McHenry County Blog

This sign was found in the room where vending machines are in the United States Capitol, House of Representatives side.

It says,

EMERGENCY ESCAPE HOODS

DO NOT USE IN CASE OF FIRE
USE ONLY WHEN DIRECTED BY THE POLICE
CONTAINER IS ALARMED
BREAK SEAL BY LIFTING TOP OF CABINET

It must be a reminder of the anthrax scare in Washington several years ago.

When I saw the picture accompanying this Pioneer Press story, I couldn’t help but think that the Countryside’s title could have been better:

Local group thanks legislators for help in new referendum law

Receiving a plaque is State Rep. Mike Tryon (R-Crystal Lake), who worked hard to remedy the harm done by Cheryl Meyer, the woman handing him the award, and head of the B.E.S.T. tax hike committee.

(The official name of the committee is Building Exceptional School Together.)

Meyer lives in Huntley School District 158, but was the paid local organizer for Carpentersville School District 300’s two successful tax hike referendums this past spring.

McHenry County Blog revealed Meyer received over $6,000 in December from the District 300 tax hike committee.

Newly hired school administrator Glen Stewart was elected last year with the help of B.E.S.T. He will be paid $101,000, plus benefits.

The Huntley School District 158 chickens are being plucked annually as a result of the false advertising by the B.E.S.T. tax hike political action committee.

I couldn’t call up his name when I wrote this article about Fox River Grove’s fighting its second unsightly cellular tower.

When I saw his picture (which I have reproduced here) in the Tribune’s obituaries, however, I knew Dave Doty was the man who helped Fox River Grove re-locate a cell phone tower in the late 1990’s.

It was scheduled to be erected east of Route, but with Dave’s help, it was moved to the village water tower.

Dave also served as Lyons Township Republican Committeeman when I was running for State Comptroller in 1982. I have to admit to be ill prepared when my campaigning took me to his organization’s meeting, but I immediately recognized him. He gave me a quite generous introduction, even though I did not know he was the committeeman. (Maybe he did not notice my surprised look when we shook hands.)

Dave was only 61.

There are going to be some interesting questions asked of Democratic (Party) Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel.

And, it won’t be at a press conference.

It will be at a deposition, unless Emanuel can extract himself from a federal lawsuit just filed Thursday.

8th congressional district peace candidate Bill Scheurer apparently didn’t get the 14,000 signatures required to get on the ballot as a candidate for the Moderate Party, but, besides running a write-in campaign, Scheurer has sued various Democratic Party officials, including Emanuel.

McHenry County Blog reported last Friday how Scheurer was duped by what certainly must be a Democratic Party operative.

The operative, whose name remains unknown, used a card from an employee of first term Democratic Party Congressman Dan Lapinski to convince Scheurer than he was the employee, a guy who runs a political consulting firm on the side.

The impostor promised to get at least 10,000 petition signatures for Scheurer, but didn’t deliver, leaving Scheurer short of the necessary 14,000 names a week before filing.

Scheurer won’t be on the ballot this fall, but he will extract revenge until the suit is concluded. Besides the suit, he will run a write-in campaign.

Congressman Lipinski is also named in the suit.

= = = = =

Congressman Rahm Emanuel is show on top, Bill Scheurer in the middle and Congressman Dan Lipinski on the bottom.

Today, I have another “Dead End” warning sign--something like yesterday’s, but a bit more threatening.

This sign features a shark between the words “Dead” and “End.”

It was for sale at the for-some-unknown reason “National” Aquarium in Baltimore on the harbor. ( I asked an employee and she had no idea why it had the “National” moniker.)

Baltimore’s Aquarium is certainly worth seeing, but I think the Shedd Aquarium is better.

Then Leader True Value Hardware store co-owner Ted Wagner was the first to enlighten me about the visual pollution of cellular phone towers. One was about to be built across Route 14 from the shopping center where his store was located.

He called me in Springfield and asked for help.

After hearing the name of the company--AT&T--I remembered that I had had dinner with him in Traverse City at an American Legislative Exchange Council convention in 1992, the summer after I was nominated for state representative. (His company paid for the dinner.)

I called him with Fox River Grove’s alternative location—the water tower above the grade school.

His company had already signed a contract with the first property owner, so was unwilling to pay for the privilege of re-locating, but was willing to re-locate. And did. Fox River Grove is still paying for that.

So, when I heard that Fox River Grove had annexed an area in the same vicinity of that 1990’s cellular tower, it did not surprise me. People there seem more serious than most about visual pollution.

It led me to remember how obstinate McHenry County Zoning Czarina Sue Ehardt was when I asked that surrounding property owners be notified of future cell phone tower zoning applications in unincorporated areas. My pitch was that such a notice to Fox River Grove in the instance that I explained above would have probably short-circuited the original contract and saved a lot of trouble.

She came up with her own loony alternative—send notices to each legislator representing the area. If they wished, then they could notify surrounding residents.

Let’s see.

County government has the lists of who lives where. They're called voter registration lists and property tax records.

It was a typical pass-the-buck idea that gives a bad name to government.

Ehardt is still sending the cell phone tower zoning notices to legislators. How ridiculous!

Now, history almost repeated itself.

Another cellular tower threatened Fox River Grove.

Neither the adjoining property owners nor the village's government was notified of it. Only because of the grapevine did Fox River Grove officials learn soon enough to be able to have a say. And, they had to annex the cell phone site to have that say.

All because of a recalcitrant county official.

