In 2018, a requestor submitted a FOIA request to the Chicago Board of Education seeking documents related to the requestor’s racial discrimination claims made between 1999 and 2005. After identifying approximately 28,000 pages of records that would need to be reviewed for potential exemptions, the Board asked the requestor to narrow his request, which is permitted by FOIA. When the requestor refused, the Board denied the FOIA request as unduly burdensome. The requester sued, and…

Over the past few years, we have kept readers informed about cases involving elected officials and their use of social media. You may recall the case in Virginia where a court of appeals determined that a county commissioner’s blocking of users from her Facebook page was a First Amendment violation. The most talked about case involving an elected official’s use of social media, however, was the case filed by the Knight First Amendment Institute against…

Ancel Glink has just released Episode 51 of its Quorum Forum Podcast today: “Parliamentary Procedures for Newly Elected Officials” just in time for next week’s municipal elections. More information below: Episode 51: Parliamentary Procedures for Newly Elected Officials Newly-elected and not-so-newly elected officials are preparing for business after the local government elections. That’s why Ancel Glink’s Steve Mahrt and Eugene Bolotnikov joined the Illinois Association of County Board Members to review parliamentary procedures and other…

The Illinois General Assembly recently introduced HB 3509, called the Food Truck Freedom Act. If passed, the bill would prohibit municipalities from requiring food truck businesses to obtain multiple licenses from the municipality regardless of how many trucks the business operates in that municipality. The bill would also require municipalities to recognize reciprocal business licenses issued to food truck businesses by different municipalities or local health departments. Additionally, the bill would prohibit municipalities or…

Earlier this week, the House Committee on Housing advanced a bill that would allow units of local government to implement measures regarding rent control, including imposing caps on rent prices. If passed, HB 0116 would repeal the Rent Control Preemption Act, which currently prohibits every municipality from regulating or controlling the amount of rent charged for leasing private residential or commercial properties. Please stay tuned for more updates about this bill.   Post Authored by Eugene…

An Appellate Court recently upheld a municipality’s water billing ordinance in Souza v. City of West Chicago. In 2011, West Chicago contracted with Water Resources, Inc. to replace residential water meters and update meter equipment. After some customers experienced years of deficient, inaccurate, and/or missing water meter readings, the City terminated its contract with Water Resources in 2016.  In 2019, two individuals filed a class action lawsuit against the City and Water Resources alleging…

An Illinois Appellate Court recently ruled in favor of the school district in a residency case, finding that a student was not a legal resident of the district. Gwozdz v. Board of Education of Park Ridge-Niles School District No. 64. During the 2017-18 school year, parents enrolled their daughter as a seventh-grade student at a middle school located within the school district. The parents submitted documents identifying the student’s place of residence at a one-bedroom…