Sunshine: Fight for public document goes to court

Thursday November 23 2006

Man sues Dist. 200 to get chief's contract Propaganda fears one reason the district says it won't give resident info

James Fuller Daily Herald Staff Writer

A clash over information regarding how much money Wheaton Warrenville Unit District 200 Superintendent Gary Catalani earns is now headed to court.

Wheaton resident Mark Stern has sought a copy of Catalani's employment contract for the past 10 months. The contract includes information about Catalani's salary structure, his employment duties and how much money he'll take to the bank when he retires next year.

The district denied all of Sterns' requests and appeals as allowed under Illinois' Freedom of Information Act.

Stern then had two fellow members of his Educate 200 community group, Joseph Mahady and Michelle Senatore, make nearly identical information requests for the contract. The district denied those requests as well.

Educate 200 is most known for opposing the district's plans to relocate Hubble Middle School to Warrenville. The opposition has fueled emotional debate and animosity in the district.

Educate 200 members say they want Catalani's contract to serve as a reference point for when a new contract is developed for whomever is hired as his successor. In short, they believe Catalani gets paid more money than the local taxpayers can, or should, shoulder.

Catalani earned about $380,000 last year, making him Illinois' highest paid superintendent.
Hence the stage is set for another heated debate about pay when a new superintendent comes to town.

District officials say that fact played into their decisions to deny Educate 200 access to Catalani's contract. But in a broader sense, they don't believe the contract is a public document.

"Such records are personnel items not subject to the Freedom of Information Act," reads the response crafted by the district's attorney, John Relias.

A public document?

Relias' opinion says that the names, salaries, titles and employment dates of all public employees and officers are public records, but actual employment contracts aren't.

His opinion relies on an Illinois Appellate Court decision involving the Peoria Journal Star's request for performance evaluations of a Peoria school superintendent and a letter from school board members to that superintendent.

Initially, a judge ruled the newspaper had a right to that information. That was reversed on appeal because the letter and evaluations were located in the superintendent's personnel file. Employment contracts can also be part of a personnel file, according to the ruling.

Relias said there's also a privacy issue involved. For example, the district might be in violation of the law if it gave copies of a contract without the employee's consent.

The contents of someone's personnel file are justifiably private because it could contain things like disciplinary actions or reprimands, Relias said.

District 200 staff members further explained that if a separate file existed just for employment contracts, then they would be public. That file doesn't exist in District 200.

Attorney Shawn Collins, who's representing Stern, said the Peoria case Relias cites is irrelevant to this matter.

"First, we're not asking for the disciplinary records of any district employee," Collins said. "Second, that's too subject to manipulation. The district can keep secret any document that it wants to simply by putting it in a personnel file."

District officials have shown they are willing to give some members of the public copies of Catalani's contract.

The Daily Herald, in a blanket request for superintendent contracts in the area, asked the district for Catalani's in March and received it with no questions asked.
Catalani said the reason the Daily Herald got a copy of his contract and Stern didn't came down to trust.

Can trust be a factor?

Catalani said Stern and Educate 200 used information in the past to distribute propaganda about the proposed Hubble school relocation.

"They haven't used information they've had access to in a fair or honorable way," he said.

"They've misused it to promote their side of the story. So if my attorney says I don't have to give it to them, why allow them to have more information?"

In contrast, Catalani said he didn't hesitate to give the information to the Daily Herald because he believed it would be used fairly. Catalani said he would release the contract to Stern if it became a big issue in the news.

When the matter goes to court, Stern will likely have the support of the Illinois attorney general's office behind him.

Terry Mutchler, the agency's public access counselor, said the employment contracts of a public official are public record and should be given to anyone who wants to see them.

"It is clear that, consistent with prior case law, the General Assembly intended the public to have access to the specified types of information concerning public employees," Mutchler wrote in an opinion for the Daily Herald.

Stern provided a similar opinion from Mutchler he sent to the district in his appeals to the district, but to no avail.

Public pressure

The next tactic was to try and create public pressure for the release of the document. So Educate 200 used public comment time at a school board meeting a couple months ago to ask for Catalani's contract.

Catalani told the audience that the district had responded to the request. He didn't say the response was "no."

There is no court date scheduled for the case as yet. Collins said he expects the matter to be expedited.

"We filed a lawsuit because we were left with no other choice," he said. "This shouldn't be in court. If this all seems like a very big deal, unfortunately, that's because the district has made it this way."

For his part, Stern said he thinks Catalani has done a good job overall. But that's not what's now at issue, he said.

"It's not for the district to screen what public information the public will have or not have," Stern said. "It's to make public information publicly available and let the community decide what's relevant. If there's not something to hide, they ought to make it public."