It’s been awhile – December 2015 – since we last looked at that bastion of non-transparency and un-accountability: the School Board and Administration of Park Ridge-Niles School District 64.

But one of our “stringers” tipped us to the latest anti-transparency move by the D-64 leadership team of Board president Anthony Borrelli and Supt. Laurie Heinz, both of whom seem to revel in the District’s opacity even as they proclaim it crystal clear – and credit themselves as the Keepers of the Windex.

That move? The creation of two new D-64 Board committees: a “Finance Committee” and a “Building & Sites Committee.”

Both of these new committees appear to be the brain-children of Luann Kolstad, who must have been given the title of “Chief School Business Official” when she was hired to replace Rebecca Allard, whose $200,000+ salary was paid while she held the more mundane “Business Manager” title.

The creation of two new Board committees normally wouldn’t be noteworthy if not for Kolstad’s –and the Board’s – expressed intention that they operate in a decidedly non-transparent and non-accountable manner.

Need proof? Check out Kolstad’s 02.08.16 memo.

You’ll see that the purpose of these new committees is ostensibly “[t]o facilitate more streamlined Board meetings.” Translation: shorter meetings with even more pre-chewed and pre-determined decisions than usual, rendering the mandatory “public” discussion and vote more of a charade to fool the rubes.

And if you listen to Kolstad’s explanation of this concept on the 02.08.16 meeting video (from 1:08:30 to 1:45:30) you’ll hear her claim that she doesn’t want to burden all seven Board members with reviewing the District’s annual $70 million-plus budget “line by line” but, instead, would prefer committees of only two Board members so that she could “kind of walk them through it” – presumably in that stereotypical “Move along, folks, there’s nothing to see here” kind of way.

But the darkest side of Kolstad’s proposal is the reason why she wants to limit each of these committees to only two Board members: so that each of those committee’s meetings will “not [be] subject to the Open Meetings Act so we do not need to post notification of the meetings ahead of time.”

Nor, presumably, will they need to keep “public” meeting minutes and make video recordings of those meetings.

Whether Kolstad’s actions reflect outright contempt for the taxpayers’ rights to see and hear what the District is doing with all their money, or whether she is just tone-deaf to those rights, is unclear. But the fact that she brazenly put this stuff in a memo suggests that she cares not one whit about transparency and the accountability it produces.

So how did our seven elected School Board representatives react to such blatant anti-transparency and anti-accountability? Pretty much like a tiny herd of clueless sheep. And with pretty much the level of comprehension Kolstad appears to be seeking in the folks who will populate her new committees: “individuals with little experience in either [finance or facilities] are ideal candidates” – presumably because they are so much easier for Kolstad and her accomplices to bamboozle.

Paging Vickie Lee…paging Vickie Lee. Ms. Lee, please report to the Finance Committee sign-in desk for your credentials and goodie bag.

Sadly, the most intelligent questions raised about these two new committees – actually the only intelligent questions raised about these committees – came not from any Board member but from resident Joan Sandrik, starting at the 1:38:25 mark of the video.

Sandrik rightly questioned how Kolstad could claim these two-Board member committees aren’t covered by IOMA when an Illinois Attorney General opinion from 1982 clearly states that IOMA covers meetings not only of school boards but also of “any subsidiary bodies…including but not limited to committees and subcommittees” of those boards. In fact, the last page of that A.G.’s opinion expressly addresses the status of a two member committee of a seven-member board:

[T]he creation of two member committees by a seven member public body does not operate to circumvent the provisions of the Open Meetings Act since the Act applies separately to the committees.

Although A.G. opinions are not binding on Illinois courts, the Illinois Supreme Court has long held that “a well-reasoned opinion of the Attorney General is entitled to considerable weight in resolving a question of first impression in this State regarding the construction of an Illinois statute” like IOMA. City of Springfield v. Allphin, 74 Ill.2d 117 (1979).

And we’re pretty darn sure a court would give that A.G. opinion a whole lot more weight than it would give the totally-wrong-but-never-in-doubt opinion of Borrelli: “Two Board members together does not constitute a majority of a quorum…it’s quite clear that you have to have a majority of persons, a majority of a quorum of the Board…a majority of a majority” (video,, 1:39:06 to 1:39:30), an opinion on which Kolstad and Heinz happily sang back-up

To Sandrik’s credit, she wasn’t deterred by the dismissiveness of Borrelli, Kolstad and Heinz.

“I also don’t know why something as important as finance, why you wouldn’t do a committee of the whole…isn’t that important to every one of you to know where the dollars are being spent? Why would you limit the specifics to two [Board members]?”

Exactly.

IOMA exists to ensure transparency and accountability from public officials who prefer to hide their activities from the taxpayers, especially the boards and administrations of our two school districts who, combined, spend approximately 70% of all our property taxes. Public bodies like the D-64 Board should be embracing IOMA, not trying to run away from it or find ways around it. But transparency and accountability have never been D-64’s strong suit, despite Borrelli’s repeated insistence to the contrary.

Example: Has anybody seen the minutes of all those closed-session meetings Borrelli presided over last spring and summer, or those “outstanding” performance evaluations that purportedly justified a one-year extension of his BFF Heinz’s contract and a raise? Anybody? Bueller?

If this Borrelli-led D-64 Board truly believed in transparency and accountability, they would have told Kolstad – immediately, definitively and unanimously – “No!” as soon as she suggested that this misbegotten committee structure was intended to avoid IOMA compliance and public oversight.

But this Board doesn’t believe.

So, instead, Borrelli pontificates either cluelessly or dishonestly about IOMA’s requirements, backed up by an equally clueless or dishonest Kolstad and Heinz. And the rest of the Board provides blank looks and slack jaws.

Thankfully, some comic relief was provided by Tom Sotos, twisting like Gumby to get himself to where he can praise the new committee structure in as earnest a voice as he can muster: “In reality it’s a little more transparency.”

Sure it is, Tom.

And the Easter Bunny will be visiting you soon.

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