By: Diane Benjamin
The Open Meetings Act requires notice of a meeting is posted 48 hours in advance.
Normal just posted the notice of the budget meeting TOMORROW:
https://normal.org/Archive.aspx?AMID=47
I know math is tough for Normal, but today isn’t 48 hours notice.
I have pictures and screen shots from this morning without the meeting posted.
This meeting was also not on the Town calendar.
Transparency doesn’t exist when Koos and company don’t want the public showing up.
Normal will dream up some loophole to circumvent the Open Meetings Act, read the law yourself. Tomorrow’s meeting is illegal! Whatever Normal dreams to explain away illegal at the very least violates the intent of the law which is to have open and transparent government.
The IT staff all needs fired if they claim Normal doesn’t have full-time staff that maintain their website.
Any Trustee who participates in this illegal meeting is a fraud. They work for the Town, not citizens. Typical corruption for Illinois where laws only matter to citizens not government.
The proposed budget has a funny joke – PDF page 33. The citizens of Normal should be listed at the bottom, that’s how the Town treats you:
If Preston and Cummings attend this illegal meeting it will haunt them during their State Rep campaigns. I expect they will both say they are for open and transparent government. Regardless of the legal “loophole” Day comes up with, if they participate in the meeting their competitors will use this to show they have a history of going along with keeping the public in the dark.
A “loophole” is an unintended inadequacy of the written law which allows one to circumvent the intent of said law..
Well put!
This is typical Normal Town Government. They consistently do things that are illegal, have Brian Day to come up with whatever lame defense he can muster and leave it up to citizens to call them out on it. If any citizen would bother to question this we’re more than likely not going to hear back from the attorney general’s office on this for at least another three years. Even when they’re called out on it, all it ever amounts to is a slap on the wrist. In other words, accountable government is a waste of time in the town of Normal.