McHenry County Blog

Looks as if this car owner is from Germany.

The “D” is for Deutschland.

(Did my four years of German leave me with the ability to spell the country's name?)

Six months ago I reported on Governor Rod Blagojevich’s legal expenditures from his campaign fund.

I found the firm of Robbins Schwartz Nicholas Lifton & Tay was paid $6,040 in August, September and October. Monico Pavich & Spevack was paid $6,930.12 for copies in July.

Perhaps more significant was $34,068.38 paid former Governor Jim Thompson’s firm, Winston & Strawn on the last day of December.I went through Blagojevich's expenditures twice, but missed what Rich Miller discovered. Winston & Strawn got another $151,816.66 on January 27th. (Thanks to Rich for correcting me.)

During the last six months small amounts were again paid to Robbins Schwartz Nicholas Lifton & Tay:

1-03 $1,316.25
2-10 $1,560
2-27 $1,023.25
3-24 $762.02
5-09 $916.25
6-12 $828.75

This does not read like a governor who thinks he is in big trouble.

Of course, Blagojevich could already have a separate legal defense fund, whose contributions and expenditures would not be subject to public scrutiny.

And, for those hoping to find lawyers' fees for Republican candidate Judy Topinka, you are going to be disappointed.

Nothing's on her campaign disclosure form.

Topinka tapped her campaign for a relatively modest $23,599.90 in September, 2003. Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw are her lawyers of choice. She first wrote a check to the firm for $10,600 during the third week of May, 2003.

If there is a U.S. Attorney's investigation about her use of state employees for political purposes four years ago, it certainly cannot be very active.

I’m pretty amazed that the continuing investigation of the Chicago Crime Commission has been reported no place but McHenry County Blog May 4th. (Or, did I miss another article somewhere?)

Now I find that Lou Bianchi has written a May 24th letter to

zoning board of appeal members,
county board members,
county elected officials and
the county administrator

stating what seems obvious to me:

They don’t have to talk to the Chicago Crime Commission’s investigators.

While one is a ex-FBI man, the other is a private investigator, so, of course, one would not have to talk to them, if one did not want to.

One does not even have to talk to a Federal investigator, if one does not want to.

There is that Fifth Amendment which allows people to remain silent, just in case they might incriminate themselves.

It is interesting that the letter was sent, though, isn’t it?

The heat is approaching the temperature outside for the Huntley School District 158 Board of Education.

The lone minority board member, Larry Snow, called for a forensic audit, but it was shot down by the Majority Six.

“Huntley School District 158 Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Forensic Audit” was the title of my article on the Majority Six’s summary rejection.

That is not what one might assume if one read the outside auditor’s management letter.

Not to mention what he said to the Board in an open meeting:

I just want you to know that people could easily be stealing money from the district.

Then, a crook appeared in the payroll department. The Daily Herald found someone who said $8-10,000 was missing. As in probably stolen.

Now, the Daily Herald is editorially calling for a forensic audit as the “best way to clear 158 decks.”

What else will work for a district where “taxpayers and officials have likely felt they stepped into the world of ‘what can go wrong has gone wrong’ during the past two years,” it editorially suggests.

Some think that the only way to “clear the decks” is to make sure the Majority Six is not in absolute control after next April’s school board elections. It would be nice if Larry Snow had someone who would second his motion for a forensic audit.

Imagine my surprise to learn that 8th congressional district congresswoman Melissa Bean is now against pork.

I seem to remember her announcing this highway project and that highway project just last year.

Her press release is dated July 29, 2005.

What a difference a year makes.

Will she mimick Democratic Party Presidental candidate John Kerry and explain, "I voted for it before I voted against it?"

She votes for almost all of the appropriation bills and claimed that she was responsible for securing $24 million of district funding in the Tranportation bill that was signed into law last summer. If she has a plan to reduce spending, it has not made a big splash.

Now, however, she is the only Illinois congressman to vote for eliminating at least 14 (out of 19) pork projects. She voted for all 19 amendments. Note that her sponsor Rahm Emanuel voted against all of the the amendments.

Expect a TV ad with a little porker as a visual effect.

