was not organized for the purpose of conducting public business if we are correctly judgment below cannot stand between immunity act permits a not for profit corporation to assert immunity as a local public entity when it is organized for the purpose of conducting public is beginning with carol this court held that the term public business requires first that the activity benefits the entire community with  days of the year and the year around four for the nice group of own oil school children unlike the private school in grouper for example which do not attempt to provide its services to the entire community this is you must operate with a legislative mandate a free public access ordinary nonprofit corporations do not have the same mandate that mandate of free public under the carol test next under carol a not for profit corporation is tightly enmeshed with government either through direct government ownership or operational control if the parties to be able to agree on anything today they should be able to agree that a not for profit corporation may satisfy either prong one or the other but need not satisfy both  appellate court dismissed the ownership wrong by noting that the forest preserve district did not own the zoo business itself and all the property used to operate the business it isn't paragraphs twenty one and twenty eight of the opinion what the court did not appreciate was that a not for profit corporation does not have stockholders and that it is not a business that can be owned by anyone much less by a government unit the government can own shares in general motors it cannot own shares in not for profit corporation because enough for profit corporation has no shareholders under the general not for profit corporation activity six enough for profit corporations organized for nine business purposes you can have members you can have the rector's you can have officers and shareholders for the ownership prong to have any practical meaning we respectfully submit that it must be based on public restrictive approach here it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what a non corporation is this is a balancing between the factors that the plaintiff point out that would make to the forest preserve all the property facilities and collections purchased with public funds three the public funds and turn of the proceeds of a tax levy specifically  i think what's relevant here is not necessarily the percentage of because this court in carroll made it clear that the lovell of funding is not the tremonton what is important is whether the corporation is organized for the purpose of conducting public business ok and what we think is the most relevant is the fact that we have an entity that receives direct and then it is dispersed directly as a budget item to the to the zoo and fifth and finally the cook county forest preserve district is authorized by law to issue bonds does here there is this court noted that the private cademy which received student tuition payments or quote not direct payments from the state but those not direct payments from the state budget and maintained on their land whether it does whether it operates the zoo directly or through a country brookfield zoo once established and maintained on public land with direct public funding and operated subject to the mandate of free public admission became tightly invested with the cook county forest preserve district further this is tightly enmeshed with government through direct operational control the operating agreement one zoo must submit an itemized budget to the district which has the right to disapprove specific items relating to the expenditure of public funds to those who must submit an enclosures for policing and supervision with due regard for the safety and welfare of the animals six this is not without the district's consent so more income for your mortgage any animal building enclosure structure or other property seven connect remove it animals for exhibition elsewhere without the just written consent and ate the proceeds of any sale of an animal by just to be used only for the purpose of increasing the number or improving the quality of the animal extend immunity to a nonprofit the conduct of public business and we know from this court's carol test that public business can be satisfied if there is either ownership or terms of the wording and in terms of the tests that are applied so it's possible that the legislature intended to extend the immunity but not necessarily require the type of rigorous disclosure  the relationship closest oracle relationship that the zoo has with the district is only one of a number of similar relationships by structure by the journalist somebody to benefit the people of the state and they have the legislature has allowed the different uni government to structure those relationships in such a way that is beneficial to the people without limitation and but subject profit corporations government by in fact improver this course suggested that this was not required the point here is that the district through the statute and the operating agreement is satisf its representation on the board allows for adequate oversight and and for all of the expenditure of public funds ordinary nonprofit corporations doing business with the government do not have public officials sitting in an to conclude by way of summary you want the zoo was organized to benefit the entire community without limitation to the zoos tightly and messed with government through direct government ownership of property and direct public funding three this is tightly invest with government through the record operational control over fiscal matters subject to outside review and oversight we aren't we believe that this case can be resolved upon the herald's as it may need to be refined only in the sense that the direct government ownership wrong has to recognize that the ownership is relevant is ownership of the land ownership of the fun's ownership of the facilities and ownership of the other personal property essential to carrying out the the judicial construction becomes part of the stage and we're not here to say otherwise but we have to recognize that this case presents some unique facts that were addressed we're not asking to change the test we're asking you to apply the test to the circumstances not balancing but the totality of the circumstances at issue here for all the reasons that are preferred we ask you to question that was asked and previous case you can't get to where those who wants to go without overruling carol ruger at all miriam and the reason is because the first analysis is to look at the statute and what the statute says that here well the contract prohibits those the zoo from cutting down any trees you know doing anything with the buildings or doing anything else but with the land but that's something that you typically find in any landlord tenant relationship landlord tenant patch or what happened here was that