CHAMPAIGN – City officials have reached the maximum number of registrants they were prepared to allow participate in a community-police forum on Monday, and they are saying they will make "every effort" to accommodate everyone.

But open-government experts say the way the meeting is structured – at the very least – raises questions with state law.

Officials are no longer accepting registrations for the forum after the deadline passed on March 10, but that does not mean the city is looking to turn people away from attending the event, said Joan Walls, assistant to the city manager for community relations.

"With any other public meeting that we have, we don't turn people away," Walls said.

The forum was organized to help repair relations between the community and the police following the October 2009 police shooting death of 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington.

The attendees will be organized into smaller groups, each independently addressing four "pre-identified" questions relating to the relationship between the city's police department and its citizens.

Because city council members and human relations commissioners are expected to attend, the forum is officially a public meeting under the state's open meetings law. That means it must comply with the rules for public participation under which any ordinary city council meeting would fall.

The event is scheduled to be held in a conference room at the Hawthorn Suites hotel, 101 Trade Center Drive in Champaign.

The city had planned to accept 250 registrations for the forum, a number that has now been reached, Walls said. Add in the 25 "scribes" who will take notes during roundtable discussions and various city officials who plan to attend, and that number is approaching the venue's fire code capacity of "around 300."

"We have to take into consideration the legal room capacity," Walls said.

Walls said the city will adhere to the legal capacity to keep the forum safe and "for participants to be able to adequately participate and hear."

But Don Craven, interim executive director of the Illinois Press Association, said the city is working on the fringe of the open meetings law.

"It's their obligation to hold it in a place where it's open and convenient to the public," Craven said. "If I'm standing outside on a waiting list, that isn't open and convenient to the public."

Walls said the city had compiled a small "waiting list" earlier this week to accept late registrations. But as of Friday, Walls said everyone on that list had been notified they would be permitted to participate.

Terrance Norton, director of the Chicago-Kent College of Law's Center for Open Government, said while the meeting definitely raises questions about compliance with the law, he said it is not in direct violation.

"I think they're complying with the spirit of the law, maybe not the letter of the law," Norton said.

He said if it were a typical public meeting, where city business is conducted and acted on, it would have to be in a location that accommodates everyone.

"This seems to have a different goal: sounding out the community," Norton said. "I don't think they have violated the open meetings act because of what the goal of this particular meeting is."

Walls and other community relations staff said this week that the city had stopped accepting registrations for participation in the event. But legally, they cannot deny entrance to anyone who wants to observe if they are within the room's capacity.

And while the attendance approaches the room's capacity, Craven said as of Friday, city officials had enough time to reconsider their venue. Citing a 2003 Illinois appellate court ruling, Craven said a public body must make plans to accommodate a crowd expected to be larger than the venue's capacity.

"If they're developing a waiting list, they know there's a crowd, so find a bigger place," Craven said.

But Steve Helle, a media law professor at the University of Illinois, said there is nothing in the law that says the city is obligated to move to a room that accommodates everyone.

If the meeting is held in a "reasonable room," Helle said, the law does not require that you move it to a larger venue if it reaches capacity.

Walls said on Friday she was expecting a crowd close to but not exceeding the room's capacity. And if "push comes to shove," Walls said her office had contacted the venue to ask for overflow rooms.

"Our goal is to allow people to participate that want to participate," Walls said.

City Attorney Fred Stavins said, even with a capacity issue, the city is working within the realm of the law.

"I don't think they have to provide unlimited capacity," Stavins said.

The law requires that the city hold meetings in places and times that are convenient to the public, and Stavins said that is true in this case.

And pre-registration is not a violation of the law. Stavins said registration and signing in is a common practice for public bodies outside Champaign.

"They're trying to keep track of who's coming and who's not," Stavins said. "It's like an RSVP. To encourage people to come and register I think is a good thing."

City council member Will Kyles said he is satisfied with the way the forum has been organized. Although he said "ideally" he would like as many people as possible to participate, the forum needs some structure.

"You get that many people and that little time, you need a little structure," Kyles said.

Kyles said he thinks the venue, although its capacity is limited, was appropriate.

"The only way that you could have more people with what Champaign or Urbana has to offer is a podium type of forum, where people come up to a podium and talk," Kyles said.

In any case, Walls said she's excited about the number of people who plan to attend.

"We're excited to have as many people – citizens, officers, teachers, youth, school board members, park staff, neighborhood leaders – who have all been willing to come out and participate in a dialogue," Walls said.