LA GRANGE, IL – Lyons Township High School officials are reviewing the recordings of eight meetings that the attorney general found were illegally closed from the public.
“There are multiple meetings, and that’s why it takes a considerable amount of time for school board members to review those tapes and become familiar with them,” board attorney Kevin Gordon said at Monday’s board meeting.
In late October, the attorney general’s office determined the meetings in 2022 and early 2023 were closed in violation of the state’s open meetings law.
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The meetings were about the board’s controversial effort to sell the school’s 70 acres in Willow Springs to an industrial developer.
A different law firm, Chicago-based Franczek, was advising the board at the time, with attorney Ares Dalianis attending at least some of the meetings.
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Ares Dalianis, an attorney for the Franczek law firm, last week was part of the team from his firm making the case to get Hinsdale High School District 86’s legal business. Last year, Franczek lost Lyons Township High School as a client. (David Giuliani/Patch)
Gordon said the previous attorney attended “most if not all” the closed meetings in question.
“As a result, it would have been reasonable for the board to believe that the discussion was appropriate for a closed session,” Gordon said.
Board member Kari Dillon asked Gordon whether the attorney general’s office notified the previous law firm of its determination.
Gordon said he did not believe the firm received any notice because it is no longer the high school’s lawyer. Compliance with the open meetings law, he said, rests with the board.
In Illinois, all board members must take Open Meetings Act training.
Gordon noted some members joined the board after the closed meetings. That group includes three of the seven members.
“I encourage all of you to go in and listen to the tapes, so you have an understanding of the discussions,” Gordon said.
The law bars the school from sending copies of the closed-session recordings to members, he said, so they must come into the main office to listen to them.
Board President Jill Grech said the board planned to decide by mid-December on which parts of the recordings to release.
In his letter last month, Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Silver requested the board release all but 12 minutes of the closed-session recordings. Board members have made no promise that they would divulge everything that the attorney general recommends.
In spring 2023, the attorney general issued a binding opinion on two closed sessions, which were before and after an open meeting in January 2023. The agency ordered the board to release the recordings, which were about the land. The board did so.
By that time, the board had abandoned its effort to sell to an industrial developer. That was after Willow Springs and nearby towns objected to it, noting that industrial uses violated zoning. The land in question is next to houses and an elementary school.
The board replaced Franczek in August 2023.
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