A list of those who voted in favor of at least 14 of the 19 amendments appears at Hog Heaven. Under the heading, “House Members Who Voted Against Pork.” They are listed alphabetically.

David Hogberg, the man who did the research, calls them “taxpayer heroes” in The American Spectator article.

The Club for Growth—a fund raising group that favors lower federal spending—has developed a chart where one can check how one’s local congressman voted on the amendments.

Here, in alphabetical order, are how Illinois congressmen voted on the 19 amendments offered by Congressman Jeff Flake.

Bean – 19
Biggert – 6
Costello – 0
Davis – 0
Emanuel – 0
Evans – 0 (not voting on any)
Gutierrez – 0
Hyde – 0 (not voting on 6)
Johnson – 7
Kirk – 3
LaHood – 0
Lipinski – 0
Manzullo – 0
Rush – 0
Schakowsky – 1
Shimkus – 2
Weller – 0

Speaker Dennis Hastert is not on the list.

= = = = =
Couldn't resist including this photo of me and Miss Piggy. I am testifying at Waukegan's tollway hearing on higher higher tolls. I told them that I did not want little Miss Piggy to grow up to be a toll tax hog.

The quid pro quo use of Chicago Streets and Sanitation Department services for votes described by the Sunday Chicago Tribune story is excellent and difficult reporting, even most is posted as one really bid run-on paragraph.

Reporters Lauie Cohen, Todd Lighty and Dan Mihalopoulos found

new garbage carts, tree trimming, graffiti removal
were used

to help allies win tight elections.

“They were using taxpayer money to beat us,” my former legislative colleague Ray Frias said, explaining his aldermanic loss to a candidate more favored by former Mayor Richard Daley’s patronage dispenser Victor Reyes.

“It’s hard to lose if you’re their guy. ‘The City That Works’ works best on campaigns.”

Aldermanic challenger and victor George Cardenas turned in 900 service requests the week before the 2003 election, but told the Tribune that his requests did not get special treatment.

This 12th ward “ranked first among all wards in the city in the number of requests for services…in the weeks before the election,” the Tribune reports, “despite having the fewest residents needing city services.”

Frias lost by 52 votes, but beat the third place candidate to get in a run-off. He withdrew from the election, getting a job from Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Reminds me of what House Republican Leader Lee Daniels did in 2000 with legislative pork for non-incumbents. I thought that Daniels was on the leading edge of the use of tax dollars to promote challenging candidates, but maybe what the Tribune found in 2003 also happened in 1999, as well. With Daniels' top aide and now felon Mike Tristano already talking about use of such non-incumbent pork, Daniels, who has been charged with nothing by the U.S. Attorney's Office, could be next.

As attorney Rich Means emailed me,

"Tristanto was only the hands-on staff operator of this longstanding theft of public funds to subsidize State Representative campaigns."

I don't know why I read part of the Sunday Tribune's real estate section, but this is the Lakewood Homes full page ad caught my attention. If you click on the image, you can read the text at the bottom:

The world has changed a lot since my grandfather and father
built homes. But some thinkgs haven't changed. Owning a good home,
in a good neighborhood with good schools (emphasis added)...giving our children the
same opportunities our parents gave us...is still the American Dream. And the best part is...it doesn't have to be a dream.
That's why I build homes.

Buz Hoffman, Lakewood Homes

It looks better in the ad, because the type is centered under his sincere photograph.

And, Hoffman really does something about trying to make sure good schools--especially least new school buildings--will be in place for his homebuyers.

Why, he is willing to invest, that is, make contributions of, up to $25,000 in school tax hike committees.

This last six months, I have found a $25,000 contribution to the school tax hike committees in northern Kankakee County, (where he is not even advertising homes for sale, at least in the ad in my edition of the Tribune) and $5,000 to Mikoona.

But, that's not all. Here are past contributions:

$10,000 went to Lake Counmty’s Fremont school tax hike group in both 2001 and 2002.

$25,000 more to Minooka in 2003,

$5,000 to Plainfield in 2000,

$5,000 to District 300’s 2003 tax hike committee,

$2,500 to Osewego in 2002, and

$1,000 to Elgin in 2003

And each contribution to raise your taxes probably cost less than the profit on one townshouse, if industry the profit margin of industry leaders is any indication.

