Was District 150 land buy still illegal after all?

May 24, 2006 in Overset

The conventional wisdom was that even though Peoria School District 150 wrote checks for property along Prospect Road before there was an official vote in open session to do so, the move became legal once the board voted Monday to make the purchases. But Peoria blogger extraordinaire C.J. Summers reports that he has been told by an attorney that changes in the Illinois Open Meetings Act as well as new case law makes such after-the-fact approval illegal after all.

He also says in a comment to this post that there are rumors going around that there is a “familial relationship involved” with the one real estate agent being used so far.

Curiouser and courioser.

And I’d like to point out the obvious: School Board elections were held in mid-March, but the two new board members won’t take their seats until July. Were these board members able to take over at the beginning of May, then Peoria would probably not be in the mess that it is with this.

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3 Responses to “Was District 150 land buy still illegal after all?”

Karrie E. Alms Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Bill:

Even with the seating of new school board members on May 1st, D150 took title to some properties late in April. (2102 N. Prospect is one example). http://www.co.peoria.il.us/fra.....alasp1.asp

What happened to the purchase option idea?

And how can one real estate agent act as the ‘dual agent’ in a ‘controversial’ acquisition of real estate? (Sales have been posted to the MLS now that the sales are ‘final’. Possibly to be used for ‘comparable’ sales purposes in the MLS. That maybe the only benefit to the remaining property owners —- if this train is not sent back to the roundhouse to be re-routed to a different site.)

How could this dual agent represent both D150 and the seller and safeguard that both parties were receiving the ‘best price’ from each party’s respective side of the table?

Yes, curiouser and courioser.
roman II Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Who is the real estate agent handling this for the school board, and is there any connection between that person or company and anyone connected with either administration or the school board? Follow the money! This is gong to make Watergate look like a kindergarten exercise.
cjsummers Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Well, that might be overstating it a bit, roman II…. But there is a fair amount of intrigue in this situation!