LANSING | Village Clerk Patty Eidam has asked the Illinois attorney general's office to study whether village officials violated the state's Open Meetings Act.

Eidam said Friday that she sent a letter to the state "within the past 10 days," wanting to know if other village officials have complied with the requirement that government bodies conduct official business in public.

"As the Lansing village clerk, and as the Freedom of Information officer for the village, I have reason to believe that the village trustees had a meeting that should have been posted" publicly, Eidam said.

A meeting involving Village President Norm Abbott, Treasurer Nancy Noworyta and five of the six trustees of the Village Board -- Trustee Mikal Stole was the one absent member -- allegedly took place July 1 in the conference room that is part of Abbott's office at the Village Hall.

Village Board meetings in Lansing usually are held at the municipal Police/Court complex at 2710 170th St.

Eidam would not confirm the specific details of the meeting she heard about, saying, "I wasn't there. I wasn't invited."

In theory, because a majority of the Village Board was on hand, the gathering should have been treated as a special Village Board meeting, for which public notice should have been sent out at least 48 hours in advance, in case the public wished to attend.

Abbott's administrative assistant, Vivian Payne, said that no gathering took place that would have required advance notice, aside from the regular Village Board meeting held June 15 and the board's Committee of the Whole session that took place July 13.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, when questioned about the alleged July 1 meeting.

Abbott himself, at the Village Board's committee meeting last week, at one point referred to a meeting he held privately with some trustees to discuss the possibility of allowing advertising billboards on village land adjacent to Interstate 80/94. That issue was discussed in detail at the committee meeting and is likely to be approved when the board meets again Tuesday.

Abbott did not elaborate on the details of that meeting.

Village Trustee Dan Lyzenga, one of the officials who allegedly attended the July 1 gathering, said he had only one session during the relevant time period with Abbott, and that was a meeting involving him, Abbott and Noworyta, during which they asked him for suggestions about village government spending and the appropriations ordinance that the Village Board also is expected to approve to when it meets Tuesday.

Officials with the attorney general's office confirmed receiving Eidam's request, although they declined to elaborate on what will happen next.

Eidam said she hopes to get information to make it more clear what constitutes a public meeting of the Village Board.

"All elected officials in Illinois need to be familiar with the Open Meetings Act," she said.