Former Carpentersville School District 300 Board member and school finance authority Linda Rafanello may receive some unwanted publicity from a Jersey County law suit.

The reason is a young man named Jeff Ferguson, who became disgusted when his local School District 100—after conferring with Rafanello, then vice president of LaSalle Capital Markets—decided to build a new high school and grade school when the old one was adequate.

State taxpayers would provide a lot of the money, but the local school district had to provide 60-70% in matching money. The school district—not under a tax cap common in the Chicago area—decided to sell $14.2 in bonds without voter approval.

Attorneys Frank Duda from St. Louis and Rod Pitts from Madison County filed suit for the outraged taxpayers earlier this month.

When I talked to Ferguson in April, here is what he said:

Taxpayers are very upset about the consequences of the property tax that will be imposed upon them by the decision made by school administrators and a single digit school board. The people spoke in a (1999) non-binding referendum when 71% opposed building new schools.

The people overwhelmingly lined up to sign the contract to retain the attorneys.

The goal of the suit will be to prove the need for new schools was not established, as required by state law.

After working for LaSalle, Rafanello moved on to the Harris Bank. Now, she is with PMA Financial, where she advised Huntley School District 158 during its highly controversial tax rate hike referendum a year ago. In 2005, she was a member of the Illinois State Board of Education's Financial Advisory & Information Committee. She also served on the Carpentersville School District 300 until resigning in March. She was replaced by Dave Alessio.

Ferguson hopes the Jersey County action will

have a domino effect throughout the state where districts have been persuaded to take grants they could not afford in order to build new buildings they did not need.

Jersey County is not the only Downstate community where complaints have arisen about the state's capital construction assistance program. Former State Rep. Roscoe Cunningham (R-Lawrence County) has commented negatively about the program in his newspaper, The Sumner Press.

Here is the group's web site.

Tomorrow read about some of the inspiration for the Jersey County suit.

Here is another tee shirt that I found at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake’s 11 o’clock service, which is aimed at our teenagers.

I noticed a white dot on black tee shirt with the word

ONE

on the back of a young lady’s tee shirt when I came in.

After church, I asked what it stood for and found it was short for One.org, an organization dedicated to wiping out poverty.

As I have mentioned previously, I think former Huntley School Board member Glen Stewart may do a credible job in his new $101,000 administrative job because it is so rare for school districts to hire anyone with a business background.

The cross fertilization from the business world may be quite useful.

Sunday, the Daily Herald reporter than has given Huntley School District 158 and Carpentersville School District 300 fits wrote what an article that seems to be aimed at giving Stewart a fresh slate as the district’s chief operations officer.

It combines that with an opportunity to allow school board president Mike Skala an opportunity to do a “mea culpa.”

The article sets up the background first:

The hiring decision was announced shortly after an audit said the district lacked proper financial controls. And shortly before the investigation of an employee for stealing an estimated $8,000 to $10,000 from the district’s coffers.

Once a face for positive change, Stewart over the past month became a rallying cry for critics who say it’s bad business as usual in District 158.

The article says Stewart thinks

He shouldn’t have voted in favor of administrator raises while he was a candidate for the job.

This article says nothing about Stewart's vote to change the position's minimum qualifications, however.

It continues,

“I did not take into account how that would look,” Stewart said. “I apologize to the children and residents of the district for that oversight.”

Then, board president Skala is quoted thusly,

The only thing I think we could probably have done better as a board, is let the community know Mr. Stewart had applied for the position. It never really crossed our minds as something to do.

Skala says

the best person got the job,

but no one knows why the

retired U.S. Navy officer who serves as chief operations officer for Cincinnati Public Schools…pulled out of the running,

Could it be because he found out the “fix” was in?

= = = = =
The picture is of Huntley School Board member Glen Stewart offering his hand of thanks to Huntley School Board President Mike Skala right after being hired on a 5-1 vote for his $101,000 school job.

The taxpayer suit in Jersey County, Illinois, is not too complicated, but it could be of widespread significance.

