A police officer was injured after he slipped off the curb while entering his vehicle after leaving court where he had been testifying before a grand jury. The officer applied for a disability pension with the Police Pension Fund. The Board of the Pension Fund approved a non-duty disability pension but denied his request for an on-duty disability pension. He sought review of the Board’s decision with the trial court which held in his favor. …

In Grassroots Collaborative v. City of Chicago, an Illinois court held  that two Illinois groups could not sue the City of Chicago for allegedly creating tax increment finance “TIF” districts in a racially discriminatory way. Specifically, the court found that the groups did not have “standing” to sue the City (the requirement that a plaintiff directly suffered or will suffer a cognizable legal injury). TIF is a program used by municipalities to economically develop…

Ancel Glink just released a new episode of its Quorum Forum Podcast. Information about this episode is below: Episode 48 – 20 Questions for 2021 Local governments will face questions about vaccines, virtual meetings, cannabis licenses, and more in 2021. Ancel Glink’s Jaime Such and Rain Montero will join the podcast to answer those questions and more to help you prepare for the new year.  What are your local government questions for 2021? Email us…

An Illinois Appellate Court determined that Governor Pritzker has the authority to require the Department of Corrections to accept prison transfers from county jails, subject to an intake process designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Landers v. Pritzker On March 26, 2020, the Governor issued Executive Order 2020-13, which suspended all transfers of individuals in Illinois county jails to DOC custody, with exceptions developed at the sole discretion of the Director of the DOC.…

In Tzakis v. Maine Township, the Illinois Supreme Court was asked to determine whether the “public duty” rule applied to a case that had been filed before the Illinois Supreme Court abolished the rule. The public duty rule stated that local governmental entities do not owe a duty to individual members of the public when performing customary governmental duties. The Court found that although the rule had been previously abolished by the Court before…

 And now, for our annual “top 20” blog posts of 2020…it will come as no surprise, but most of these are COVID-19 related. 1. Most Government Offices Must Close for 2020 Election Day 2. PAC Guidance on OMA and FOIA During COVID-19 – we did multiple updates on this guidance here and here. 3. Governor Suspends In-Person Attendance at Public Meetings 4. Conducting Meetings During COVID-19  5. State Legislature Adopts Amendment to OMA…

As we do every year, we are summarizing all of the Attorney General’s binding PAC opinions so you can find them all in one place on the blog. It couldn’t be easier this year, as the PAC only issued ten binding opinions this entire year (3 of which came in the last month). We typically see about 15 or so binding opinions each year. Note that we had not yet written up the 9th or…