The result was that Fox River Grove decided to forcibly annex 38 acres containing the tower site, which the village surrounds. It contains a residential subdivision (Welch’s) where residents already have a fear that Fox River Grove may want to condemn their property so the village can replace their homes with sales tax paying stores. (I know because I put them in touch with a good condemnation attorney while I was state representative.)

That same fear apparently surfaced at the village board meeting, according to Pioneer Press reporter Kari A. Lee’s story:

(Village President Kay) Laube said the village does not plan to instigate any new commercial development in the area.

Also in the story was this information:

The village had attempted to work with U.S. Cellular to have a tower built within village limits prior to the annexation. Two locations were proposed -- the water tower at Grove Avenue and Algonquin Road, and near the fire station on Algonquin Road.

The City of Crystal Lake also forcibly annexed property between Route 14, Virginia Street Road and South Main Street in order to forestall the erection of a cellular tower.

Finally found the Illinois Family Institute’s picture of Judy Topinka in the (Gay) Pride Parade.

Just in case anyone thought she would stop irritating those for whom the issue is important.

The other picture is from the NBC web site.

There are two street signs today.

The first says, “Cemetery Ln.”

As you might guess, it leads to a cemetery. This one is in Churchill, Maryland, which is where my parents, brother-in-law and maternal relatives are buried.

On one of my father’s visits to my mother’s burial site, he noticed the “Dead End” sign and concluded that it was a bit too graphic. He even wrote a letter to the Annapolis and Baltimore newspapers with his complaint. At least one of them was published.

Discussing it with him while he was being treated for lung cancer in Washington, D.C., I joked that the sign could be “No Outlet” instead.

When we in Maryland earlier this month for a Skinner cousin reunion, I took these photographs.

As I was driving home from Cub Scout Camp, I heard that the United States Supreme Court has validated the GOP Texas legislature’s re-districting of its congressional seats.

Congressional districts must be re-districted after every census, of course, but, under the guidance of former congressional leader Dick Armey, a newly elected and Republican-controlled legislature decided to do it a second time in order to elect more Republicans

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is OK to re-district congressional seats more than once a decade.

Here are the implications I’ve thought of so far for Illinois:

· Republican congressmen are going to be a whole lot more supportive of GOP gubernatorial candidate Judy Topinka than they otherwise would have been.

One way to stop Illinois Democrats from lowering the hammer of reapportionment would be to elected Judy Topinka. After all, reapportionment doesn’t become law until a governor signs a bill. Congressional candidates like David McSweeney and Peter Roskam now have a real reason to gin up their troops for Topinka. Republican congressmen will also probably start being a big help in Topinka’s fund raising quest. She may end up with enough money for a real television campaign this fall.

· All congressmen are going to be a lot more responsive to state legislators than they previously have been.

Federal congressmen generally pretty much ignore state elections. They have had no stake, except for the once-every-ten-year’s reapportionment. From now on, state legislators have a choke chain that did not exist before.

United States Representatives now have a large stake in seeing their party’s candidates elected to the General Assembly. Before, any stake was limited to the elections ending in the year “0.”

Besides that, I can think of one change in Federal legislation that would receive bi-partisan state legislative support...nationwide.

When the 1992 re-districting was forthcoming, Congressman Phil Crane sent a letter to Illinois legislators promising to lower the tax rate on non-congressional campaign funds. He didn’t deliver.

Currently, in a typical Animal Farm scenario, congressmen’s political action committees have a 15% tax rate, while state and local PAC’s pay 35%. That probably is to make it much harder for state and local politicians to accumulate the resources to challenge a sitting congressman. That incredible disparity in tax rate much change.

· If Democrats can reach agreement on new district lines, there will be more Democratic Party and fewer Republican Party congressmen than there are now.

That's pretty obvious.

Although the Democrats would have time to pass reapportionment legislation before a Governor Judy Topinka would take office, there is not guarantee that they will.

I remember trying to convince Lee Daniels to pass legislation to force the Metropolitan Sanitary District board members to run from single member districts, instead of at-large, when he was House Speaker. For some reason, he refused to do so, even though it would have assured at least some GOP suburban representation on the MSD’s board. Maybe there was a side deal I wasn’t privy to.

There could be a side deal here between Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and United State House Speaker Dennis Hastert, assuming Madigan needs any incentive whatsoever to help elect Topinka.

After all, Topinka doesn't want to serve more than one term anyway. She can raise the income tax, becoming a heroine of the Left Stream media for doing the "right thing," and retire on an excellent pension, after Attorney General Lisa Madigan is sworn in as Governor.

Look what is on the NBC Channel 5 web site.

It's after the photo of Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Topinka in the (Gay) Pride Parade.

An article in the Chicago Tribune Wednesday, June 21st, reminds me that it’s time to put this idea into the public arena:

Local legislators should put a Walkup Avenue underpass of the railroad tracks on their “to do” list.

This will not be easy to accomplish because such underpasses costs $20-$40 million.

The article has this startling finding from a national freight railroad group:

rail traffic is projected to increase 66 percent by 2020

Those who have been forced to wait to get through the tracks at Walkup can figure out how much worse the situation will be 14 years from now.

It is true that Crystal Lake already has one underpass. It’s on Route 176 just west of Walkup.


But, Route 176 is not used as a north-south route to get through Crystal Lake.

And, the only McHenry County town on the Union Pacific’s main line without an underpass or any overpass of any kind--Fox River Grove--better re-start the thinking that began after the school bus was hit by the Metra train. Woodstock might want the think about a bigger one, too.

