As several people have been saying in our community, village board meeting packets should be publicly and easily available to all. Please go to the links below and email Plainfield Mayor Mike Collins and all of the Village Trustees as well as Village Clerk Michelle Gibas and Lead Admin Brian Murphy and request that board packets be placed on line in searchable (that part is important) Adobe PDF files at minimum the couple of work days prior to every meeting. This is definitely extra work, but it’s not outrageous and it’s fair to ask of the village. Your message can be short: just say who you are and that you’d like to see all board packets available to the citizens via the website before each meeting. Currently available are agendas and minutes, but the full packet, which will include reports and drawings and statistics, etc., would be very informative and would help citizens follow along during meetings and when watching the video of them, etc.
IF you only have time or interest to send one email, I’d send it to Brian Murphy whose job it would be to bring any total request up to the board and to implement this policy, in his role as Lead Administrator. That’s pretty easy to do, right?
I’d recommend making the title of these emails something that includes a phrase like “board meeting packets” so that whatever such emails come in can be easily sorted and counted at the village hall. Ask your friends and neighbors if they will make this request, too. Note that Ms. Gibas’ email address is also listed on the same page as Mr. Murphy’s—his is the first name on the list of contacts and hers is the last.
