile": 0.8080366847642468
    },
    "sha256": "820efb48d7dd1e233bd602085e10a9ab86cc2bca81065951c1e58d5d37ae8513",
    "simhash": "1:8f7a8dce04925b61",
    "word_count": 1497
  },
  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:36:05.902616+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [],
    "parties": [
      "The People ex rel. Richard L. Cooper, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Carl M. Carlson, Respondent-Appellee."
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE RECHENMACHER\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nPetitioner filed suit in the Circuit Court of Kane County seeking a writ of mandamus to compel defendant to permit petitioner (the publisher of a weekly newspaper in the Village of Elburn) and all members of the general public to attend meetings of the staff of the Kane County Development Committee, relating to a proposed development by Mark VII Corporation. The petition also requested an injunction prohibiting any such meetings in the future without giving the required prior public notice. This appeal is taken from an order dissolving a preliminary injunction (restraining order) and from the judgment entered after trial dismissing the suit.\nThis case presents a construction of the \u201cAct in relation to meetings\u201d (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 102, par. 41 et seq.), which is usually referred to as the open meetings act.\nThe Kane County Board of Supervisors established a Development Committee (formerly Zoning Committee) composed of nine members of the Board, for the purpose of considering and making recommendations to the entire Board in regard to zoning and land planning and development. That Board approved subdivision regulations which had been adopted by the Development Committee. Those regulations include provisions which set forth a procedure for submission of subdivision plats in three stages: (1) informal, preapplication conference, (2) preliminary plan, and (3) final plat; it also established subdivision standards.\nTo enable it to perform its functions and because its members are not necessarily technically experienced in the various fields the Development Committee created a Development Department, and engaged personnel divided into five divisions: (1) Administrative, (2) Urban Development, (3) Planning and Zoning, (4) Environmental and (5) Building Permits and Inspections. Each of these divisions is headed by a director and includes clerical and, in some instances, technical employees. The directors of tire various departments have voluntarily arranged for what are called \u201ctechnical staff, meetings\u201d which are scheduled most frequently on Monday of each week and occasionally on Fridays. There is no requirement for such meetings either by the County Board or the Development Committee. The meetings are held for \u201cintradepartrnental convenience\u201d and are intended as \u201cgood staff work, so that we don\u2019t waste the time of the Development Committee\u201d and to \u201cassure them that * * * the rules and regulations and the law\u201d have been complied with. From time to time one or more of these division heads go out in the field with or without developers to check boundaries and terrain of given projects. No secretary was appointed by this group to keep minutes of any of these periodic meetings or conferences. Instead, an employee of the Planning and Zoning Department who volunteered to do so takes notes at these meetings, usually in longhand but occasionally reduced to typewritten form. The only record of what transpires is \u201cin the memories of those attending and these notes.\u201d No motions or resolutions are presented and no votes are recorded. The recommendations seem to be the result of consensus. The staff meets \u201cmost frequently on Mondays\u201d because \u201cthe Development Committee meets every second Tuesday\u201d and the staff has to \u201cprepare * * * for that.\u201d Based on the discussions and other details arrived at at these meetings, it makes recommendations to the Development Committee.\nIt is conceded by the parties that the meetings of. the Board of Supervisors and of its committees, including its Development Committee, are held in compliance with the so-called open meetings act.\nTire petitioner, on October 24, 1974, learned that the \u201cstaff\u201d of the Development Committee had scheduled a meeting for Monday, October 25, at 9 A.M. with the representatives of Mark VII Corporation, a developer of a proposed \u201cNew Town\u201d in Kane County, and requested permission to attend that meeting. His request was denied, and it is admitted that petitioner and members of the public were excluded from that meeting. This suit followed.\nThe trial court on December 20, 1974, after considering all of the evidence, entered its order dismissing the action. In doing so the court held that the staff members did not negotiate with land developers any binding agreements as alleged in the complaint, that the staff is not a \u201cbody\u201d within the meaning of the Illinois open meetings act and is not subject to its provisions; that it does not take \u201cactions\u201d or have \u201cdeliberations\u201d within the meaning of that act, and that it would unnecessarily burden the staff to construe the act so as to include it within tire meaning of the act. Petitioner contends that the trial court erred in so holding.