Huntley resident Aileen Seedorf is really disgusted with the way the Huntley School Board is running the district.

She attends meetings regularly.

When she heard that the outside auditor had passed out a management letter to Financial Advisory Committee members in which he described the letter as “an integral part of the audit,” she decided she wanted to read it.

Seedorf filed a Freedom of Information request for it.

Soon-to-be-gone temporary Superintendent Robert Hammon rejected her request, of course. If you could push this bad publicity off onto a successor, you probably would, too.

Seedorf was not satisfied with the rejection, so she prepared a quite complex appeal to the head of the tax district’s governing body—Mike Skala, the school board president. She presented the document to Skala in the public comment portion of last Wednesday’s meeting at which school board member Glen Stewart was given a $101,000 job. (You can see part of the interchange in this picture.)

The devastating part of Seedorf’s letter was her pointing out that Hammon had not quoted the Freedom of Information Act correctly. He left out such an important part when supposedly quoting section 7/1.f and did not even use the correct punctuation to indicate that his citation of the paragraph was a partial one. I’ll quote it below in its entirety, as did Seedorf, putting in boldface type what Hammon decided to omit:

(f) Preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated, except that specific record or relevant portion of a record shall not be exempt when the record is publicly cited and identified by the head of the public body. The exemption provide in this paragraph (f) extends to all those records of officers and agencies of the General Assembly that pertain to the preparation of legislative documents.

“Words were specifically omitted from the citation, ”Seedorf wrote, then, citing them.

Next, Seedorf quoted the Illinois Attorney General’s web site regarding the purpose of the Open Meetings and Freedom of Information Acts:

Both…endeavor to open the workings of government to the public, shed light on government actions and, in the process, strengthen our democracy.

The outside audit, Seedorf continued presented the school district audit “in its final completed form…It was distributed to board members…”and, then, quotes the final paragraph of the first page of the Auditor’s letter:

In accordance with Government Auditing Standards, we have also issued our report dated April 18, 2006 on our consideration of Consolidated School District 158’s internal control over financial reporting and on our tests of its compliance with certain provisions of laws, regulations, contracts and grant agreements and other matters.

Seedorf goes on to state,

That report is an integral part of the audit …and should be considered in assessing the results of our audit.”

In his rejection letter, temporary Supt. Hammon said what Seedorf requested was a

“draft copy not to be reproduced without the permission of William F. Gurrie and Company.”

Seedorf’s rebuttal?

Whether or not the document I have requested bears any “draft” terminology, the fact is that it was made public and you were present at the open meeting in which it was made public. It may have been a draft on April 18, 2006 when it was written, however, on May 30, 2006, when it was presented at a public meeting, it became a public document.

Seedorf then quotes a Northwest Herald story containing “…specific quotes from the document I am requesting…”

This young man at the Washington Monument was delighted to have me take a picture of his tee shirt.

It says,

I'M THINKING OF A
PERFECTLY GOOD
EXPLANATION

The message is enclosed by a "thought bubble" that one might see in a cartoon.

First, let me tell what I think the real story is on House Speaker Dennis Hastert and the Prairie Pathway.

I think it is offers some enterprising reporter the opportunity to determine the interconnection of infrastructure and politics.

Right after I first heard of the proposal I was driving through Kendall County from I-88 to Route 47. I saw a lot of Inland Real Estate signs. I assumed that this land was already owned by outsiders for speculative purposes.

I don’t want to single out Inland for any purpose other than I know the firm is into land speculation, as undoubtedly are many others.

The real question that takes more resources than I have is to, as the guys said in “All the President’s Men,”

follow the money.

Breaking secret land trusts is tough. Only when they try to sell property to public entities must their owners’ names be revealed. (Or, in this case, when hints must be given in a congressman's income disclosure filing.) And, by the time of the sale, any “original” speculator may be long gone…off to the next land speculation frontier.

I have seen four Illinois articles/columns on the Hastert deal this past week.

The Sunday before last’s headline in Elgin’s Daily Courier-News best described the question that calls to be answered:

Who benefits from Prairie Parkway bid?

That is indeed the underlying question.

Did purchasers of land nearby contribute to Hastert’s political committees? If so, can a pattern be found between the land purchase dates and the contributions? (If it were not for Illinois’ secret land trusts, the answer to that question could be probably be found much more easily.)

In Matthew DeFour’s article a long-time opponent who sold her land to the Kane County Forest Preserve District for under market prices explains the history of the Pathway.

Also the Sunday before last, the Chicago Tribune weighed in on the more narrow question of

How Hastert benefited from sale

It reveals how Hastert reinvested the profits in other land, some local, some in Wisconsin. It is narrow in scope, seeing to find if Hastert got paid more than market value (apparently, not). There’s much more, but does not answer the very basic “Who benefits from the Prairie Pathway?” question asked in the Elgin paper’s headline.

The Chicago Sun-times Lynn Sweet weighed in with a column last Thursday entitled,

Hastert should have revealed land trust

The headline pretty much sums up what I concluded in this post.

Here’s what Sweet dug out of the House Ethics Committee manual:
The disclosure exercise, according to the House Ethics Manual is

"intended to provide the information necessary to allow Members' constituencies to judge their official conduct in light of possible financial conflicts with private holdings. Review of a Member's financial conduct occurs in the context of the political process.'' Furthermore, disclosures are supposed to "inform the public about the financial interests of government officials in order to increase public confidence in the integrity of government and to deter potential conflicts of interest.''

