Our opposition to local government being conducted in secret has been strong and consistent. Unfortunately, too many of our local politicians have been equally strong and consistent in defending government operating away from public view, perhaps none more adamantly than Ald. Jim Allegretti (4th Ward).

At last Monday night’s Council meeting, Allegretti was the only alderman present (Fifth Ward Ald. Robert Ryan was absent) to vote for going into closed session to discuss the City’s acquisition of the parking lot property (asking price: $740,000) that the City currently leases from a limited liability company owned by the William Scharringhausen family. With that closed session motion defeated, the parking lot acquisition was continued to the Committee of the Whole meeting on July 12.

Allegretti didn’t explain the reason for his “yes” vote, but we found Alds. Rich DiPietro”s (2nd Ward) and Don Bach’s (3rd Ward) comments about why they were voting against the closed session that night interesting.

DiPietro voted against it because Ryan, the driving force behind the acquisition of that property, was absent; and because DiPietro believed it likely that whatever was going to be discussed in that closed session “would be in the public domain within 24 hours.”

That sounds like a thinly-veiled slap at Mayor Dave Schmidt, who as First Ward alderman in January 2008 disclosed closed session discussions about then-mayor Howard Frimark’s attempt to have the City purchase 720 Garden for a new police station – at $200,000 more than the City’s appraisal of its value. Schmidt’s whistle-blowing earned a “condemnation” by Frimark and five of Schmidt’s fellow aldermen: DiPietro, Allegretti, Bach, Ryan and Carey.

DiPietro still doesn’t seem to “get” that the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”) only permits, but doesn’t require, closed session meetings, and that it also doesn’t require what goes on in closed session meetings to be treated as secret by the meeting’s participants.

But so long as the threat of Schmidt’s (or another Council member’s) “going public” with closed session information has made at least DiPietro think twice about running into closed sessions every chance they get, we’ll take that as a small but significant victory for City government transparency.