Former County Employees Not Finished
by Randy Pierce
Closing in on five years since they were terminated from their positions of administrator and director of information technology, Douglas Hulme of Edwardsville and Rob Dorman of Maryville, respectively, are still pressing ahead in their efforts to have access to information related to that action.
As part of the series of lawsuits, requests for information presented at various court levels and communications between their legal counsels and the state’s attorney general’s office, the two men do not appear to have given up just yet despite experiencing some setbacks concerning their efforts.
One of Hulme’s most recent issues relates to his determination to obtain a list of people who have been blocked from the office of the Madison County treasurer’s Facebook page.
A letter sent to him and Corrie Becker, chief deputy treasurer, last month from Caleb L. Briscoe, assistant attorney general representing that office’s public access bureau, states the county office in question “responded improperly” to the aforementioned request from Hulme that he had submitted in January of 2024.
The treasurer’s office had answered that request, according to Briscoe’s letter, by saying there were no such records of a blocked list available because once it was discovered that an unnamed individual had been blocked, the personnel in that unit took action to undo it.
When Hulme contended the treasurer’s office had improperly denied his request which he said was based on the Illinois Freedom of Information Act regulations, the attorney general’s staff person asked for details about the county’s efforts to determine who had been on that blocked list.
Hulme then accused the treasurer’s office of unlawfully blocking him from that Facebook page. The state legal agency next conducted a review and research into the ramifications of the applicability of his objection where the FOIA is concerned.
The resultant findings at that level, along with concluding that electronic records are subject to FOIA requirements including the kind which were non-existent, such as those on social media, back when the applicable state legislation was created.
The primary focus of Hulme’s persistence here, and which has also been addressed in many of Dorman’s legal actions, the FOIA, was approved by the state legislature in 1983 and allows any individual the right to inspect and copy public government documents, records, meeting minutes and correspondence upon request except that which is exempt for reasons such as personal privacy including what is protected by the federal Health Insurance Affordability and Accountability Act of 1996.
This state law applies to all levels of government considered to be “public bodies” including those at the local level, each of which has to follow a procedure whereby FOIA (commonly referred to conversationally by the usage of the term pronounced “foy-ya” in government circles) forms that are completed and submitted to them require a response within a certain timeframe.
Briscoe’s letter to Hulme and Becker details the process by which a Facebook profile can be checked by its owner concerning who has been blocked while also then saying “the treasurer’s office plainly conducts public business via its official social media account” while also sharing “an array of information about” its business. The attorney general’s office therefore concluded that, in this particular situation, the Facebook block list is a matter of public record and should be shared with Hulme.
Delving further into it, Briscoe says the treasurer’s office stance that it was not obligated to comply with the Hulme request because the record he was seeking does not exist is invalid, citing a case based in Chicago. The treasurer’s office, at the time in question, controlled and used a list of blocked Facebook accounts, Briscoe added, and took action on its own to block at least one certain user.
The attorney general communication additionally said it was a public body’s duty to preserve public records until a court allows for the records or specific ones to be exempt from public disclosure. Briscoe was quick to add that it is a violation of the FOIA for a public body such as the treasurer’s office to dispose of records it maintains when said records are sought and then telling the requester that no such records exist.
Also explained by Briscoe is how the treasurer’s office, upon getting Hulme’s request, found one person who had been blocked from its Facebook page then immediately unblocked that individual, thusly confirming such information did indeed exist.
Chris Slusser, elected as county board chairman in November, was the treasurer during the time of the circumstances addressed in Hulme’s request for the Facebook blocked information. When contacted recently for his response concerning this matter and the communication from the attorney general, Slusser declined to comment.
Dorman who, like Hulme, lost his job with the county in April of 2020 as a result of a vote of its elected board members, is continuing his relentless quest for closed session minutes, Zoom video recordings and verbatim audio recordings dating back to a county board committee meeting in late 2017 and two others involving the full board held in April 2020.
In an appeal of a decision by the third judicial circuit of Madison County that has been filed with the Illinois Fifth District Appellate Court in Mount Vernon, Dorman feels the former failed to properly review those meetings records he is seeking in denying his request for them.
All of those meetings were held in closed session with what was said during them kept sealed from public access since then. The vote on the terminations of the two employees, as required by the Illinois Open Meetings Act, took place in public session.
