A Hinsdale school board member at odds with the district over requests for information is considering legal action.

Dianne Barrett, a Hinsdale Township High School District 86 board member, said she has been denied information she is entitled to review as an elected official.

“At this time, I am consulting with legal counsel of my own, and I plan to keep all my options open,” Barrett said. “If I feel my rights as an elected official have been violated, then, yes, most likely I would take some kind of legal action.

“I feel I am being obstructed.”

Recently Barrett and District 86 School Board President Dennis Brennan squared off regarding Barrett’s requests for financial records and information on legal settlements.

In the past, the district has required Barrett to file Freedom of Information Act requests for financial records after she asked for them verbally and was denied. The district also has rejected her verbal requests to review information regarding settlements made by the district with parents of special education students who filed due process complaints.

The district also has granted several FOI requests filed in the past by Barrett, Brennan said.

Barrett “is within her rights to take legal action if she wants, but I think it would be a waste of taxpayer money,” Brennan said.

“The fact is she wants to micromanage and be the superintendent,” he said.

The district has often complied with Barrett’s requests for documents, Brennan said, but he added the volume of requested material sometimes creates an undue burden on district staff members.

Brennan said some of the requests are inappropriate, even for an elected official.

“If we stacked all the documents Dianne Barrett has obtained, and we placed them next to all the documents all other board members have received over the last five years, her stack would be 10 times taller than the other,” Brennan said. “I believe we have complied when she has asked for records that are public, but there are some that are not appropriate.”

In September, Barrett contacted the Illinois Attorney General’s Office to complain about being denied access to information. During the Oct. 5 School Board meeting, Brennan confirmed the board received a letter from the Attorney General’s Office chastising the district and a response letter was sent back from the district’s legal counsel.

“The letter from the Attorney General stated no action was being taken by that office, and his (Justino Petrarca, an attorney with Scariano, Himes and Petrarca, the district’s legal counsel) response confirmed the Attorney General’s letter was not an official legal opinion,” Brennan said.

That letter, dated Sept. 23 and signed by Heather Kimmons, assistant public access counselor for the Attorney General’s Office, states, in part, “...a public official, by virtue of the office, is generally entitled to access information held by that public body, including information which might not necessarily be made to or accessible by members of the general public.”

The letter also said a public official is “generally not required to file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain records or information needed in the performance of his or her duties.”

Petrarca’s response letter, dated Oct. 5, was sent to District 86 Superintendent Nicholas Wahl and distributed to board members.

In that letter, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, Petrarca summarized a telephone conversation he reportedly had with Kimmons Sept. 28, stating, in part, Barrett had been “asked to provide the ‘official duty’ she sought to perform with the review of the documents. To date, she has yet to provide such an explanation.”

Also in the letter Petrarca stated Kimmons confirmed by telephone the letter from the Attorney General’s Office was a “public service/courtesy at the request of Ms. Barrett,’ and was not an ‘official opinion’ of the Attorney General.”