She further points out that the land purchased (to save capital gains tax) was not specifically described, as the follow seems to require:

"The identity of the property, in addition to its category of value, must be specified. Disclosure of real property should include a description sufficient to permit its identification (e.g., street address or plat and map location).''

A second Sweet column appears on Friday. In it, she allows Hastert to defend himself. The column’s title is

Windfall tied to 'Hastert Highway'? No, speaker insists

Well-paved road to political perdition
The highway to Hastertland

is the title this past Sunday in which the Tribune kept the story alive locally with an opinion page contribution. It was by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, described as “a long-time critic of congressional ethics rules.”

The professor says that Hastert’s “transaction is neither unlawful nor unusual under the current ethics rules.”

He then points out that Hastert “became a millionaire while in public service” and proceeds to attack congressional ethics regulations. For example,

Members have resisted any effort to require that they create blind investment trusts or to recuse themselves from any matter in which they have a financial interest. Unlike judges, they continue to legislate in areas where they hold significant financial interests.

More strongly,

The current ethics rules are nothing more than a license to steal.

The professor was not speaking specifically of anything Hastert did in his land deal, I would stress.

There is another short Courier News article in which the Kendall County Board Chairman John Church faces off against board member Anne Vickery on what recently approved interchanges at county roads, including one near the land Hastert just sold, will mean to local residents.

Here are the other articles, I have written on this subject:
June 14 Hastert Sprawlway Intersection,
June 15 More on Hastert's Land Profits,
June 16 Dissecting Denny’s Defense.

Here's the web site of Citizens Against the Sprawlway.

Claiming that Huntley School Board residents “have to be shaking their heads,” the Northwest Herald put a critical spotlight on the District 158 school board Monday.

Appropriately, the editorial, entitled,

D-158 hire raises questions

reminds readers of the last rate increase referendum and the resignation of the previous superintendent and finance director “amid rampant public criticism. And after repeated questions over the fiscal management of the district.”

In something of an understatement, the Herald says the process for hiring school board member Glen Stewart was “flawed.”

In essence, the Herald says,

The (recommending) panel members were in a position, essentially, of “interviewing their boss.”

Then, the heavy criticism:

even the slightest appearance of a potential conflict should have been avoided. The way this was handled by the school district shows a disturbing lack of judgement, particularly in light of other recent events in the district.

The paper suggests that Stewart should have resigned before he applied for the top administrative post.

And, finally, a line that might get the attention of the board members up for election next April:

The District 158 school board needs to start showing better judgment, or the residents in the district need to vote in new members.

For more McHenry County Blog, click here.

Chicanery in Wonder Lake

I was trying to think of a headline for this story and the word “chicanery” came to be last night.

It was not until I typed it this morning that I realized how much it resembled “Chicago.”

And Chicago politics is what this little article is about.

The village of Wonder Lake, non-partisan like Chicago, but controlled by Democrats to the best of my knowledge, convinced three subdivisions to join its municipal corporation. They are
· Wooded Shores,
· White Oaks Bay and
· Hickory Falls 1 & 2
But, in order to have their roads accepted into the village system, thus relieving the homeowners of maintenance costs, the subdivisions had to bring their roads up to village standards.

Bringing private subdivision roads up to township standards for similar purposes is an issue that goes back to my first public meeting in McHenry County. It was in unincorporated Cary’s Silver Lakes subdivision. That meeting was held at the Algonquin Township garage.

There were problems with the constitutionality of the special assessment project, so, in the 1970 constitution, language was developed to allow Special Service Area (SSA) assessments. Essentially, if an area had a special infrastructure need, the local county or municipality could levy a special tax.

Wonder Lake officials and leaders of the subdivisions apparently agreed to use the SSA process to raise the money necessary to bring their roads up to standard.

I’m certainly not aware of the details, but the cost came in way higher than the homeowners had expected. Maybe it was because the price of asphalt increased so much as the price of oil increased 50% or so.

In any event citizens in the three subdivisions started passing petitions to invalidate the Special Service Area assessments. They had 60 days to get the signatures of more than 50% of the property owners.

The 60 days were to be up last Sunday. In election law, if a due date falls on a weekend, the deadline is rolled over until Monday.

When Wooded Shores resident Tom Foss tried to turn in his petitions at the Wonder Lake Village Hall, it was locked. He finally went to Crystal Lake and took them to village attorney Richard Curran’s office and I’m told that Curran accepted them. Later, I’m told Curran called him and told him to take them to the village clerk’s office, but the village clerk refused to accept all he had in his possession, which were copies.

White Oaks Bay petition passer Dale Schultz also tried to turn in her petitions to invalidate her SSA. She also found the doors locked.

I don’t have time to call the participants right now, so I don’t know whether she tried to turn hers in Friday or Monday or both days, but the result would have been the same.

The Wonder Lake Village Hall was locked both Monday and Friday when the petitioners tried to turn in their petitions.

Does this sound like Chicago-politics or what?

One Wonder Lake resident said the following:
I call it a monarchy or a dictatorship.

The office was locked Friday and Monday. Now the newly-annexed subdivisions have been shown what the village is like.
I would add that Wonder Lake has an election next spring. My experience is that when new people move into a new subdivision, they end up taking over the village board.

These new people in Wonder Lake, of course, have not moved into new homes, so they don’t have to get organized to develop an effective campaign organization. The contacts already exist in the three subdivisions and viable candidates—the petition passers—already exist.

