Politics & Government

Village Faces Questions Over Forum Decision

Residents rally against decision to no longer record and broadcast League of Women Voters event.

With little more than a week until the League of Women Voters is set to host a non-partisan forum for Village Council candidates, Downers Grove residents are awaiting the Illinois attorney general’s opinion on a village decision to cease recording and broadcasting the proceedings.

Mayor Ron Sandack announced at the March 8 Village Council meeting he "wrote a letter today in my capacity as state senator to Attorney General Lisa Madigan asking that she provide an official opinion regarding the applicability of the State Officials and Employees Ethics Act."

The statement did little to address what for some is an uncharacteristic reticence in a village that prides itself on transparency. Two Facebook pages have gone up in recent days calling for the release of Village Attorney Enza Petrarca's opinion, and encouraging residents to attend the March 15 Village Council meeting to request that Sandack call for an expedited response from the attorney general’s office. He has stated on Facebook that an answer to his letter could arrive today.

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Village Invokes State Officials and Employees Ethics Law

At the center of the debate is Petrarca's interpretation of the 2003 state law. The law prohibits the use of staff resources for political or campaign activities, said Doug Kozlowski, village communications director. “We’re interpreting that to mean the taping and playback of forums.” 

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The five-minute DGTV spots previously offered candidates for local office also have been eliminated, Kozlowski said. “We notified the administrators for the major governmental bodies in June (2010) that we would not be able to do candidate spots on DGTV and other candidate-related programming. 

Downers Grove Patch on Feb. 16 requested a copy of the village attorney’s opinion under the Freedom of Information Act. That request was denied on the basis of attorney-client privilege. The village further declined to make Petrarca—who also serves as its ethics officer—available for an interview to explain why the eight-year-old law wasn't invoked during the 2009 campaign season, when the LWV forum was broadcast in accordance with long-standing tradition. Instead, the village issued this statement:

“As a practice the village reviews its activities for compliance with local and state laws. We reviewed this activity and determined it was not in compliance with state law, which was then communicated to the affected parties. Although the matter was being discussed prior to the 2009 elections, invitations to participate in candidate related programming had already been sent before a final decision was made. Staff did not feel comfortable rescinding these invitations and allowed the past practice to stand until more notice could be provided prior to the next election cycle.” 

Mary Ellen Matthies, president of the League of Women Voters of Downers Grove, Woodridge andLisle, said she spoke to DGTV staffers last November to reserve dates for two candidate forums. While the staff indicated the village’s budget cuts could potentially impact the forums, they said nothing about the village attorney’s opinion, Matthies said.

In January, Village Manager Dave Fieldman called Matthies to explain the village would not record the forums, she said. The decision wasn’t based on budget considerations, but on the village attorney’s opinion, Matthies was told. “Obviously that was a shock to us, because the league is non-partisan,” she said. “We knock ourselves out to be fair to each candidate.” 

League of Women Voters Appeals Decision

Matthies e-mailed the mayor and Village Council on Jan. 20 to appeal the decision. E-mails obtained by Patch under the Freedom of Information Act indicate only commissioners William Waldack and Bruce Beckman responded to Matthies, with both suggesting non-village alternatives she might pursue to get the forums recorded and broadcast.

At the Feb. 15 Village Council meeting, Waldack and Sandack called for village staff to issue a statement to the LWV and other interested parties regarding the decision. "I think we ought to have the staff write letters to the Chamber of Commerce, the League of Women Voters and any and all candidates, and encourage them to petition directly to the state attorney general and/or the State Board of Ethics and certainly to utilize their own mechanisms as they see fit, whether through a lawyer or directly, to obtain requisite permissions to do as we have in the past," Sandack said.

Fieldman's letter to Matthies, dated Feb. 15, explained the village would not record or broadcast the forums, and attributed the decision to changes in the State Officials and Employees Ethics Act. However, he gave the LWV the option of utilizing the Council Chamber and paying “approximately $400 per event” to have village staff record and broadcast the forums.

Matthies said the league’s board discussed the matter, but determined on March 10 it would not pay to record and broadcast the forums. “We are not a wealthy organization,” she said. “We were very hopeful it might work out, but it hasn’t, so we figured ‘let’s just move ahead and figure out a way to do it next time’.”

While "a few other" state LWV chapters apparently have encountered similar decisions based upon the same legal interpretation, Matthies said many more league forums are being recorded and broadcast, including tonight's Woodridge District 68 forum, which will be moderated by former Downers Grove mayor Betty Cheever. 

The disparity only adds to the confusion among voters, as some have noted on Facebook. Nor is the debate limited to residents. As TribLocal reported last week, even some experts have questioned the village’s interpretation of the law, although Sandack stated yesterday on Facebook that a high-level assistant attorney general had assured him that "our village attorney's opinions are far from ridiculous."

Experts Debate Law's Intent

“I can’t think of a reason why a candidate forum couldn’t be broadcast on a public access channel,” said Ken Menzel, counsel for the Illinois Board of Elections. “This is the first inquiry I’ve heard about there being a legal problem with it.” 

However, some towns may conclude that recording and broadcasting a forum isn’t a good idea, Menzel said. “There are two questions: Is it legal and is it adviseable? There’s a big gulf between illegal and good idea.”

Indeed, during the 2009 campaign season, District 99 canceled broadcasts of a school board candidate forum less than a week before the election. The district made the decision after receiving phone calls from a few residents who questioned whether the broadcast was consistent with district policy and complained that it contained inaccurate information. 

With the League of Women Voters scheduled to present its school board candidate forum on March 16 and its Village Council candidates forum on March 23, the question for many residents is whether the Illinois attorney general will respond in enough time to clarify the situation. 

Without a timely response, the forums will be limited to just 200 voters each. That’s the number of seats in the Council Chamber at Village Hall.


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