By:  Diane Benjamin

This was on the Consent Agenda for last Monday’s meeting:  http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=242&parent=9534

Many old minutes are approved at meetings like this.  Alderman not on the council when the meetings took place are approving minutes YEARS after the meetings.

What’s the law?

30 days or the next meeting!

The Bloomington City Council is GUILTY of violating the Open Meetings Act – the entire Council!

By allowing the Public Body (YOU COUNCIL) to hold minutes longer than required by the law, you are complicit in the violation.

What’s the charge?

I recently wrote about the minutes NOT being posting for the meeting where the 1% Sales Tax was passed:

https://blnnews.com/2016/03/22/how-do-we-get-a-real-newspaper/

I filed a FOIA request on 3/23/16 for the minutes knowing they weren’t posted because the Council has never approved them.  The date of the meeting was 9/21/15 – well past 30 days.

The City has plenty of time to add that meeting to the list of minutes needing approval for last Monday.  They didn’t.  Instead my FOIA request was denied:

The Bloomington City Council believes LAWS don’t apply to them!

Think minutes are the only thing they are hiding?

How can the citizens trust their government when laws only apply to citizens, never to government?