It is going to be a really interesting political season between now and next April in Wonder Lake.

The Establishment up there may raise a lot of money from the bond houses and asphalt companies that will pave the roads, but it will take more than thousands of dollars to beat a grass roots campaign.

I’ll bet the spurned petition passers will be making homemade signs this summer.

And, if they want cardboard and yard sign wire, I have some I have accumulated that my wife would be happy to get out of the garage.

In Crystal Lake’s Jewel parking lot I found not one, but two, Tiger window stickers.

Ah, the child within must be shared.

Here is the press release Republican congressional candidate David McSweeney issued after learning Moderate Party candidate Bill Scheurer had filed petitions to run against him and incumber Democrat Melissa Bean:

8th District Illinois Candidate David McSweeney welcomes Independent Candidate Bill Scheurer to the race

Barrington Township: David McSweeney, candidate for Congress in Illinois' 8th Congressional District, is welcoming Independent Candidate William (Bill) Scheurer to the race for Congress. McSweeney was informed that Scheurer has filed petitions to secure a place on the ballot today and that he had also filed the necessary documents to run as a write-in candidate if his access to the ballot is attacked.

"I received a call from Bill Scheurer today informing me that he had filed petitions to be on the ballot in November for the race for Congress in the 8th District. It is my understanding that thousands of District residents signed those petitions asking that Bill be on the ballot and I am going to respect that and invite him to participate in all of the 24 debates that we hope to have throughout the course of this election," said McSweeney.

"Bill also informed me of some very disturbing news about dubious efforts at thwarting his candidacy. I told Bill that I will not challenge his right to be on the ballot and I am calling on Melissa Bean to make a similar pledge on behalf of her campaign and her surrogates. If thousands of people want Bill Scheurer's name to appear on the ballot then it should be there," said McSweeney.

"Bill Scheurer and I don't find a lot we agree upon when it comes to the issues but I respect his access to the ballot and his willingness to debate the issues. I would hope that Melissa Bean will afford him the same respect," said McSweeney.

David McSweeney resides in Barrington Township within the 8th Congressional District with his wife Margaret and their two daughters.

Whether he had 14,000 signatures or not is unknown at this point, but Moderate Party candidate Bill Scheurer is listed as having filed for congress in the 8th congressional district on the State Board of Elections web site.

Scheurer can be accurately described as a "peace candidate."

Scheurer was the victim of a dirty trick last week in which a political consultant impersonator did not deliver the 18,000 signatures that he had promised.

Reached in his car, McHenry County Blog asked how many signatures he filed. His enigmatic answer:

The official public answer is, "We filed 10-12,000 less than the number we would have filed had we not been the victim of criminal fraud. We filed 10-12,000 more signatures than either of the corporate party candidates filed to get on the ballot themselves."

(David McSeeney just emailed me, saying he filed,"2,500-3,000 signatures." Do the math and you will see that Scheurer has precious few signatures over the 14,000 required or he is a bit short.)

A copy of our filing was pulled with three minutes after it was filed.

We are pursuing several avenues of criminal investigation I have filed to be on the ballot to be on the ballot as a third party candidate. I have also filed with all three of the counties a declaration of candidacy for a write-in candidate.

We believe that the Democratic Party is involved in a fraud against democracy itself. And the way they can wipe their hands clean of that is to welcome me into the race like the other party.

Scheuer said he had

4 or 5-dozen volunteers in the streets

this past weekend.

I have previously suggested that the Democrats have the most to lose if Scheurer is on the ballot. Substantiating that opinion was David McSweeney's announcement that he would not challenge Scheurer's petitions.

It will be interesting to see who challenges Scheurer's petitions. A good clue is that House Speaker and Democratic Party Chairman Mike Madigan's former parliamentarian Mike Kasper is the person who picked up copies of Scheurer's petitions.

For more information on Scheurer, click here.

Filing as third party candidates for governor against power party candidates Rod Blagojevich and Judy Topinka were the following gubernatorial candidates:

· Randall Stufflebeam of the Constitution Party
· Rich Whitney of the Green Party and
· James (Shinn) Blaine of the Independence Party

Stufflebeam won the game of “chicken,” filing last, and will be last on the ballot, if he withstands an expected ballot challenge from supporters of Judy Topinka. Stufflebeam is a social conservative who would not have participated in the Gay Pride Parade yesterday, as Topinka did.

Stufflebean told McHenry County Blog:

"We ended up filing 4,382."

The answer to the question about whom he expected to challenge his petitions:

"The Republicans."

Stufflebeam said that the Democrats were there ready to contest (Green Party Whitney's petitions), but

"Apparently, the Republicans ran out of time because it was five o’clock."

The Green Party seems most confident in its having gathered the 25,000 necessary signatures, which, I hasten to add is 5 times the number required by the power party candidates.

The Independence Party candidate did not file a full slate of candidates, so will be disqualified, if anyone cares to challenge its petitions’ sufficiency.

Phone messages announcing that the Huntley School Board has hired a fellow school board member at $101,000 a year are being made to Huntley and Lake in the Hills homes.

The messages point out that school board member Larry Snow was the only one to vote, “No,” and asks that those in support of Snow give him a call at 847-515-2427.

McHenry County Blog talked to Snow and was told that he is not the one making the phone calls, but he thinks the informational message is appropriate in terms of truthfulness and disclosure as not all residents read the newspapers or have internet service.