Citizen spark plug Jeff Ferguson and others in Jersey and Greene Counties (located northeast of St. Louis) are outraged that their local school board found a way to build two schools after 69% of the voters sounding rejected a $21 million high school proposal in 1999. (The state was going to kick in another $8 million.)

The school board found a way to build it and a grade school anyway.

Enter outside advisors trying to make a buck.

The school board is told that it can issue bonds without a referendum by issuing fire prevention and safety fund bonds, commonly called life safety bonds.

But, first, according to state law (105 ILCS 5/17-2.11),

a school district may replace a school building or build additions to replace portions of a building when it is determined that the effectuation of the recommendations for the existing building will cost more than the replacement costs. Such determination shall be based on a comparison of estimated costs made by an architect or engineer licensed in the State of Illinois. The new building or addition shall be equivalent in area (square feet) and comparable in purpose and grades served and may be on the same site or another site. (emphasis added)

That’s typical legislative gobble-de-gook. What it means is that if one can get an architect to say that fixing the old building to meet life safety standards is more expensive than building a new one, the school board may borrow money and build a new school.

And, that’s what this school board did.

But, there was a hitch.

The first architect said it would only cost $742,590.42 to fix up the high school.

The board decided to go for a slightly lower amount for the high school, added in a grade school and got permission for life safety improvements locally and by the State Board of Education in 2001.

Almost immediately afterwards, the board hired a second architect who would give the “right” answer.

$12.7 to $13.9 million was the “better” answer from the second architect.

That’s only 17 times as high as the first architect’s estimate.

Architecture is called a profession and this disparity gives an indication of what profession at least the high guy modeled his services after.

Larry Pfeiffer, the local regional superintendent approved the much, much higher figures for the high school and the grade school, but, according to the suit,

did not issue certificates of condemnation for the high school or grade school.

In February, 2003, the State Board of Ed approved the issuance of $14.2 million in life safety bonds less than 3 months later. In September, the Capital Development Board agreed to kick in over $6 million more tax dollars.

After a perfunctory public hearing, the school board voted 6-1 to sell $14.7 million for the two projects.

The suit asks that the responsible county officials be prohibited from collecting taxes to pay back the non-referendum bonds because

in order to issue bonds for the construction of a new school, a district must first be required to reconstruct a school building by an agency having authority to enforce the school building code.

The suit further contends.

The school district sold bonds without legal authority because the approved repair costs did not exceed the estimated replacement costs nor were the new buildings comparable in size and purpose as required by law.

The approval by the school district to sell fire prevention and safety fund bonds was not in compliance with 105 ILCS 5/17-2.11, was unlawful and was a mere ploy to circumvent the referendum results on the construction of a new high school.

Then comes what I, definitely a non-lawyer, think is the weakest part of the case:

The plaintiffs have no adequate remedy at law in that the tax protest remedy would require individual suits annually for the life of the bonds, the individual tax payments are not large enough to justify such action annually.

I suggest that is weak, because when I was McHenry County Treasurer (1966-70), 10% of the tax bills I collected were paid under protest. And, protestors invariably won something. That meant those who did not pay their taxes under protest paid illegal taxes, but they had the opportunity to join the other 10% and, for whatever reason, did not.

I see no reason that some enterprising attorney could not solicit clients and file a tax protest suit each year taxes are levied by the school board.

Here's the web site for the Jersey County Coalition for Public Awareness. More info there.

You can find a copy of the suit here.

= = = = =
My hope is that this atrocity would lead to a second round of reforms of the life safety bond laws.

Back in the late 1980’s, East Dundee State Representative Delores Doederlein successfully championed what were thought to be major reforms in the life safety code. She found that a rubberized track had been approved by the state to replace a cinder one at an Elgin high school, for example. A major Tribune story outlined other atrocities.

However, what Ferguson has documented so well indicates that the loopholes have gotten larger, not smaller.

= = = = =
A local angle on Monday.

I asked the State Board of Elections what Advance 300 might be fined for having failed to tell the public that School District 300 School Superintendent Ken Arndt contributed $600 on February 22nd.