the the park district has the forces ripped from the service or has the property in the buildings and they look for someone with the expertise to come in about the same time the legislature passed the forest service that permitted them funded to other property the charge as a logical society was started shortly thereafter to fill their need but i mean in all the cases tell us what to do and how to run the day to day operations or managed to but when they you know what i want to get to was when they're talking about ownership they're talking about funding is really what they're talking about because you know i mean i  didn't really understand the whole argument because the charge was all logical societies in the pen corporation you know and they haven't ways and they have property and they have this leasehold this contractual interest that they have with the  people that run this not for profit corporation that there's no way that you could say that public entity is controlling the board there and i think you can you can compare that up a local public entity that profit corporation actually like where the board metric ward and smith be held that are was a not for profit that would be entitled to tort immunity because they are conducting public business but you look at the matter of ward and it's all people that are appointed by so this is what happened when when they filed their motion to dismiss saying that they were a local public entity that's not profit we did our research and found the raw case and basically crafted a set of request wit whether they had with made up actually just kirby ordered them to admit almost all the facts and saw the only facts average the facts that are in this case are the question that fact and then we also have a contract and  the control of the means and methods of running the zoo and the means and methods by the contractor and by the statute says that chicago's a logical society that has complete control over that and again i think you look back at  else might this apply to well if you look at the port of manatee act they have listed and there are a number of entities including including the zeroes so there's no question that museum districts are the type of local public entity that is where you know they have to be engaged in what is a traditional government function and operating zoo has cultivated that like something but it doesn't sound like it's not a government function it's not a traditional government function like you know look at the constitution and see what the basic function of government is to determine what conduct in public businesses that a museum is cultural and it certainly has a benefit to the public but it's not a traditional function of a local government in addition to whether the activity has to benefit the entire community without limitation so we're talking here about relevant aspects of ownership and control but  point is that not for profit corporations organized for the purpose of this is of conducting public business is a broad term to be broadly construed according to hubbell is  it has to have some meaning independent of it ok let's go back with that in mind over some of the things the council talked about one we are not asking the court to overrule care we want the court to apply carroll to recognize that ownership in this context has to be ownership of the property not the business itself because the business doesn't have shares or can be owned by any council was talking about how well the zoo is merely a cultural institution but i think justice burke made the point of free public access and it's not just well this is open one day a week to anyone who comes in for stroll it's also open the year round for organized groups of illinois school children because it has an educational purpose as well as providing only you had a symphony orchestra it had subscribers and if you wanted to go to the symphony you had to pay for the privilege the court recognized that the society that the something any existed for the benefit of its members you had to pay to get it it was not subject to a mandate a free public access unlike this case the relationship between the two and that this is not a mere landlord tenant relationship the district i charge rent the this trick is intimately involved in every aspect but i think it says that after the budget summit it is passed upon by the commissioners and all items which are not expressed in disapproved  are considered so they have a right to view them now the record doesn't show how often it's and i would like to think that if you had a good relationship between the district and the zoo that would not occur but in terms of accountability for the expenditure of public funds the district reserves the right to veto and that's what's important not whether it's ever been exercised because obviously based on the relationship there may never be an occasion to be took the mr aris is just a follow up on that excuse me that's only to the public funds that according to the way cleans are somewhere between forty nine percent and less correct and i would have to say in all honesty that in a time of financial challenge where there is a limit public visitor i stolen one day i want to park my car decides how much it's hard for parking the car government under this agreement the district decides how much is charged for parking the car and any money if i get in for free during a free day if i'm part of an organized group of school children i get in the year round if i pay five starts going around looking at the animals collections if the zoo wants to remove an animal get the sale proceeds the proceeds have to be devoted to the upkeep and augmentation of this it so there are these limits it is not a mere la relationship   the issue of whether or not this is a political subdivision it doesn't address doesn't address carol it doesn't address the tort immunity it doesn't address the concept of public business in fact public corporations organized for purposes of conducting public business i know it's it's a privilege to address the court in oral argument if there anything that i would ask you to take away from my argument this it is first of all that this case presents specific issues that are not present in all other cases that have come before this court in the past we have a mandate of free public access we have direct public funding through a tax that has to be kept in a specific fund dispersed has to be based on a property critical to the mission of the non profits we have representation and government bodies and we have significant control over zoo operations one last thing before  council referred to paragraph three of the agreement that talks about the zoo having control and management it's important of the park and its collect control whether we're talking about money whether we're talking about the visitors two million of whom visited the zoo last year whether we're talking about significant oversight and representation