City of Chicago faces lawsuit over controversial meetings between Mayor Lightfoot, city council members: BGA

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Our Weekend Watch shines a spotlight on government activity.

The city of Chicago is facing legal action over a series of controversial meetings between Mayor Lori Lightfoot and City Council members.

David Greising from the Better Government Association joined ABC7 Chicago via phone to talk more about the lawsuit.

The mayor and City Council have held at least three meetings "that we are aware of" via Zoom to which the public was not invited for participation or observation, which Greising says violates the "open meeting law."

The city is claiming they were "informational" meetings.

One meeting in particular has garnered some attention after an audio tape recording leaked out of Lightfoot and some of her opponents exchanging foul language.

Greising said every meeting of the City Council should be available to the public, which is why he believes they need to go to court.

The city of Chicago released the following statement regarding the lawsuit:

"We do not agree with the claims in this lawsuit and maintain that the informational conference calls were not subject to the Open Meetings Act. We will defend our position accordingly."

You can read more about this story by the watchdog group at the BGA website.