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Resident reads AG finding, urges Batavia oversight of NIMPA closed sessions
Summary
In public comment, Batavia resident Susan Russo cited an Illinois Attorney General Public Access Counselor finding that Northern Illinois Municipal Power Agency (NIMPA) violated the Open Meetings Act and urged the City Council to ensure its NIMPA representative follows the guidance to limit closed sessions to statutorily allowed topics.
Susan Russo, a Batavia resident, told the City Council she had shared the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor finding that the Northern Illinois Municipal Power Agency (NIMPA) violated the Open Meetings Act by discussing a property transfer in closed session.
Reading from the AG’s opinion, Russo said the Public Access Counselor concluded that the statutory exception allowing municipal utilities to discuss certain contracts and load-forecast results “did not permit discussion of other matters that the board deemed confidential,” and recommended the NIMPA board “limit closed session discussions in the future to those specific issues covered by exceptions in the Open Meetings Act.”
Russo told the council Batavia is one of three municipal members of NIMPA and that the city “has the responsibility to exercise due diligence and oversight of the NIMPA board and its NIMPA representative” to ensure compliance with the Attorney General’s directives. She said she would send each council member a copy of the AG’s findings.
City council members did not debate the substance of Russo’s remarks during public comment. Later in the meeting the city administrator said staff would follow up with legal counsel and try to obtain a response from NIMPA about steps it will take to avoid similar violations going forward.
