A federal district court recently rejected police officers’ claims that their First Amendment rights were violated by a city after the officers were disciplined or terminated for their personal social media activities. Fenico v. City of Philadelphia.The officers’ Facebook posts were brought to light by the “Plain View Project,” a database of public social media posts and comments of current and former police officers across the country. According to the district court’s opinion, the database includes over 5,000 posts and comments by police officers which Plain View deemed likely to “undermine public trust and confidence in police.” Over 3,000…
Continue Reading Court Rejects Police Officers’ First Amendment Lawsuit Relating to their Personal Social Media Activities

The Public Access Counselor of the Attorney General’s office (PAC) issued its 13th binding opinion for 2024, finding a public body in violation of the OMA for failing to publish notice of a change to its regular meeting schedule. PAC Op. 24-013.An individual filed a request for review with the PAC claiming that a village board failed to comply with the OMA when it voted to move its regular meetings from the third Monday of each month to the third Wednesday of each month. Specifically, the individual claimed the village did not publish notice of this change to its…
Continue Reading PAC Finds Public Body in Violation for Not Publishing Notice of Change to Regular Meeting Schedule

An Illinois Appellate Court recently ruled in favor of a City in a case brought by a police officer who claimed the City failed to comply with the Public Employee Disability Act (PEDA) after he was injured. Allenbaugh v. City of Peoria.A police officer filed a lawsuit against a City claiming the City failed to comply with the terms of PEDA by denying him full pay after he was injured in the line of duty. The City argued the trial court had no jurisdiction over the officer’s claim because the dispute was governed by the City’s collective bargaining agreement…
Continue Reading Officer’s PEDA Claim Subject to CBA Grievance Procedure

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of a city in a First Amendment challenge to a curfew order in Knowlton v. City of Wauwatosa.In 2020, a police officer shot and killed a black teenager. After the District Attorney’s (DA) office decided not to criminally charge the officer, and anticipating that this decision might spark violence in the community, the mayor issued a limited curfew order that went into effect after the DA’s announcement. The curfew temporarily restricted pedestrian and vehicular traffic on city streets for five nights and ran from 7 pm to 6 am…
Continue Reading City’s Limited Curfew During Protests Did Not Violate First Amendment

Calling all local government attorneys — don’t forget to sign up for the 2024 Local Government Law Institute hosted by the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education (IICLE). This year’s conference will be held in-person at the UBS Center in Chicago and will also offer a webcast option. More details about the conference sessions and speakers and registration can be found here. Below is a brief summary of the sessions offered at this year’s conference.Local Government Law Institute, 2024Friday, December 6, 2024The conference begins at 8:55 a.m. and concludes at 4:15 p.m. (cocktail reception to follow)UBS …
Continue Reading Local Government Law Institute – December 6, 2024

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit against a city that argued that the
city’s shared housing ordinance constituted an unconstitutional “takings” because it prevented a condo owner from renting his property on Airbnb and other
homesharing platforms. Mogan
v. City of Chicago
The city’s ordinance for shared housing units allowed
condominium homeowners’ associations (HOAs) to determine whether short-term
rentals would be allowed in their respective buildings. When an HOA prohibited
rentals, they would contact the city to have that building added to a list of
prohibited buildings for short-term rentals. Renting or listing a short-term
rental in…
Continue Reading In the Zone: Seventh Circuit Dismisses Takings Challenge to City’s Short-Term Rental Regulations

A law firm submitted a FOIA request seeking copies of
911 call recordings and other records related to a traffic crash, and the public body
disclosed responsive 911 recordings, but redacted the callers’ names and phone numbers. After the requestor submitted a request for review
with the PAC challenging the redactions, the public body disclosed the names of the callers, but
maintained that the home and personal phone numbers of the callers was exempt from disclosure under the “private
information” exemption in FOIA. The PAC agreed with the public body and issued a binding opinion finding that the public body properly…
Continue Reading Public Body Properly Redacted 911 Callers’ Phone Numbers in PAC Opinion

An Illinois Appellate Court issued a ruling in favor of a Village in a longstanding dispute over a commercial horse boarding operation in Drury et al. v. Village of Barrington Hills, et al.A property owner filed suit against the Village and his neighboring property owner to challenge the constitutionality of a zoning approval ordinance that allowed a horse boarding operation on his neighbor’s property. The lawsuit claimed that the ordinance was unconstitutional because it did not benefit the “public welfare” but instead was intended to personally benefit his neighbor. The trial court upheld the zoning ordinance finding that it…
Continue Reading In the Zone: Court Upholds Constitutionality of Horse Boarding Zoning Ordinance

In March, we reported
on two opinions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court in cases involving First Amendment
challenges to government officials’ use of social media on their personal social media accounts, including Lindke v.
Freed. In Lindke, the Supreme Court announced a two-part test
for establishing that an official’s actions on their personal social media acounts can be attributed to the government
(and subject to First Amendment limitations. In order to show that an
official’s social media activity on the official’s personal social media account is subject to the First
Amendment, it must be shown that the…
Continue Reading Court of Appeals Weighs in On Recent First Amendment Decision Issued by U.S. Supreme Court

The BGA submitted a FOIA request to City Colleges of Chicago
(College) seeking various education records related to their 2018 graduation
rate. The College withheld its responsive records citing Section
7(1)(a) of FOIA, claiming that the educational records contained personally
identifying student information (PII) that was prohibited from disclosure by
the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) without the
consent of the students, their parents, or guardians. The BGA sued the College alleging that its response violated FOIA, and the circuit court ruled in favor of
BGA, finding that FERPA did not “specifically prohibit” the disclosure of…
Continue Reading Court Finds in Favor of College that Protected Personal Information of Students from FOIA Release

In response to a FOIA request seeking a case report and
related records for an incident, a municipal police department withheld responsive records from disclosure citing Section 7(1)(d)(i) of FOIA,
which exempts records that would interfere with a pending or actually and
reasonably contemplated law enforcement proceedings conducted by any law
enforcement. The requestor then appealed the denial to the Public Access Counselor of the Attorney General’s office (PAC). In PAC Op. 24-011, the PAC issued a binding opinion concluding that the
police department violated FOIA by entirely withholding its responsive records.
Specifically, the PAC noted that the case report…
Continue Reading PAC Finds Police Department in Violation of FOIA for Withholding Police Report