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The 44th District senator is also introducing legislation that will
allow Illinois voters to once again vote for the board of trustees,
instead of having the trustees appointed by the governor. "In
accordance with the laws, I have asked the Office of the Attorney
General to investigate this decision, not in terms of the Chief, but
in terms of whether or not they violated the Open Meetings Act,"
Brady said. "I have had many people that have questioned the
behavior of the board and the fact that such an important body
exists in the state of Illinois and is not representative of the
people through the popular vote."
The board of trustees announced Feb. 16 that Chief Illiniwek's
last appearance after 81 years as the university's symbol was Feb.
21, during the last men's home basketball game. Since that time, the
media have reported that some of the trustees disagreed with the
manner in which the decision was reached.
"Aside from whether or not you believe the Chief ought to
continue as the honored symbol of the University of Illinois, the
real issue here is: Did the board of trustees operate in a legal and
trustworthy manner?" Brady said. "I have also drafted legislation to
revert us back to the University of Illinois board of trustees being
elected by the vote throughout the state. It will be an amendment to
an existing Senate bill, and I hope we will be able to get it out of
Rules and have a thorough discussion of that in the Senate."
Sen. Brady's letter to Attorney General Lisa Madigan follows.
March 2, 2007
The Honorable Lisa Madigan
Attorney General, State of Illinois
500 South 2nd Street
Springfield, IL 62705
Dear Attorney General Madigan:
Please find attached an editorial from
the February 21, 2007, Champaign News-Gazette regarding the
University of Illinois Board of Trustees' decision regarding Chief
Illiniwek. It is extremely disconcerting that a decision of this
magnitude would be made without the Board of Trustees actually
meeting and voting on the issue. Additionally, the allegations that
the Board of Trustees did not comply with the Open Meetings Act are
disturbing.
It is my understanding that your
Public Access Counselor is charged with ensuring that governmental
entities in Illinois comply with the Open Meetings Act and the
Freedom of Information Act. Therefore, I respectfully request that
you have Ms. Mutchler investigate whether or not the University of
Illinois Board of Trustees violated the Open Meetings Act with
regard to the decision to end the Chief Illiniwek tradition, and, if
there was a violation, what the impact of that violation is on the
decision to discontinue the Chief.
Thank you for your prompt attention to
this matter.
Sincerely,
Bill Brady
State Senator
44th Legislative District
CC: Terry Mutchler, Public Access
Counselor
Attachment: 2/21/07 News-Gazette
Editorial
[to top of second column]
 |
 (Attachment to Brady's letter)
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Editorial
Champaign News-Gazette
UI board skirts law in reaching
Chief decision
By Editor
The University of Illinois Board of
Trustees skirted both state law and good public policy practice in
its controversial decision to end the Chief Illiniwek tradition.
Not only did University of Illinois
trustees not arrive at any real "consensus" with the school's
constituencies on the future of Chief Illiniwek, but also it's
apparent the board, or board chairman Lawrence Eppley, circumvented
the state's Open Meetings Act by smothering the 81-year-old
tradition without a legal vote.
Eppley apparently talked to trustees
individually and, based on those private conversations, acted on his
own on the most controversial piece of UI business in ecades.
In an interview Friday with The
News-Gazette, Eppley said, "The action was the decision two years
ago to do something about it. I'm not doing it by myself. ... This
is how I see it: I think if we needed authority to do something it
would be to say, violate the policy. ... This is the university
saying it's time now, we needed to comply, it's OK to comply."
What the UI board chairman appears to
be saying is that because board members didn't want to violate NCAA
policy by continuing the Chief Illiniwek tradition, he had the
authority to expunge it himself, without a board vote.
By not only avoiding public discussion
of the issue, but also a public vote, the board of trustees avoided
the Open Meetings Act. So not only did the trustees show a lack of
political courage, they displayed a lack of respect for state law
and good public policy.
Furthermore, the trustees wasted
untold amounts of money and time to arrive at a bogus consensus.
They would have been better off adopting, in June 2004, the
resolution advanced by student trustee Nate Allen. It said,
"Therefore, Be It Resolved that Chief Illiniwek be honorably retired
at a time and in a manner to be determined by the Urbana-Champaign
campus in consultation with faculty, students, staff, alumni and
other members of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
family and
"Further be It Resolved, that at the
same time we, the Board of Trustees, declare our full support for
the name 'Fighting Illini' for the athletic teams at the
Urbana-Champaign campus."
That's essentially the final
"consensus" result Eppley announced Friday. Instead of adopting
Allen's resolution, the trustees put the campus, the community and
the state through another 30 months of futile debate, escalating
threats from the NCAA and national ridicule. It's almost frightening
to think that these are the people setting policy for the University
of Illinois.
[Text copied from news release sent
on behalf of
Sen. Bill Brady and received
from Illinois
Senate Republican staff] |
