The Justice Department and Tinley Park are asking a federal judge to rule in a dispute over audio recordings of closed-session talks pertaining to plans for a controversial and since-shelved apartment development in the village, according to court filings.
The Justice Department has sought to review the recordings or transcripts of them as part of its lawsuit against the village regarding The Reserve, an apartment project that would have targeted low-income renters.
During a hearing last week, U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis asked attorneys for the village to provide transcripts, which she will review privately, by June 7. A status hearing is scheduled for June 20.
According to a Justice Department filing, Tinley Park has rebuffed the government’s request to get access to recordings of five executive sessions that took place in February and March of 2016 where The Reserve project was discussed.
Tinley Park maintains in its filing that because its village attorney was present at the sessions, anything discussed is protected by attorney-client privilege. The government contends the mere presence of an attorney does not make everything discussed privileged.
Both told Ellis in a document seeking a hearing they had “come to an impasse” as far as resolving the matter on their own.
Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, which planned to build The Reserve, sued Tinley Park in April 2016 after the village Plan Commission had tabled a vote on the controversial apartment project, slated for the northeast corner of 183rd Street and Oak Park Avenue.
While Tinley Park settled that lawsuit, the Justice Department in November 2016 sued the village, alleging it violated federal fair housing laws in not approving plans for the apartment building.
Tinley Park, in asserting the closed-door discussions should remain private, said when the executive sessions were held, the village faced threatened or actual litigation concerning The Reserve.The village said Buckeye had threatened litigation as of Jan. 28, 2016, just days before the Plan Commission tabled a vote that could have given final approval to the project.
Tinley Park noted a potential lawsuit by Buckeye “became the dominant topic of conversation” during a Feb. 2, 2016, executive session, and the threat of a lawsuit was also the subject of a Feb. 16 closed-door talk among the mayor, trustees and other village officials.
At the time the Plan Commission tabled a vote on the development, The Reserve was purportedly sent back to the village’s planning department for additional review, but no further vote on the project ever was scheduled.
When news of Buckeye’s plans for the 47-unit apartment building first surfaced, the project ignited heated opposition from residents, many of whom said they believed village officials had kept the development under wraps until it was in the final stages of approval.
In its lawsuit, the Justice Department alleges community opposition to The Reserve was “based on discriminatory attitudes toward African-Americans and other groups based on race,” and village officials bowed to that pressure in not approving the project. In its response to the lawsuit, the village denied it “engaged in a pattern or practice of unlawful discrimination.”
Tinley Park sued its former planning director, Amy Connolly, in May 2017, accusing her of breaching her fiduciary duties to the village relating to the handling of The Reserve and embroiling the village in lawsuits, including the Justice Department complaint.
Connolly was suspended from her job, which she’d held since the fall of 2007, about two weeks after the Plan Commission tabled a vote on the project. She had played a key role in reviewing plans for the project and had determined it complied with village development rules in place at the time.
Connolly resigned in May 2016 to take the job of city development director in Racine, Wis.
Judge Ellis is overseeing the village’s lawsuit against her as well as the Justice Department complaint.
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