Big stories in the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald about the Naperville Unit School District 203 Board’s censuring recently-elected member Melissa Kelley Black for, among other alleged misdeeds, revealing what went on in Executive, that is, secret, Sessions.
I’m not aware of any prohibition against releasing information discussed at a secret board meeting except the social pressure of the other members.
I remember the Crystal Lake Park Board sued Commissioner Leona Nelson for supposedly telling what happened in an Executive Session, as well as sexual harassment. As the suit continued, against the upper-eighties woman, the District dropped the Executive Session count.
That was because Nelson did nothing illegal by making any such revelations.
As an aside, I have continuingly amazed that elected officials think it is against the law to tell other what happened behind closed doors.
Here’s what caught my eye in the Tribune story:
The details she reportedly made public were discussed in closed session. State law allows school boards to meet privately to discuss collective negotiating issues between a public body and its employees.
and
“We’ve addressed this multiple times, six times, in closed session and the behavior is still there and not really changing,” board member Joe Kozminski said. “The evidence I’ve seen in quite solid.”
Bu discussing a Board of Education member’s behavior in private is not allowed by State law as far as I can see:
he selection of a person to fill a public
Such discussion do not meet the following definition for excluding the public, as one can see in the statute cited below::
(3) The selection of a person to fill a public office, as defined in this Act, including a vacancy in a public office, when the public body is given power to appoint under law or ordinance, or the discipline, performance or removal of the occupant of a public office, when the public body is given power to remove the occupant under law or ordinance. [Emphasis added because a School Board majority cannot kick another school board member off the board.]
So what’s going on in Naperville.
Black may have summed it up in the following found in the Tribune article:
“If I’m guilty of anything, it’s just having a different perspective and a different opinion (than the other board members),” Kelley Black said.
