Members of the public are still waiting to hear an explanation from Urbana, Illinois City Attorney David Wesner in regards to his erroneous legal guidance on an Open Meetings Act (OMA) issue.
Nearly a year ago, Wesner claimed that allowing Urbana residents to provide public input remotely (such as through Zoom or telephone) at in-person meetings would violate the OMA.
Mayor Diane Marlin publicized and repeated Wesner’s claim in July of 2021, and even since then residents have been asking how they could have reached such a dubious conclusion. No provision of the OMA indicates or even implies such a restriction. In fact, numerous other public bodies in Illinois allow remote public input at their in-person meetings.
CheckCU inquired with the Illinois Attorney General (IAG) two months ago and Assistant Attorney General Shannon Barnaby said, “it is up to the discretion of the public body whether or not to allow public input remotely when holding in-person meetings.” Without hesitation, Barnaby rejected Wesner’s claims and reaffirmed exactly what Urbana residents have been trying to tell the Mayor and the City Council for the past eleven months.
AAG Barnaby’s statement was forwarded to the Urbana City Council (and in turn, to City Attorney David Wesner) on April 8th, 2022. Members of the public have repeatedly raised this issue at City Council meetings, however Wesner has thus far refused to utter a word of explanation in regards to his false claims.
This situation is very similar to the calamity last fall wherein Urbana Police Command staff and David Wesner claimed that automatic license plate reader (ALPR) records were not subject to FOIA. They further claimed that they had inquired with the IAG, and that the IAG said ALPRs were exempt.
The claim was highly suspect since ALPRs records are not mentioned or even implied to be exempt anywhere in the FOIA law. On October 29th, 2021 Check CU asked the IAG for records of any correspondence with David Wesner or any other Urbana City Official in regards to ALPRs and FOIA, but Assistant Attorney General Caitlin Vargas could not locate any such correspondence. At the same time that these claims were being promulgated in Urbana, David Wesner was personally supplying ALPR records in response to FOIA requests directed to the Village of Rantoul (Wesner also serves as the Rantoul Village Attorney).
It is not clear how Wesner is able to justify holding two opposite legal positions for two public bodies in identical scenarios.
Wesner also used to work at the Danville City Attorney, where he was cited for FOIA violations, and his unlawful handling of FOIA requests for the Village of Rantoul have put him at the center of multiple ongoing lawsuits.
It is unclear what qualities compelled the Urbana City Council to appoint Wesner as their City Attorney last year. Mayor Marlin and the Council are poised to reappoint David Wesner for an additional two years on Monday, June 6th, 2022.
The following Urbana City Council members voted to reappoint David Wesner as City Attorney on June 28, 2021:
- Maryalice Wu: Yes
- Christopher Evans: Yes
- Shirese Hursey: Yes
- Jaya Kolisetty: Yes
- Chaundra Bishop: Yes
- James Quisenberry: Yes
- (Grace Wilken: No)