{ "id": 4271272, "name": "GALENA GAZETTE PUBLICATIONS, INC., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. THE COUNTY OF JO DAVIESS, a/k/a The Jo Daviess County Board and The Jo Daviess Planning and Development Committee, et al., Defendants-Appellants", "name_abbreviation": "Galena Gazette Publications, Inc. v. County of Jo Daviess", "decision_date": "2007-07-18", "docket_number": "Nos. 2-06-0197, 2-06-0243 cons.", "first_page": "338", "last_page": "346", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "375 Ill. App. 3d 338" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "368 Ill. App. 3d 728", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 4267237 ], "year": 2006, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "731" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/368/0728-01" ] }, { "cite": "313 Ill. App. 3d 536", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 186568 ], "year": 2000, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "543" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/313/0536-01" ] }, { "cite": "224 Ill. 2d 312", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 3606828 ], "weight": 2, "year": 2007, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "323" }, { "page": "323" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/224/0312-01" ] }, { "cite": "326 Ill. App. 3d 33", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 1281388 ], "weight": 2, "year": 2001, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "38" }, { "page": "38" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/326/0033-01" ] }, { "cite": "191 Ill. 2d 326", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 229713 ], "year": 2000, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "330" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/191/0326-01" ] }, { "cite": "335 Ill. App. 3d 990", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. App. 3d", "case_ids": [ 637115 ], "weight": 2, "year": 2002, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "993" }, { "page": "993" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-app-3d/335/0990-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 781, "char_count": 19642, "ocr_confidence": 0.756, "pagerank": { "raw": 5.0011153170616546e-08, "percentile": 0.3147789697391624 }, "sha256": "a92a9ddeca708ec1b4fd95fa6f13fd1eed046266f833af04f6204b3eb76b1842", "simhash": "1:93985ca87f21fbf1", "word_count": 3271 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T20:53:12.225665+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "GALENA GAZETTE PUBLICATIONS, INC., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. THE COUNTY OF JO DAVIESS, a/k/a The Jo Daviess County Board and The Jo Daviess Planning and Development Committee, et al., Defendants-Appellants." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "PRESIDING JUSTICE GEOMETER\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThis is a suit under the Open Meetings Act (Act) (5 ILCS 120/1 et seq. (West 2004)). Defendants, the County of Jo Daviess (County), also known as the Jo Daviess County Board (County Board) and the Jo Daviess Planning and Development Committee (PDC); Merri Berlage, as chairperson of the County Board; and the Galena City Council (City Council), appeal an order granting the motion of plaintiffs, Galena Gazette Publications, Inc.; Journal Standard, Inc.; and Telegraph Herald, a division of Woodward Communications, Inc., for summary judgment (see 735 ILCS 5/2 \u2014 1005(c) (West 2004)), denying defendants\u2019 motion for summary judgment, and requiring defendants to disclose minutes and tapes of meetings that plaintiffs claimed were illegally closed to the public. We reverse and enter summary judgment for defendants.\nThe meetings at issue pertained to the use of part of the \u201cOld Train Depot,\u201d which the City of Galena (City) owns. A \u201cUse Agreement\u201d (lease) signed by the City and the Galena Area Chamber of Commerce (Chamber), dated March 24, 2005, recites that the lease is in effect from May 1, 2005, until April 30, 2008; that it gives the Chamber the exclusive possession of the Old Train Depot; and that, during the lease term, the County\u2019s Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) will he subletting from the Chamber a portion of the premises. A draft \u201cLetter of Understanding\u201d (draft Letter) between the Chamber and the CVB, dated April 1, 2005, states that the sublease term will be from May 1, 2005, until April 30, 2006, and that the CVB will be allowed to occupy certain ground-level areas of the building. The draft Letter divides the authority over the racking of brochures and the display of various tourism-related materials. A handwritten notation reads, \u201cInitial proposal discussed at meeting.