What should transparency in West Chicago’s municipal government look like?
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- Accountability: “government officials should…[allow] for public scrutiny and oversight.”[1]
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- Integrity: “to serve in the public interest” and to do their official duties “honestly, fairly and in a manner consistent with soundness of moral principle.”[2] “Conflict of interest, fraud, and corruption can be notoriously difficult to detect within an organization.”[3]
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- Openness: “government officials act openly, with citizens’ knowledge of the decisions they’re making.”[4]
West Chicago’s current elected officials claim they are very transparent, but our investigations show otherwise.
In early 2022, after Nancy Smith, the City Clerk for 30 years, passed away, the City Council decided to remove this elected position. No public discussion took place.[5]
The City Clerk’s roles included:
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- Official record keeper: attend all city meetings and prepare a “full and complete record” of meetings.
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- Receive and respond to Freedom of Information Act requests.
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- Control all municipal documents of the city, including financial records.
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- Certify public questions, receive Candidate Nomination Papers.
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- Affix corporate “Seal of the City” on official documents.
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- Receive applications for building board of appeals.
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- Remain accountable to the public through elections every 4 years.
The City Council reassigned these roles to City Administrator Michael Guttman and his designee, both unelected city employees. Guttman now takes city council meeting notes while at the same time sitting in on meetings to inform the mayor and city council.
The City Administrator, who prepares the city budget and manages daily city affairs, is now the same person who controls all city records, receives public questions and appeals, and receives nominations for elected city officials. This created a conflict of interest and eliminated oversight by an elected City Clerk.
20 nearby towns, including Wheaton, Batavia, Geneva, and Bartlett, all have City Clerks, based on their websites. West Chicago does not.
Is this accountability?
In December 2021, the City Council passed an ordinance adopting a whistleblower protection policy. The City Administrator became the “auditing official.” That means that the same person who manages staff and controls financial records also handles alerts of financial mismanagement. No independent review takes place.[7]
In December 2023, the City Council passed an ordinance to waive competitive bids for the citywide brush collection service and authorized Mayor Ruben Pineda to execute a contract with Kramer Tree Specialists for services between 2024 and 2026 not to exceed $99,678.25.[8] Kramer Tree Specialists has donated at least $750 to Pineda’s campaign fund.[9]
Is this integrity?
Biweekly City Council Packets and Meeting Minutes are available on the city’s website as PDFs but not searchable via topic. Residents interested in reviewing discussion on any given topic have to pull up each individual meeting minutes until they find the one they’re looking for. It took a local resident over 3 hours of searching through meeting minutes to find all the relevant discussions related to the elimination of the City Clerk position.
City Council meeting minutes have sparse information on council discussions or public participation. Meeting minutes are frequently missing from the City’s transparency portal.[10]
The City Council started putting up recordings of City Council meetings in June 2024, only after local residents repeatedly requested this. City board and commission meetings have only been recorded since January 2025, again at the repeated request of residents.
Resident requests for information from the city through the Freedom of Information Act sometimes receive the reply that no such information exists, are denied stating the requests are unduly burdensome, or receive incomplete documents in response.
Is this openness?
The West Chicago City Council sometimes conducts closed executive sessions for the stated purposes of confidential discussions on personnel, property acquisition, litigation, and other topics. Starting in early 2023, City Council Meeting Minutes stop specifying whether or not the council went into executive session, except for one mention in the December 16, 2024 meeting minutes, which do not give a reason for going into closed session and does not state when the council adjourned executive session.
The Illinois Open Meetings Act requires that city councils keep meeting minutes from closed sessions indefinitely. They are required to review these minutes every six months to determine 1) if the need for confidentiality still exists for all or part of these meetings and 2) if meetings or portions of them no longer require confidential treatment, to release them for public inspection.
Neighboring cities such as Wheaton and Warrenville regularly approve closed meeting minutes for release to the public.[11]
Since 2021, the West Chicago City Council has not released ANY closed executive session minutes. The City Council regularly votes to destroy recordings of closed meetings older than 18 months, despite concerns raised by residents and at least one city council member.[12]
Ruben Pineda, current mayor running for reelection, said, “We do not hold anything back. I’m very transparent. Our website has won awards from our transparency. There’s nothing that we’re trying to hide from our residents here in West Chicago.”[13]
West Chicago voters, decide for yourselves. Are our elected officials being transparent with us? Elect leaders who will tell us the truth.
[1] The Key to Improving Transparency in Local Government, GovPilot.
[2] Integrity, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
[5] City Council Meeting Minutes from April 18, 2022.
[6] West Chicago Municipal Ordinance 22-O-0032.
[7] West Chicago Municipal Ordinance 21-O-0025.
[8] December 18, 2023 West Chicago City Council Meeting Minutes.
[9] Illinois State Board of Elections Campaign Contributions Search.
[10] As of March 30, 2025, Meeting Minutes from March 21, 2022; April 4, 2022; October 17, 2022; November 21, 2022; January 3, 2023; Feb 27 and 28, 2023 (special meetings to approve Lake Shore Recycling 2nd waste transfer station siting ordinance); March 6, 2023; March 20, 2023; August 21, 2023; January 2, 2024; March 4, 2024, April 1, 2024; August 5, 2024; October 21, 2024; November 18, 2024; January 6, 2025; January 20, 2025; February 17, 2025; March 3, 2025, and March 17, 2025 are not available on the page: https://westchicago.org/west-chicago-city-council-agendas-and-minutes/. Some missing minutes can be found in the packets of the later meeting agendas, but are not easily accessible and require extensive digging.
[11] Examples from Wheaton and Warrenville. Example One, Two, Three, Four.
[12] The Illinois Open Meetings Act requires that a verbatim recording be kept for each closed meeting of a public body, but allows for the destruction of these recordings after 18 months. Cities are allowed, but not required, to destroy recordings after 18 months. On June 17, 2024 a resident spoke up in the public participation portion of city council, asking that the council not destroy recordings of closed meetings, because recordings preserve a closer record of what happened than minutes, which can be spotty. At least one council member has also raised concerns about audio recordings being destroyed when there are unfinished current matters in executive session. Source: June 17, 2024 (recording here) and December 5, 2022 City Council Meeting Minutes.
