WIU Trustees violate the Open Meetings Act

UPDATE --  Here's a great report from reporter Rich Egger of WIUM-FM on the Tri-States Public Radio website. It shows the board fawning over Gov Rauner hoping to please him with layoffs, among other things.

MACOMB, IL -- Western Illinois University's Trustees violated the Open Meetings Act at a June meeting, according to the Illinois Attorney General's office.

Here's what WIU posted on its Website:

The Western Illinois University Board of Trustees acknowledges that it did not comply with the Illinois Open Meetings Act

.

It is with regret that I accept the resignation of trustee and former chair Cathy Early. The University has always been central to Cathy’s life, and her service and commitment to Western over the years are greatly appreciated. Cathy will remain an important part of the Western Illinois University community.

 

The Board will, in tandem with University General Counsel Liz Duvall, ensure compliance with the Act, and the Board will participate in additional Open Meetings Act training in cooperation with the Illinois Attorney General Public Access Counselor (PAC).

 

As directed by the Illinois Attorney General PAC, the June 28, 2018 closed session audio recording and minutes can be found here.

 

Sincerely,

 Carolyn Ehlert Fuller

Chair WIU Board of Trustees

Violating the Open Meetings Act is a Class C Misdemeanor, but apparently nobody is being charged with that. 

The written minutes of the meeting reveal little of what took place. I listened to the entire recording, some of which could not be easily understood.  The trustees discussed how to cut the budget by eliminating programs and the award winning NPR station, without any real discussion on the worth of the programs or the station, and the people they were firing.

They discussed the 'script' they would use for the open meeting and if they were approached by the media. That conversation reveals what is already apparent: the open meeting is a performance, with real issues already decided in the closed meeting, a huge violation of the Open Meetings Act. 

The recording tells the tale. "Don't say we're in trouble," someone says of WIU's financial situation. "We will  have to beg for a special appropriation," someone says. "We need more international students and out of state students,"  says someone sounding a lot like WIU's president. (They pay higher tuition.)

The trustees discuss looking for more income, but their ideas, including recruiting retired faculty and alumni to recruit students, seem to fall flat.   Will that work?  I'm not optimistic.

In fact, gutting the NPR station, WIUM -FM, is really stupid, since it announces WIU's presence hourly.  This was done without consulting station managers, and its general manager has now resigned.

The public is enraged over the threat to WIUM, WIU's best public relations tool.  Nobody mentions this aspect of the station and its audience in the meeting.

In fact no one mentions the contradiction of how more students can be attracted to a university which is gutting its programs.

As for the cutting of programs and the faculty and stuff who run them, someone says "we just do it and see what happens."  Disgusting.

The trustees are apparently as incompetent as WIU administrators. All should be replaced.  Let's hope the newly elected governor, JB Pritzker, will do something to save the public universities in Illinois.  He can start by finding sharper people to run them.

 -- Elaine Hopkins