On March 13th, 2020, Urbana Illinois City Attorney James Simon sent out an emergency ordinance proposal to the Urbana City Council in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposed ordinance cites the Urbana city code “Chapter 6 – CIVIL EMERGENCIES” as insufficient to address an emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and thus creates a custom-designed 15-point COVID-19 emergency declaration.
Rather conspicuous in the ordinance is “Section 4 City Council Meetings”, which declares that Urbana City Council may conduct their business electronically, such as by telephone or video conference. The ordinance also suggests that the public may not have access to meetings or be able to participate in public input. Here is the exact language proposed by Urbana Attorney James Simon:
Simon makes reference to the Open Meetings Act, which is a state measure for public bodies designed to force transparency and accountability. It attempts to achieve this goal by requiring things like open and publicly accessible governmental meetings which must allow for public input. The OMA makes it clear that the members of the public body must be physically present to have a quorum. It seems the City of Urbana is planning to simply vote itself exempt from the OMA law in their emergency order.
Simon indicates that the Illinois Open Meetings Act (OMA) gives allowance for such a change under 5 ILCS 120/2.02(a). However, no mention of meeting electronically or via any other means is mentioned in that section of the OMA. Section 2.02(a) only describes how public bodies must give proper notice of meeting time, place, and agenda. It allows for giving the public less than 48 hours’ notice for a public meeting if the meeting is being held as a result of a “bona fide emergency”.
These measures would appear to make sense during a pandemic, but according to Illinois Press Association attorney Don Craven, a locality can’t simply decide to bypass Illinois State law. Craven argues that, however well-intentioned, an ordinance allowing the City Council to meet electronically would violate the Illinois Open Meetings Act: “You need a physical quorum of the members of the public body…in order to have relief from the quorum provision of the Open Meetings Act, it would take a legislative change.”
The OMA also requires that government meetings be held at places “which are convenient and open to the public” and that “any person shall be permitted an opportunity to address public officials” at the meeting.
Urbana City Council will consider and vote on the ordinance at their meeting on March 16th.
UPDATE: Since posting this, a citizen forwarded an email sent to attorney James Simon asking what authority the City had to override the OMA law. Simon ignored the citizen.