Residents at Annual Town Meeting make advisory vote to have Township meetings videotaped

Steve Balich Editors Note:  There were 50 to 55 people at the meeting where the citizens have control of what the Township Board does for numerous issues. Everyone in the room voted yes to the Question.“We the residents of Homer Township at the Annual 2019 Town Meeting demand the Homer Township Board hire out, or make arrangements to video the Monthly Township meetings as well as any special meetings. We demand these meetings to be easy to access from the Township Website. People that can not make it to the meeting deserve the transparency a video will provide. This will be in effect for the May 2019 Homer Township Meeting.”

No one objected including members of the Township Board, to setting the time at 7pm for next years Annual Town Meeting or the question to video tape meetings. No one on the Board said it was advisory. Trustee Kruczak Told Kieth Gray at the end of the meeting it was advisory. Supervisor Myers and Trustee’s Fijan and Kallas were also there yet no one said a word of it being advisory.

Maybe they did not want the room to question them. Why they would even say it’s advisory if they intended to video tape the meetings. Since there there was no opposition by anyone, I sure hope members of the Township Board that campaigned on transparency will not say the will of the electorate is only advisory and do the right thing by video taping the meetings starting in May, and putting them on their website so everyone can see and hear what is going on in Homer Township.

Jessie Molloy, Freelance Reporter
1:11 pm CDT April 11, 2019

Homer Township convened its Annual Town Meeting of Electors April 9 and voted on a measure for more meeting transparency. 

The State of Illinois mandates that all Townships hold the annual meeting each year on the second Tuesday of April. During the meeting, all Township residents are invited to participate and directly vote on issues that fall into 40 State-approved topics. 

Forty-seven residents attended the Homer meeting and elected Village of Homer Glen Trustee Keith Gray to serve as the moderator for the evening. 

Electors only had one issue to vote on for the 2019 meeting, which they supported unanimously. 

The measure requested the Homer Township Board “hire out, or make arrangements to video the monthly Township meetings, as well as any special meetings for easy access from the Township website.”

According to the request, which was submitted by resident petition on Feb. 4, “People that cannot make it to the meeting deserve the transparency a video will provide.”

The Township holds its regular monthly meeting on the second Monday of each month at 7 p.m. in the Old Town Hall. 

The vote at the Annual Town Meeting of Electors is not binding but considered an advisory vote. According to Gray, the board members, many of whom attended as residents, have said they will explore the option and could enact it later in the year.

“They are going to pass it on to their lawyer and look into the legality of it,” Gray said. “If it all checks out, I imagine they will do it. We need to have transparency at the local government level, so hopefully it will pass legal muster.”

The meeting was adjourned after just 10 minutes. The next regular Township meeting is scheduled to be held on May 13.