\u201d Another \u201cLetter of Understanding\u201d (final Letter), dated May 12, 2005, sets forth the agreed-upon conditions of the sublease and states that the CVB \u201cshall allow a carousel rack for Chamber member information to be displayed in the north room of the Depot.\u201d\nAs amended, plaintiffs\u2019 complaint alleges as follows. The County, the County Board, the PDC, and the City Council are all public bodies as defined by the Act (see 5 ILCS 120/1.02 (West 2004)). Therefore, subject to the narrow exceptions in section 2(c) of the Act (5 ILCS 120/2(c) (West 2004)), their meetings must be open to the public (see 5 ILCS 120/2(a) (West 2004)). However, on April 7, 2005, at a special meeting of the PDC, the PDC and the City Council held a closed \u201cexecutive session\u201d at which matters not within the Act\u2019s exemptions were discussed. These matters included details of a prospective arrangement for racking informational brochures at the Old Train Depot. On April 11, 2005, the County Board and Berlage violated the Act by convening a closed \u201cexecutive session\u201d at which the participants again discussed the details of the arrangement for racking informational brochures. Plaintiff Galena Gazette Publications, Inc., asked the County Board to provide tapes of the two closed meetings, but the County Board refused. Plaintiffs asked the trial court to order defendants to make public the tapes and minutes of those parts of the closed meetings that were not exempt from disclosure and to enjoin defendants permanently from further violating the Act.\nDefendants\u2019 answer admitted that the County, the County Board, the PDC, and the City Council were public bodies but denied that they had violated the Act. Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment. They relied on section 2 of the Act, which, as pertinent here, provides:\n\u201c(a) Openness required. All meetings of public bodies shall be open to the public unless excepted in subsection (c) and closed in accordance with Section 2a [5 ILCS 120/2a (West 2004)].\n(b) Construction of exceptions. The exceptions contained in subsection (c) are in derogation of the requirement that public bodies meet in the open, and therefore, the exceptions are to be strictly construed, extending only to subjects clearly within their scope. The exceptions authorize but do not require the holding of a closed meeting to discuss a subject included within an enumerated exemption.\n(c) Exceptions. A public body may hold closed meetings to consider the following subjects:\nt]i\n(5) The purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body, including meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular parcel should be acquired.\n(6) The setting of a price for sale or lease of property owned by the public body.\u201d 5 ILCS 120/2(a) through (c) (West 2004).\nPlaintiffs\u2019 motion alleged as follows. A \u201cmeeting\u201d is \u201cany gathering of a majority of a quorum of the members of a public body held for the purpose of discussing public business.\u201d 5 ILCS 120/1.02 (West 2004). The \u201cexecutive session\u201d of April 7, 2005, was a meeting of the City Council, the County Board, and the PDC, as it was attended by a majority of a quorum of each public body. In answering plaintiffs\u2019 interrogatories, the County Board, Berlage, and the City Council essentially admitted that public business, including the racking of promotional materials at the Old Train Depot, had been discussed at the closed meeting. Also, the \u201cexecutive session\u201d of April 11, 2005, was a \u201cmeeting\u201d of the County Board, and public business, including the racking of promotional materials at the Old Train Depot, had been discussed there.\nPlaintiffs\u2019 motion attached Berlage\u2019s answers to plaintiffs\u2019 interrogatories. In one answer, Berlage stated that, at the April 7, 2005, closed session, \u201cthe members of the [PDC] and other County Board members discussed the \u2018Letter of Understanding\u2019 regarding the sublease of space [at the Old Train Depot]. The discussion included issues in dispute regarding racking, payment of next amount of space [sic] to be used, length of contract, and other legal issues involving the sublease.\u201d In another answer, Berlage stated that, at the April 11, 2005, closed session, County Board members again discussed the draft Letter and that the discussion covered \u201cissues in dispute including racking, payment of rent, amount of space to be used, and alternative locations for the CVB to relocate [sic].