East Central Reporter

Caseyville, Ill. (ECWd) –

While responding to an Attorney General Request for Review of an alleged violation of the Open Meetings Act, the village attorney for Caseyville indicated that a closed session discussion included his billing the village for investigating a resident after the resident announced his candidacy for Mayor.

The village board voted to pay the invoice, but it has been suggested that conducting such an investigation was improper and those funds should be returned to the village. If these funds are not voluntarily returned, residents are encouraged to file an ethics complaint with the village ethics commission or village ethics officer, alleging improper electioneering by the Caseyville Municipal Officer Electoral Board and its attorney.

In correspondence to Mr. Stewart regarding this matter:

Mr. Stewart,

This is not a reply to your PAC response, but rather a response to one of the statements made within that response, but unrelated to the Open Meetings Act.

Your statement:

“The attorney responded that he was investigating whether a resident was committing election law and campaign law violations by purchasing a social media group for $1,000, announcing himself as a candidate for Mayor, and then using the site to post campaign-related literature. Given that the village election board is a subset of the village, the attorney represents both the village and the election board.”

It should be acknowledged that it is not within any municipality's responsibility or duty—nor any unit of local government or electoral board—to use public funds to investigate any resident’s use of social media, their payment for a Facebook group, how they announce their candidacy, or where they post campaign literature without legitimate petition objections.

An electoral board only convenes after receiving an objection and only considers such filed objections. They lack authority to investigate anything outside of filed objections and certainly cannot investigate someone for purchasing a Facebook group or posting campaign literature.

Did the electoral board have a meeting requesting you investigate? Even if they did request this investigation, it would have exceeded their powers and would not constitute proper use of public funds and resources.

This is a request for you to return all funds obtained from billing this so-called investigation.

Thanks,