The officers in each of the city’s police beats hold a meeting every month with a neighborhood volunteer known as a “beat facilitator” and anyone else who decides to come by. (Meeting dates, times, and places are posted on the department’s Web site.) Generally the sessions consist of a police update on recent crime statistics from the area, complaints or questions about criminal activity or police inaction from residents, and pledges from the cops that they’re all over it.
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“No, no, no, it’s our meeting,” he said. “It’s a public meeting hosted by the police department, so you need prior consent.”
The Open Meetings Act states that public agencies and officials cannot hold official meetings without opening them to citizens. “In order that the people shall be informed, the General Assembly finds and declares that it is the intent of this Act to ensure that the actions of public bodies be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly,” it says. It defines public bodies in broad terms as “all legislative, executive, administrative or advisory bodies of the State, counties, townships, cities, villages, incorporated towns, school districts and all other municipal corporations, boards, bureaus, committees or commissions of this State, and any subsidiary bodies.” And it expressly states that “any person may record the proceedings at meetings required to be open by this Act by tape, film or other means.”
