Board postpones approval of August minutes after dispute over inclusion of county executive’s presentation

The Will County Board on Sept. 18 voted to postpone approval of the Aug. 2025 meeting minutes after several members said the county executive’s presentation was not visible in the packet and asked that the speech be included verbatim in the official minutes distributed to the public.

Member Berkowitz said she had expected the executive’s presentation to be appended to the minutes and could not find it in the packet. County Clerk Annette Parker said she had uploaded the materials to the clerk’s website and to the board’s new meeting software but acknowledged there might be a display glitch: “I uploaded them into the new meeting program… it showed that they were… loaded, but they're also… on the county clerk's website.”

Member Reavis moved to postpone approval of the Aug. 2025 minutes and to include the county executive’s speech text in the official minutes; Member Dean seconded. The motion to postpone carried by roll call (20 in the affirmative). Board members said they wanted the public minutes that are available to residents to include the executive’s text or a direct link to it rather than asking the public to search YouTube or other sites for the audio.

During discussion, the county’s state's attorney explained that the Illinois Open Meetings Act requires public meeting minutes to be a summary, not verbatim, and that jurisdictions set policy about the level of detail included. “The Open Meetings Act… only requires that they be in summary,” the attorney said, adding that jurisdictions may set narrower or broader internal policies about verbatim attachments but are generally advised against verbatim minutes for legal reasons.

County Executive Jennifer Bertino Terrant and several board members said the speech was uploaded and will appear on the clerk’s official record once the minutes are approved; the board’s decision to postpone approval was intended to allow staff time to attach the presentation text to the clerk’s official minutes file so that a single PDF document titled “August 2025 County Board Minutes” contains the speech for public access.

Members expressed frustration that the board packet viewed by members sometimes differs from the version accessible to the public on the clerk’s web page, and they asked staff to confirm standard procedure and ensure the clerk’s website includes the final, approved package of minutes and attachments. The board agreed to resume consideration and final approval of the Aug. 2025 minutes at the next meeting after staff confirm the materials are attached and accessible.