In 2020, an individual who was previously convicted of offenses relating to a shooting incident submitted a FOIA request to a municipality seeking copies of inventory sheets and photographs of an old vehicle allegedly containing a gun used to shoot another person. The City prepared two affidavits attesting to the City’s reasonably diligent search for records responsive to the request and denied the request because the City did not have any responsive inventory sheets or…

For our next legislative update, we wanted to provide insight on two important legislative updates related to public safety and mental health services in the State of Illinois. Public Safety As most of you already know, in January, the Governor signed a criminal justice and public safety reform bill into law. Earlier this summer, we reportedon the status of the trailer bill to the legislation, which clarified and amended many provisions of the Act…

As we continue to provide updates on new bills signed into law by the Governor, today we will discuss two laws concerning open meetings. P.A. 102-0348 enacted the Empowering Public Participation Act to restrict when law enforcement agencies or officers can conduct background checks on speakers at a meeting of a public body. The Act provides: A law enforcement agency or an officer employed by a law enforcement agency may not knowingly and intentionally conduct…

A regular reader sent us a copy of the most recent PAC binding opinion – as many of you know, the Attorney General’s website is still not fully operational so the public still cannot access any of the binding opinions issued by the Public Access Counselor. Earlier this year, a reporter submitted a FOIA request to the Office of the Mayor of the City of Chicago seeking text messages sent or received by Mayor Lightfoot…

This post contains another edition of our legislative updates from the most recent Illinois General Assembly session in Springfield. This post focuses on laws that impact general governance.  P.A. 102-0024 provides that a county, township, or municipality may waive any fees or costs associated with a permit, inspection, or certification of occupancy required by law for construction, reconstruction, alteration, repair, movement to another site, removal, or demolition of multiple structures within their jurisdiction. These waivers…

As we noted last week, we are going to be reporting on a number of new laws that have taken effect or will take effect soon over the next couple of weeks. Today, we report on two election-related laws. P.A. 102-0001 provides resources to election authorities for conducting secure elections. First, the Act provides that any federal funds received by the Illinois State Board of Elections under the Help America Vote Act that are not otherwise…

Governor Pritzker recently signed into law several new laws that affect local governments and we will report on these over a few blog posts. Below is a summary of laws that affect (1) COVID-19 affordable housing; (2) community college housing; (3) liquor; and (4) lemonade stands. COVID -19 Affordable Housing P.A. 102-0175 provides COVID-19 relief funds to address shortages in affordable housing. The bill creates the COVID-19 Affordable Housing Grant Program Act and amends the…