He further said,

The Board of Education has stated in the past that it wants to keep the community well informed. The other board members were rather boastfully proud of their votes at the meeting, so they might consider the phone message a 'good news' notice to residents. They might even be happy to show which side of the issue they are on, and contrast their votes and judgment to my own.

It’s always appropriate to inform the community. After all, everyone who ran for school board pledged open and honest communications.

Had to chuckle when I read the comment of incoming Huntley School District 158 Superintendent John Burkey in Sunday’s front page Northwest Herald article.

He said

The easy way out would have been to go with a guy that might have sailed through easier.

Of course, the sailing could not have been much easier in the board room...unless the lone minority board member Larry Snow had not won election or had been intimidated into silence by the iron-fisted rule of the 6-member majority.

Glen Stewart, the man who got the $101,000 job, was elected the same time Snow was—last spring. Stewart was supported by the other five members of the board, all of whom were associated with the fraudulently promoted rate referendum which was grossly mis-described by the ruling board faction’s political action committee B.E.S.T.

Was it on purpose that the Northwest Herald’s headline contained the word “best”?

D-158: We got best fit

If so, what irony.

As I reported last Thursday in the very early morning hours, Snow was not officially informed that Glen Stewart was to be hired. He didn’t even get an agenda of the secret meeting at which the employment decision was discussed—with Stewart himself being behind the closed meeting’s doors.

When Snow tried to comment in the public comment period before the Executive Session, he got precious little time.

Snow got cut off in mid-sentence while discussing how he thought it had been “inappropriate for Stewart to be voting on the qualifications for Chief Operating Officer” by Board President Mike Skala.

The job description contained a requirement that the person selected have what I consider some irrelevant educational certification.

And, after the secret meeting, the 6-member majority was ready to vote without public discussion.

“There needs to be discussion,” Snow interjected.

Right after he delivered his quotable:

I think this is a political patronage decision in a Daley-style hiring sham,

Board President Skala said,

I find it hard to believe that you could make that comment.

The Herald, which did not have a reporter at the meeting, wrote Sunday,

Yet questions lingered over how fairly administrators could evaluate Stewart's candidacy while he remained on the board. District officials said they consulted their lawyer to make sure interviewing and hiring Stewart was legal.

The Daily Herald and I asked some similar questions about ethics.

The story points out that two weeks before Stewart was hired, he voted to raise his future boss’s salary 5.6 percent to $113,500. I wonder what his benefit package is.

The Northwest Herald article did not point out that Stewart was not working when he applied for the job.

In my first article about how McHenry County Metra chairman Jeff Ladd had come out of the mass transit arena the way he came in—calling for a tax hike—I wrote about the Crystal Lake debate with Jeff Ladd speaking in favor of the RTA referendum and all the legislators living in McHenry County speaking against it. (My second story--probably more balanced--on Ladd is here.)

Now, former State Senator Jack Schaffer (R-Cary), one of those legislators, has been named to replace Ladd on the Metra Board by the county board chairmen of Kane, McHenry, Lake and Will Counties. Only Will has a Democrat as chairman.

Is that irony or what?

Both the Chicago Tribune and the Northwest Herald did stories on the appointment.

Jack’s father worked for the Chicago and Northwestern and his billboard business was certainly assisted by that connection.

It is hard to think of a better person to serve on the Metra Board at this point in time.

After gaining control of all branches of state government in 2003, the Democrats have been salivating at the opportunity to take control of Chicagoland’s mass transit, the same way they took control of the tollway and the Illinois Department of Transportation.

(Has anyone noticed that McHenry County has received no major highway improvements, despite its massive increase in population?)

Jack knows the history of the RTA fight. The only Democrat left who was involved in the original fight is House Speaker Mike Madigan.

When the Democrats begin their next effort to grab mass transit power in the suburbs, Jack will be ready with appropriate and quotable comments.

He also will not be intimidated by RTA Chairman Jim Riley, who was a state representative while Schaffer was state senator. Riley is a Downstater transplanted from Jacksonville in the early 1980’s by Governor Jim Thompson to run McCormick Place and Navy Pier.

Schaffer will be paid $15,000 per year.
= = = = =
Somewhere I have a color photograph of Jack from our 45th high school reunion last year but, instead of spending too much time trying to find it, I got the Secretary of State’s Office to provide this 1998 Blue Book black and white picture when Jack was Governor Jim Edgar’s Commissioner of Banks and Real Estate or whatever it was called then. It’s now a division of the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

This decal is a bit fuzzy, but it certainly appears to be a representation Albrecht Durer’s Praying Hands.

My grandmother Addie Watling-Skinner used to have a glass version on her coffee table…although I’m not sure she drank coffee

Well, he’s really an editor.

The Northwest Herald’s Kevin Lyons, reacting to the virtual banishment of a Hampshire village trustee who told someone what had happened behind closed doors, cringed Thursday:

But what makes me cringe is the perpetuation of the notion that it is verboten for elected officials make public issues discussed during closed session. That simply is not the case.

He continues,

Elected officials are elected to serve the public – not each other. Sometimes it is in the best interest of the public for a public official to break ranks with fellow trustees and shed light on an issue that others believe should remain behind closed doors.

Those other elected officials often react with much hostility when this happens, but that doesn't always make them right.

That reminds me of the Crystal Lake Park District suit against former commissioner Leona Nelson. They accused the 80-something great-grandmother of sexually harassing an employee, plus releasing some information she got in Executive Session. One wonders what lawyer advised the board that releasing information from a secret session is illegal.

