The Illinois Attorney General has initiated an investigation into the Urbana Plan Commission in regards to a concerted effort to conceal part of their December 7^th, 2023 deliberations on the highly contested Hope Village development project.

Check CU published an article last week describing how the Plan Commission members, City Attorney David Wesner, Mayor Diane Marlin, and City Staff, all colluded to move a meeting discussion from the crowded City Council chambers and into a closed room on the 2^nd floor of the City Building.

The purpose of the closed meeting was to privately discuss how the Plan Commission wanted to handle voting on the Hope Village planned unit development (PUD), a project headed by Carle Hospital which would consist of thirty small homes for the homeless and “medically fragile”.  The PUD sought a number of zoning variances and attracted significant concern from residents who would live immediately south of the development, since their quiet closed-loop neighborhood would now be used as a thoroughfare to access Hope Village.

The closed meeting did not qualify for any of the Open Meetings Act (OMA) exceptions that permit public bodies to hold closed sessions and neither the Commission nor the City Attorney attempted to cite any of those exceptions when they agreed to move the meeting out of public view.

Residents attending the December 7^th meeting apparently issued informal complaints about the closed meeting, which Ward 1 Alderwoman Maryalice Wu also attended.  At the December 18^th City Council meeting, Wu assured the public, “I attended the Plan Commission meeting and I know that there was some concern about a closed session.  I just wanted to correct for the record it was not a closed session, it was a recess.”

After returning from their closed meeting, the Plan Commission members voted to send the Hope Village PUD on for final consideration by the City Council (a vote scheduled for January 2^nd).

On December 19^th, Check CU Founder Christopher Hansen sent a request for review to the Illinois Attorney General Public Access Counselor (PAC), alleging a number of OMA violations in regards to the closed meeting.  The letter requests that the PAC declare that the Plan Commission violated the OMA, and that any final actions by the Commission at the same meeting be nullified.

Hansen also sent a letter to the Urbana City Council before their meeting on Tuesday January 2^nd, urging the Council to address the unlawful closed session, though the Mayor seems to have skipped that letter during public input, reading only letters urging approval of the Hope Village project. 

The City Council was slated to take a vote on the final PUD for the Hope Village project Tuesday night. Despite their knowledge of the unlawful Plan Commission meeting leading up to this vote, the City Council never discussed the OMA violation, and they proceeded to take final vote, approving the project five to one (James Quisenberry was the lone no-vote, though Shirese Hursey, who has been staunchly opposed to the PUD, would have certainly voted no if she had been present).

On January 3^rd, Assistant Attorney General Victoria Frazier determined that investigation was warranted, and she issued a letter to Plan Commission Chair Dustin Allred, requesting meeting documents and an explanation for the closed meeting.

In Illinois, violations of the Open Meetings Act are crimes, though State’s Attorneys are almost never willing to investigate or prosecute such violations.  Public bodies who violate the OMA can be subject to civil lawsuits, and judges can declare violations, order that final actions to be void, order public bodies to change their meeting practices, and order public bodies to pay attorney’s fees.

AAG Frazier’s investigation letter, along with the request for review that prompted it, are provided below:

Plan Commission Holds Questionable Closed Meeting – Urbana, Illinois

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