\nSection 1 of the open meetings act (ch. 102, par. 41) declares it to be the public policy that \u201cthe public commissions, committees, boards and councils and other public agencies * * # exist to aid in the conduct of the people\u2019s business\u201d and declares \u201cthe intent of this Act that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly.\u201d\nSection 2 of the act (ch. 102, par. 42) provides in part as follows:\n\u201cAll meetings of any legislative, executive, administrative or advisory bodies of the State, counties * * * and all other * * * boards, bureaus, committees or commissions of this State, and any subsidiary bodies of any of the foregoing including but not limited to committees and subcommittees which are supported in whole or in part by tax revenue, * * * shall be public meetings * *\nThe exceptions from its provisions which follow are not relevant here except one which will be referred to later.\nThere is no statute, ordinance or resolution or other official action by the County Board, or by its Development Committee, or by any committee of the County Board, designating or appointing the directors of the five divisions of the County Development Department (technical staff) as a public body or a subsidiary body. Their periodic meetings or conferences are intended to provide more efficient service to the Development Committee and to the County Board whose meetings are held in compliance with the act. Petitioner conceded during oral argument, and there is no question, that any one of the directors could freely and without application of the act meet with the chairman of the Development Committee or of the County Board or any of its members and convey his recommendations. Likewise he, or any of them, could meet with representatives of any subdivider or developer whether it be Mark VII Corporation or any other, without being subject to the act, in the performance of his duties. However, petitioner takes the position that if any number of them, presumably three or more, meet periodically, they automatically become an \u201cadvisory committee\u201d or \u201cpublic body\u201d giving professional advice. He calls attention to one of the exceptions specified in section 2 of the act which provides as follows:\n\u201cThis Section does not prevent an advisory committee appointed to provide a public body with professional consultation on matters germane to its field of competence from holding a closed session to consider matters of professional ethics or performance.\u201d\nPetitioner argues that therefore, except as to consideration of matters of professional ethics and performance, the legislature intended by this provision to make it clear that the meetings of the technical staff of the Kane County Development Department are subject to the act.\nWe disagree. That provision, on the contrary, emphasizes the applicability of the act only to \u201can advisory committee appointed\u201d to provide such consultation, not to employees who voluntarily, and in the interest of efficiency or \u201cgood staff work,\u201d meet together periodically in the performance of their duties, preliminarily to providing their recommendations.\nIf petitioner\u2019s argument were to be followed to its logical conclusion, a director of any county office or department who voluntarily decided to hold periodic meetings of his employees for the purpose of formulating recommendations to the County Board concerning improvement of the efficiency of his unit in its advisory process, would find that he would be bound to comply with the open meetings act. It is clear to us that such result was not intended.\nThe act is directed, as expressed in the statement of the public policy of this State, to meetings of \u201cpublic commissions, committees, boards and councils and the other public agencies,\u201d and not to voluntary meetings, conferences, or whatever they may be called, of department heads or employees who seek to improve with dispatch their performance or function of assisting in the conduct of the people\u2019s business.\nThe California, Florida, and other cases cited by petitioner are in-apposite because they all concern duly constituted public \u201cbodies.\u201d In view of our holding here we find it unnecessary to consider other questions raised in the briefs.\nTherefore, the judgment of the circuit court of Kane County is affirmed.\nJudgment affirmed.\nT. MORAN and DIXON, JJ., concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE RECHENMACHER"
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Stephen M. Cooper, of Geneva, for appellant.",
      "Gerry Dondanville, State\u2019s Attorney, of Geneva, and Marvin D. Dunn, of Aurora, for appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "The People ex rel. Richard L. Cooper, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Carl M. Carlson, Respondent-Appellee.\n(Nos. 74-408, 75-3 cons.;\nSecond District (2nd Division)\nMay 22, 1975.\nStephen M. Cooper, of Geneva, for appellant.\nGerry Dondanville, State\u2019s Attorney, of Geneva, and Marvin D. Dunn, of Aurora, for appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0569-01",
  "first_page_order": 593,
  "last_page_order": 596
}