The Urbana, Illinois City Council has opted to reappoint David Wesner as City Attorney, despite his reputation for getting municipalities into legal trouble with dubious counseling. On June 6th, 2022 Mayor Diane Marlin enthusiastically advocated for Wesner’s reappointment and the Council voted as follows:
- Maryalice Wu: Yes
- Christopher Evans: No
- Shirese Hursey: Yes
- Jaya Kolisetty: Yes
- Chaundra Bishop: No
- Grace Wilken: No
- James Quisenberry: Yes
None of the Council members indicated their reasons for voting for or against Wesner, whom the Mayor’s office pays $250 per hour. Wesner is also paid to serve as the Village Attorney for Rantoul, Illinois, and he previously served as City Attorney for Danville, Illinois.
Check CU notes that, over the past few years, David Wesner has (among other things) engaged in the following questionable and illegal conduct:
- Made false claims about the public’s right to speak at City Council meetings
- Failed to correct the Rantoul Mayor’s unlawful attempt to remove a member of the public from a Village Board meeting
- Led both the City of Urbana and the Village of Rantoul into illegal FOIA denials which resulted in both municipalities being named in a lawsuit
- Dispensed legal advice that resulted in Urbana being named in a lawsuit over police use of force records
- Unlawfully delayed FOIA requests for months as Rantoul Village Attorney
- Dispensed legal advice that resulted in Urbana unlawfully delaying FOIA requests for months
- Made absurd court arguments on behalf of Rantoul which caused a respected FOIA attorney to remark that he “fundamentally misunderstands the premise of FOIA cases”
- Attempted to unlawfully conceal all past police complaints submitted to the Village of Rantoul, in direct conflict with a recent determination issued by the Illinois Attorney General
- Unlawfully refused to disclose public records related to Rantoul’s license plate tracking system
- Failed to take action to correct illegal police complaint forms distributed by the Urbana Police Department
- Failed to correct a 12 year long FOIA Officer violation by the Village of Rantoul
- Failed to correct attempts by the Urbana City Council to prohibit recording of their City Council meetings
- Created a Rantoul Police complaint form that is designed to skirt Illinois State law
- Warned the Urbana Civilian Police Review Board, a Board directed by ordinance to review police TASER usages, that they are not allowed to discuss possible TASER violations
- Violated FOIA as Danville City Attorney
- Unlawfully denied past police complaints as Rantoul Village Attorney, which resulted in Rantoul being named in a lawsuit
- Dispensed false legal advice to the Urbana City Council about FOIA and license plate readers, then followed the opposite legal advice as Rantoul Village Attorney