\u201d\nPlaintiffs argued that neither section 2(c)(5) nor section 2(c)(6) of the Act exempted the discussions at issue from the Act\u2019s general requirement of openness. According to plaintiffs, section 2(c)(5) applied only to the discussion of the leasing or subleasing of the Old Train Depot (or part of it), and section 2(c)(6) protected only the discussion of the price of a proposed lease or sublease. Therefore, the public could not legally be excluded from the discussion of the \u201cday-today operations at the Train Depot, including the racking of promotional materials of third parties.\u201d.\nThe County and Berlage responded to plaintiffs\u2019 motion. They contended that the discussions at the closed sessions were protected by section 2(c)(5) of the Act because they dealt entirely with \u201cthe lease or sublease of real property\u201d and not with the \u201cday-to-day operations at the Train Depot.\u201d The County and Berlage also moved for summary judgment, contending that, because the two closed sessions were devoted to disputed issues surrounding the potential sublease, they were exempt under section 2(c)(5) of the Act. The City Council also moved for summary judgment, contending that the April 7, 2005, closed meeting included discussions of the specific terms and conditions of the sublease and that both sessions were exempt under the Act.\nAlso before the trial court were the draft minutes of the two closed sessions. For obvious reasons, we shall not summarize these reports in detail, and we shall defer describing their content until the discussion of the issues on appeal. We note that, although plaintiffs\u2019 complaint requested the release of the tapes of the two closed sessions, no tapes are in the record on appeal and it does not appear from the record that any tapes were presented to the trial court.\nThe trial court granted plaintiffs\u2019 motion for summary judgment, holding that the two meetings\u2019 discussions that related to the racking of promotional brochures at the Old Train Depot were not exempt. Defendants timely appealed. On appeal, defendants contend that summary judgment is proper for them, not for plaintiffs, because the records that plaintiffs seek relate entirely to matters that were exempt under section 2(c) of the Act.\nSummary judgment is proper when the pleadings, depositions, and other matters of record establish that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. 735 ILCS 5/2 \u2014 1005(c) (West 2002); Russell v. Village of Lake Villa, 335 Ill. App. 3d 990, 993 (2002). Our review is de novo. Russell, 335 Ill. App. 3d at 993. This case turns on the meaning of a statute, a question of law, which we also review de novo. See In re Estate of Dierkes, 191 Ill. 2d 326, 330 (2000). Our goal is to ascertain the legislature\u2019s intent. Garcia v. Nelson, 326 Ill. App. 3d 33, 38 (2001). Ordinarily, the language of the statute is the best guide to what the legislature intended, and, if the language is unambiguous, we must follow it without resorting to aids to statutory construction. People v. Perry, 224 Ill. 2d 312, 323 (2007); Garcia, 326 Ill. App. 3d at 38. Although the Act states that its exemptions are to be strictly construed (5 ILCS 5/120(b) (West 2004)), the rale of strict construction does not come into play if the language at issue is unambiguous (Perry, 224 Ill. 2d at 323), and, in any event, a strict construction must still be a reasonable one (see TTX Co. v. Whitley, 313 Ill. App. 3d 536, 543 (2000)).\nSection 2(c)(5) of the Act allows a public body to hold closed meetings in order to consider \u201c[t]he purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body, including meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular parcel should be acquired.\u201d 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(5) (West 2004). As the parties agree, the County is a public body, and there is no dispute that the closed meetings of April 7, 2005, and April 11, 2005, at which the County was present by its representatives on the County Board and the PDC, were held at least in part to consider the lease (the proposed sublease, as described tentatively by the draft Letter) of real property (part of the Old Train Depot) for the use of the public body (the CVB, a division of the County, which planned to use the leased space by providing information and services for visitors). Thus, the meetings were dedicated at least in large measure to the consideration of subjects that were within the plain meaning of section 2(c)(5) of the Act. The question is whether the meetings were held to consider as well subjects that were not within any exemptions. If that were the case, then the meetings exceeded the scope of section 2(c) of the Act and, to the extent that they did so, disclosure is now required.