Page:Kelley v. Chicago Park District.pdf/19

 “authority” with the power to unilaterally bind the Park District.

This conclusion strains the statutory language and ignores how public bodies customarily operate. It also contradicts another provision in the Illinois Park District Code, which applies to all Illinois park districts and must be read in conjunction with the Chicago Park District Act. The Illinois Park District Code states: "No member of the board of any park district … shall have power to create any debt, obligation, claim or liability, for or on account of said park district … except with the express authority of said board conferred at a meeting thereof and duly recorded in a record of its proceedings."

70 1205/4-6 (emphasis added). When read together, these statutes confirm that there is only one corporate authority of the Chicago Park District—its Board of Commissioners—and that individual commissioners cannot unilaterally bind the Park District’s Board to a contract without express Board approval.

There is no evidence that the Park District’s Board of Commissioners authorized Commissioner Burroughs to enter into a contract with Kelley. Moreover, Illinois law provides that ultra vires contracts entered into by municipal corporations are invalid, see, e.g., McMahon v. City of Chicago, 339 Ill.Appl.3d 41, 273 Ill.Dec. 447, 789 N.E.2d 347, 350 (2003), so Commissioner Burroughs’s offhand remark cannot have created a valid implied-in-fact contract. The judgment for Kelley on the contract claim was premised on legal error; the Park District was entitled to judgment on this claim.

For the foregoing reasons, we the judgment in favor of the Park District on the VARA claim; we  the judgment in favor of Kelley on the contract claim and  with instructions to enter judgment for the Park District.