The board majority was so upset that it illegally banned her from her last meeting.

In any event, when Nelson sued, the park district backed off on that charge about releasing the info from the secret meeting.

So, if something happens you don’t think should have occurred at an Executive Session, you can call either Kevin or me. Either of us would be happy to hear from you. My number is 815-459-3506.

And, thinking of the park district, I remember one warm summer night standing out in front of the Main Beach building while the park board was holding a secret meeting.

When they came out, I asked, “What did you do?”

“We bought a boat,” was the reply.

“Would you like to go back and do it legally?” I asked, explaining that they had to take action in open session.

They didn’t, so I filed a rather detailed complaint with the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office.

My understanding of the law is that if the State’s Attorney declines to enforce the Open Meetings Act that a citizen can do so. I believe there was a 30-day period to get into court.

The Friday afternoon before the Monday when the deadline was to expire I got a call from the State’s Attorney’s top assistant telling me that he refused to take action on this most blatant violation of the Open Meetings Act that I have ever seen. Needless to say, I did not have time to put anything together by Monday afternoon.

Fortunately, that state’s attorney is no longer in office. He doesn't deserve to be.

I’m not sure when the switch was made, but what used to be called the “Gay Pride Parade” isn’t anymore.

Now, it’s called the “Pride Parade.”

Might the Crystal Lake’s controversy have been more subdued if the official name of the Gay Games had been used?

Know what that is?

It’s

Chicago Games, Inc.

That’s who Governor Rod Blagojevich’s administration made out a check for $296,616 in our taxpayer dollars to subsidize the Gay Games.

It’s taken 30-some years for the Gay Pride Parade organizers to drop the “Gay” from its name.

Too bad that the Gay Games organizers are as self-confident.

Here’s one for mothers to remember.

When no other explanation will do, wear this tee shirt:

I’m the Mom
That’s Why!

The Daily Herald’s Jeffrey Gaunt wrote a fascinating story about the legality/ethics of Huntley School District 158 Board’s having hired one of its out-of-work members for a $101,000 job Wednesday at a dinner time meeting.

One of his sources was the lawyer for the state school board association. She said
Often, those hiring decisions are made in rural school districts that have trouble filling certain positions.

Huntley no longer qualifies as rural. The only evidence of the milk cows that Mayor Richard Daley’s grandfather may have inspected is at the McHenry County Historical Museum in Union.

Apparently, something, maybe the original job description required that the person hired have educational experience.

As Gaunt’s story says, Glen Stewart

was one of 14 applicants for the job, has no formal work experience in education administration and, as a member of the board, agreed to drop the certification requirements that would have precluded him from applying for the position.

I wrote a story on March 6, 2006 entitled, “Why Aren’t Businessmen in Charge of School Finances?” It is about a state law passed in 1975 (and initiated by a teachers’ union) requiring school business managers to have a master’s degree in education was ill conceived. The law was passed when the country was in a recession and all sorts of competent business people were being laid off.

Obviously, the educational establishment wanted to keep those jobs for people in their educational track.

So, dropping the educational certification requirements strike me as a plus, not a negative.

That Stewart apparently took part in the process which changed the qualifications so that he might have a chance to get the job in question has raised questions. David Morrison of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform told the Daily Herald

the awkward part is that Stewart was involved in the decision to change the job requirements.

“If they vote to create a position, and then leave public office to take the position, you have to wonder.”

I don’t automatically assume that the soon-to-be ex-Huntley School Board member Glen Stewart won’t be able to do an adequate or even good job. It’s hard to see how an infusion of business skills into the educational establishment could do harm.

The fact that he and the other five school board members who selected him were part of the B.E.S.T. political action group that so misunderstood what the last referendum would do is troubling. So is the six-member majority’s refusal to take seriously the financial accounting discrepancies that obviously exist, as is their refusal to release the outside auditor’s management letter, which the auditor said was an important part of the audit.

= = = = =
The photo above, which just popped up from the pile beneath my computer is of Stewart extending his hand of thanks to Huntley School Board President Mike Skala.

John Coonen, who headed up fund raising to save Crystal Lake’s Dole Mansion from a caterer or a developer after a Crystal Lake Park District referendum failed, has taken his skills on the road, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Coonen has been hired to raise money to save the Patten House in Palatine. A $20 tour is scheduled for noon to 4 this Sunday.

This is the June 15, 2006, column by Susan Sovereign, a weekly columnist for the Sumner Press in Lawrence County, Illinois.

The column is about picking cherries from a friend's tree, baking a pie and her husband's reaction.

No one could make this up.

If you want to increase the size of the print, just click on the image. Sorry that the column is too long to allow me to capture it all at once.

     

Counterbalance to yesterday’s Muslim bumper sticker is seen here.

This van’s license plate leaves as little doubt to its owner’s religion as yesterday’s bumper sticker did:

KOSHER are the letters on the license plate.

There are several bumper stickers, most of which I shall need assistance in interpretation. I'll show you an enlargement of the bumper stickers. Sorry they are so fuzzy.

What can you tell besides the fact that this is driven by a pizza lover?

I saw this on the same road as yesterday's Muslim bumper sticker.

Democratic Party fraud to keep Bill Scheurer from running against Melissa Bean?

That’s what today's article by Joshua Holland on AlterNet hints.