\nWithout disclosing the specific contents of these closed meetings or the positions that officials took on the issues raised, we discreetly make the following generalizations from the minutes that the trial court considered. Most of what was said at the first meeting, and all of what was said at the second meeting, was straightforwardly directed toward whether and on what terms the CVB ought to sublet property from the Chamber, as proposed by the draft Letter. The minutes of the April 7, 2005, meeting begin by recording one participant\u2019s statement that \u201cthere are issues with the [draft Letter], including racking, payment of rent, length of contract, and legal issues.\u201d The remainder of the lengthy report summarizes the discussions of these sublease-related issues, including how much rent the CVB would pay; how much space the CVB would occupy; how entering into the proposed sublease would affect the racking of promotional brochures of various businesses; and how, once the CVB moved into the Old Train Depot in accordance with the sublease, the CVB and the Chamber would divide the control over the racking of promotional literature there. The participants also discussed whether it was desirable to enter into the arrangement at all, what alternatives existed, and how the CVB and the Chamber could arrive at an agreement of some sort.\nSimilarly, the April 11, 2005, closed meeting centered on the discussion of the CVB\u2019s proposed subleasing of space at the Old Train Depot. The participants discussed whether the Chamber would completely control the racking of promotional brochures in the building; what rent the Chamber might charge and how the proposed subleasing arrangement might give the Chamber undue power over the CVB and its budget; whether the CVB has alternatives to the Old Train Depot; and whether the County should accept the draft Letter or consider other arrangements.\nWe conclude that the closed meetings were wholly dedicated to the discussion of the lease of the Old Train Depot for the use of the County. Even when participants discussed the racking of promotional brochures at the Old Train Depot \u2014 past, present, or future \u2014 they did so only because it was pertinent to the terms, effects, or desirability of the proposed subleasing arrangement. The participants did not discuss the racking of promotional literature separately from their consideration of the proposed subleasing arrangement between the CVB and the Chamber. To abstract any such discussions from the larger context would ignore the participants\u2019 purposes in raising the issue of the display of promotional materials. Thus, the closed meetings, in full, were held in order to consider a subject within the plain meaning of one of the Act\u2019s exemptions.\nIn contending otherwise, plaintiffs concede that, in great measure, the closed discussions were within section 2(c)(5) of the Act. However, in contending that not all of what was discussed at the meetings was protected from disclosure, plaintiffs draw a distinction between the \u201cmaterial terms of the lease, such as the location of the real estate, its boundaries, its price and the length of the lease term,\u201d which they admit were privileged, and \u201cperipheral matters such as how the lessee is going to utilize the space rented,\u201d which they contend were not exempt. We disagree.\nPlaintiffs\u2019 proposed construction of section 2(c)(5) suffers from several flaws. The primary one is that it finds no support in the statutory language. Section 2(c)(5) allows public bodies to conduct \u201cclosed meetings to consider *** [t]he purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body.\u201d 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(5) (West 2004). Nothing in this wording limits the exemption to the \u201cmaterial terms of [a] lease\u201d or draws any distinction between \u201cmaterial\u201d matters and \u201cperipheral\u201d ones. A closed meeting is permissible if it is held to consider the type of proposed subleasing arrangement at issue here. Insofar as the consideration of the proposed sublease was affected by allegedly \u201cperipheral\u201d matters such as the use of the space proposed to be sublet, those matters were within section 2(c)(5) of the Act. Plaintiffs urge that their distinction between material terms and peripheral terms would accord with the Act\u2019s policy in favor of openness in government and with its direction that its exemptions are to be strictly construed (see 5 ILCS 120/2(b) (West 2004)). However, as we have observed, the rule of strict construction does not entitle a court to rewrite a statute by ignoring its plain meaning or adding provisions that the legislature could have supplied but did not.