Aaron Ammons Blames the Voters – Champaign, IL

Aaron Ammons Blames the Voters – Champaign, IL

Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons says voters are to blame for long wait times at the polls Champaign County voters are, once again, encountering extremely long lines at polling locations.  The local election authority, County Clerk Aaron Ammons, says the voters are to blame. Yesterday afternoon, the early voting line at the Brookens Administrative Center snaked around a gymnasium and extended down a long hallway, with a wait time of well over two hours.  Some voters left without...

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Latest articles

Aaron Ammons Blames the Voters – Champaign, IL

Aaron Ammons Blames the Voters – Champaign, IL

Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons says voters are to blame for long wait times at the polls Champaign County voters are, once again, encountering extremely long lines at polling locations.  The local election authority, County Clerk Aaron Ammons, says the...

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Latest records

Sauk Village PAC Opinion 20-001 – Board Violated OMA by Failing to Timely Approve Meeting Minutes

This is an Open Meetings Act determination issued on February 10th, 2020 by the Illinois Attorney General Public Access Counselor in response to a request for review submitted by Steve LaRock who alleged that the Village of Sauk Village Board of Trustees was violating the OMA by failing to approve meeting minutes within the required time.

Section 2.06(b) of the OMA says that a “public body shall approve the minutes of its open meeting within 30 days after that meeting or at the public body’s second subsequent regular meeting, whichever is later.”

The Board had very clearly failed to follow the OMA rules on timely approval of meeting minutes, so the PAC determination that the Board violated the OMA was rather straightforward.

One notable portion of this determination is a clear statement by Chief Deputy Attorney General Brent Stratton that the Board Committee of the Whole is not a public body distinct from the regular Board, so the counting of subsequent meetings needed to include both regular Board and Committee of the Whole meetings, and they could not be considered meetings of two different public bodies.

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SpotCrime v Cook County Sheriff’s Office 2015 PAC 34653 – FOIA Requester Compiling and Selling Data is Not News Media

This is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) non-binding opinion issued by the Illinois Attorney General Public Access Counselor in response to a request for review submitted by the law firm Mandell Menkes on behalf of SpotCrime.


In 2015, SpotCrime began submitting daily FOIA requests to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office seeking crime data. The Sheriff’s Office said they could produce data on a monthly basis, but SpotCrime persisted with daily requests. The Sheriff’s Office labeled SpotCrime as a commercial requester and a recurrent requester. SpotCrime believed those designations were improper, claiming that they counted as news media since the data was ultimately disseminated to the public.


The PAC determined that SpotCrime did not qualify as news media for the purposes of FOIA because they primarily compiled data and a primary reason for doing so was the sell the data to their subscribers, and that SpotCrime did not engage in creating original journalistic content. The PAC recognized that the dissemination of crime data could be a component of news media activities, but engaging in that one activity alone does not determine news media status. The PAC also determined that the Sheriff’s Office had properly designated SpotCrime as a commercial requester.

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Local Labs Media Services v Cook County 2017 PAC 49876 – Commercial FOIA Requester Reselling Data is Not News Media

This is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) non-binding opinion issued by the Illinois Attorney General Public Access Counselor in response to a request for review submitted by Local Labs Media Services. The requester alleged that their request to the Cook County Clerk’s Office should be treated as coming from news media, however the PAC determined that the requester did not qualify as news media since they were simply repackaging data and selling it (at a starting price of $500). The requester therefore was not acting as news media as that term is defined in the FOIA, and that the Cook County Clerk did not need to release certain records because the requester’s purpose was commercial in nature.

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