It seems that Bill Scheurer hired a guy whose day job is with U.S. Rep. Dan Lapinski to collect 18,000 signatures. Or, at least that's what he thought.

The story says,

In mid-May, a man claiming to be Anthony Constantine from AR Consulting got in touch with the Scheurer campaign and pitched the firm's services: for a fee, they'd help collect the needed signatures. They met, and Scheurer hired the firm.

The firm was hired. Scheurer got a progress report every week. Early this week Scheurer was supposed to pay for and receive the signatures. The guy didn’t show up, sick relative and all that.

To continue the story,

finally, Constantine returned a call after being threatened with legal action.

Constantine says it's the first he's heard of any of this. He never met with Scheurer, AR Consulting never cut a deal with his campaign and he definitely doesn't have the thousands of signatures that Scheurer needs to get on the ballot. It's a hard blow for the peace candidate's long-shot candidacy.

There's no evidence linking any of this directly to Bean, or to the Democratic leadership. But Illinois Dems have come out in force against Scheurer -- DCCC Chair Rahm Emmanuel has been particularly vocal.

The only thing that's certain is that Scheurer finds himself missing several thousand precious signatures just ten days before the filing deadline.

One can say that Scheurer was naive to the ways of Illinois Democratic Party politics. That's for sure.

Who do you smell?

If you want to help collect petitions this weekend, here are the details.

Pioneer Press reporter Patrick Corcoran reports in this week’s papers that Bill Scheurer is expecting to the be on the ballot this fall in the 8th congressional district.

Ironically, Scheurer is calling his party the “Moderate Party.”

I checked with the State Board of Elections in Springfield, where third party petitions must be filed by 5 PM next Monday, and no third party candidates' petitions have been filed.

Scheurer, who can accurately be called an “anti-war” candidate, told Pioneer Press he has almost 14,000 signatures on his petitions. 13,950 valid signatures are needed, so it seems likely that Scheurer’s supporters will be collecting signatures up to the time they drive or fly them to Springfield next Monday.

His campaign can rest assured that Michael Madigan’s Democratic Party will challenge his petitions and put on a full-court press to keep Scheurer off the ballot.

Indicating that he is not sure that his candidacy will be able to survive a ballot challenge is his intention to run as a write-in, if he does not get on the ballot.

As expressed previously, I believe that with Scheurer on the ballot, Republican David McSweeney takes out incumbent Democrat Melissa Bean.

Pioneer Press quotes Scheurer as saying he has gotten $30,000 from labor unions in 2006. Many unions are disappointed with Bean’s vote in favor of NAFTA.

Here are the articles I have written on Scheurer's campaign

Feb. 13 Syndicated Tribune Columnist Bob Koehler Labels McSweeney “Likely Challenger”,
Feb. 16 Bob Koehler Column on Melissa Bean’s Potential “Pro-Peace, Pro-Labor” Opponent Bill Scheurer Attacked by “Ballot Bully” Democrats,
Feb. 25 8th Congressional District 3rd Party Aspirant Bill Scheurer Answers the "Spoiler" Question,
March 15 D.C. Paper “The Hill” Focuses on Possible Third Party Peace Challenger Bill Scheurer,
March 16 If This Is Any Indication of What a Peace Candidate on the 8th Congressional Ballot Would Bring To the Table, the Fall Campaign Could Be Exciting,
March 16 How’s This for Some Major Traction for Bill Scheurer’s Campaign to Get on the Ballot for Congress?
March 22 Let the Games Begin – in the 8th Congressional District,
April 12 Leftwing Democrat Commentary on Third Party Peace Candidacy of Bill Scheurer Against Melissa Bean and
June 22 8th Congressional District 3rd Party Candidate Bill Scheurer Seeks Weekend Petition Passing Help

This article was obviously written before Scheurer learned of the dirty trick that had been pulled on him.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Woodstock construction firm Tri-G, Inc., which filed a suit about construction loans 25 years ago in 1981 against Elgin Federal Bank, won’t be able to collect punitive damages against the law firm that did not prosecute its case.

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled, according to the Tribune,

that clients may sue their lawyers for the standard, compensatory damages they would have won if their lawsuit had been properly brought.

And, that’s pretty much it.

I’ll bet other professions wish they had their peers making similar decisions.

Because the law firm failed to prosecute the suit, Tri-G lost by default.

So, the state’s top lawyers seems to have decided that incompetent lawyers should not be punished monetarily like others who provide the public goods and services and deliberately screw up.

As in George Orwell’s novel “Animal Farm,” some animals are more equal that others.

I’m sure some physicians will be thinking that as they read of the 4-3 decision and thinking of how much their malpractice insurance premiums have gone up.

My 8, going on 9-year old son got a kitten when his parakeet died.

Sometimes it must get lonely. It's turned into a computer kitten that sometimes has to be urged not to step on the keyboard.

He seems to be asking, "So, what do you want? You're not going to make me feel guilty."

When the organizers of the Gay Games approached the Crystal Lake Park Board, they predicted 75 people would sign up.

The District’s Superintendent of Recreation Jack Sebesta told me that as of Tuesday only 65 people had signed up for the rowing regatta.

Although the Gay Games had set June 15th as the deadline for athletes to sign up for all events, Sebesta suggested that, like the park district, there may be a public deadline, but that it might be waived, if late sign-ups would not negatively affect the event.

The lower number of actual participants will undoubtedly be offset by the higher than 150 spectators who were originally predicted, egged on by Chicago media attention.

First reported in the Waukegan News-Sun, then the