\nFurthermore, plaintiffs\u2019 proposed distinction between the \u201cmaterial\u201d terms of the lease and the \u201cperipheral\u201d ones would not only rewrite the exemption at issue but would also be exceedingly difficult to apply. The distinction between the \u201cmaterial\u201d terms of a proposed lease and the \u201cperipheral\u201d issues is bound to be either arbitrary or vague. The infirmity of plaintiffs\u2019 approach is apparent in the very application that they suggest here. According to plaintiffs, the location of the real estate, the rental amount, and the length of the lease term are \u201cmaterial,\u201d but \u201chow the lessee is going to utilize the space rented\u201d is merely \u201cperipheral.\u201d Yet even a casual reading of the minutes of the two closed meetings demonstrates that how the CVB would be allowed to utilize the part of the Old Train Depot that it would occupy was anything but \u201cperipheral\u201d to the meeting\u2019s participants, including the agents of the County and the CVB. How the CVB (and the Chamber) would be able to use the building was crucial to the County\u2019s strategy in deciding whether to proceed with the proposed subleasing arrangement at all.\nFinally, adopting plaintiffs\u2019 construction of section 2(c)(5) could lead to potentially inconvenient or absurd results. Employing the distinction that plaintiffs urge us to adopt, a public body need not reveal where, when, or for how long it might lease real estate for its use, but would have to disclose the purpose of the lease and how it would use the mystery space that it plans to occupy. Such a result would likely benefit neither the public body nor the public; the former would have to disclose potentially sensitive matters that legitimately might be kept private, while the latter would receive information that might be incomprehensible and of no use out of its context. Even could we revise the Act under the guise of construing it, we would avoid a construction likely to produce absurdity, injustice, or inconvenience. See Kinn v. Prairie Farms/Muller Pinehurst, 368 Ill. App. 3d 728, 731 (2006).\nWe disagree with plaintiffs that applying section 2(c)(5) of the Act as it is written enables public bodies to engage in \u201csecretive and wide-roaming discussions *** under the pretense that they relate to the acquisition of property interests.\u201d Courts remain free to do as the trial court did here \u2014 examine the records of closed meetings to discern whether they were, in whole or in part, dedicated to the consideration of subjects within one or more of the Act\u2019s exemptions. We do not suggest that a public body may shelter deliberations that must be public merely by depositing them among discussions of exempt matters. That is not what happened here.\nBecause we hold that the closed sessions were wholly exempt under section 2(c)(5) of the Act, we conclude that defendants are entitled to summary judgment on that basis. Therefore, we need not consider whether any part of the closed sessions may also have been exempt under section 2(c)(6) of the Act (5 ILCS 120/2 (c)(6) (West 2004)). We reverse the trial court\u2019s judgment, and, exercising our authority under Supreme Court Rule 366(a)(5) (155 Ill. 2d R. 366(a)(5)), we enter summary judgment for defendants.\nThe judgment of the circuit court of Jo Daviess County is reversed.\nReversed.\nBYRNE and GILLERAN JOHNSON, JJ., concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "PRESIDING JUSTICE GEOMETER" } ], "attorneys": [ "Terry M. Kurt, State\u2019s Attorney, of Galena (Martin E Moltz and Gregory L. Slovacek, both of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), and Philip F. Jensen, of Hammer, Simon & Jensen, and John W Cox, Jr., of Cox & Ward, PC., both of Galena, for appellants.", "Robert R. Roth, of Vincent, Roth & Toepfer, EC., of Galena, for appellees." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "GALENA GAZETTE PUBLICATIONS, INC., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. THE COUNTY OF JO DAVIESS, a/k/a The Jo Daviess County Board and The Jo Daviess Planning and Development Committee, et al., Defendants-Appellants.\nSecond District\nNos. 2-06-0197, 2-06-0243 cons.\nOpinion filed July 18, 2007.\nTerry M. Kurt, State\u2019s Attorney, of Galena (Martin E Moltz and Gregory L. Slovacek, both of State\u2019s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor\u2019s Office, of counsel), and Philip F. Jensen, of Hammer, Simon & Jensen, and John W Cox, Jr., of Cox & Ward, PC., both of Galena, for appellants.\nRobert R. Roth, of Vincent, Roth & Toepfer, EC., of Galena, for appellees." }, "file_name": "0338-01", "first_page_order": 354, "last_page_order": 362 }