Caseyville, Ill. (ECWd) –

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

Imagine that – get investigated for announcing your candidacy and posting about it on social media.

The village board voted to pay the invoice, but we suggest it was improper to conduct such an investigation, and those funds should be returned to the village.

Short of those funds being voluntarily returned to the village, we suggest any resident file an ethics complaint to the village ethics commission or village ethics officer, alleging improper electioneering by the Caseyville Municipal Officer Electoral Board and its attorney.

My email to Mr. Stewart on tis subject:

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 (emphasis mine):

“ 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.”

I think you should be honest with yourself, the village, the electoral board, and the public and simply admit that it is not, and has never been, the responsibility nor duty of any municipality, any unit of local government, nor any electoral board or election commission to take it upon themselves (absent any legitimate petition objection(s)) to use public funds to “investigate” any resident’s use of social media, how much they pay for a Facebook group, how or where they announce their candidacy, or where they post campaign literature.

An electoral board only meets after receiving an objection and only to consider such filed objections. They lack any powers to “investigate” anything outside of any filed objection, let alone “investigate” a person for purchasing a Facebook group, announcing his candidacy, and posting campaign literature.

Did the electoral board have a meeting and ask you to investigate anything? I doubt they did, but even if they did, it would have exceeded their powers and would not have been a proper use of public funds and resources.

This is a request for you to return all the funds obtained from the municipality where you billed for this so-called investigation.

Thanks,