The fine structure used to be so much a day and fines could quickly exceed the amount of the contribution. Now, the maximum fine is the amount given.

So, at most, Advance 300 will have to pay $600.

But, if it does not have previous violations, a first time offense usually results in a fine of 10% of the donation.

Of course, if not one complains, there will probably be no fine.

Arndt, by the way, is not in any way responsible for his contribution not having been made public in a timely fashion.

At least the District 300 tax hike committee did better than Pecatonica's tax hike committee, which did not report receiving one thin dime before referendum day.

Moderate Party candidate Bill Scheurer, the peace candidate who actually intimidated Mike Madigan's Democratic Party into not challenging his petitions in the 8th congressional district, came up with a campaign gimmick that apparently only I think is a good idea.

Scheurer unveiled McBeaney, a donkephant, at the Lake County Fair, but McHenry County Blog is the only place I can find a picture of it.

For more McHenry County Blog, click here.

It reminded me of JimRod, a creature used in our 2002 Libertarian Party campaign for governor of Illinois.

The Illinois League of Women Voters announced that it would invite any candidate who could achieve a 5% support level in a non-candidate poll. We advertised in August before anyone else and actually reached that goal in the Daily Southtown’s first poll.

Then, Jim and Rod, chickens that they were, decided not to accept the League’s invitation. Anyone want to guess why?

So, on the day of the first debate, we unveiled JimRod in Chicago and Rockford, where the first debate was being held.

Not only did we have a costumed two-headed chicken, which cost a lot less than I thought it would—but it looks a bit weak, somehow representative of the two power party candidates—about $100.

We also had a cartoon character. We were going to have more than one cartoon, but it was so good, we couldn’t think of a way to improve upon it.

We even had a radio ad that we ran relentlessly on Rockford radio the week before the first debate between Rod Blagojevich and Jim Ryan. Think of the old Chickenman radio series in the late 1950’s and 1960’s.

Maybe I’m too nostalgic about my second little foray into statewide politics.

Certainly, memories are all that resulted, with my receiving just 2% of the vote, about what Rockford’s David Kelley (who now serves on the Rockford School Board) got in 1994. I got more votes for state representative in the 1970’s when cumulative voting was in effect.

In any event, Bill Scheurer’s imagination deserves at least a little attention from local and regional media.

He is on the ballot and he will get more than 2% of the vote…even if the media ignore him.

It’s the middle of summer and this Illinois driver "would rather be snowboarding."

That’s what one bumper sticker says.

The other reads,

STEAMBOAT
COLORADO

When the Rev. and State Senator James Meeks was threatening to run for governor as a third party candidate and courting conservatives as running mates, I suggested that he might very well be running for Mayor of Chicago instead.

The summer before Harold Washington won the office, Chicago blacks were energized through numerous demonstrations about Chicago Fest, I think.

I figured running for governor and losing would serve a similar purpose of uniting blacks around Meeks, not to mention the necessary job of registering many who are currently unregistered.

Meeks said some pretty energizing words in Springfield before he sold out to Governor Rod Blagojevich's lottery fantasy.

After looking at television news Friday night and seeing the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times Saturday, I’m wondering if Meeks might be thinking about reaching for that goal again. He is focusing on inequities in the Chicago School System, one of which I wrote about here.

He would pretty much be the ideal black candidate—much less threatening to ethnic whites than Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.--

first, because his name is not Jesse Jackson, and,

second, because he is a social conservative.

Am I completely off base?

100 politicians showed up to show their support of a consensus for raising taxes for mass transit, the Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday.

Here’s the press release complete with subhead

Status quo for transit funding is not sustainable

To find the names of your local officials (I see 3 from McHenry County) , read the press release. If you want to have some fun, ask them which tax they favor hiking.

There was, of course, a regional consensus among similar

politicians, transit officials, labor representatives, businessmen and community activists

in 1973 when the Regional Transportation Authority Act was passed.

That “consensus” deteriorated to a 50-50 referendum passed by less than 13,000 votes at the primary election in March 1974.

Some consensus.

Rumor has it that Roger Stanley, the RTA Citizens Committee for Better Transportation’s pollster, found kNOw RTA forces were gaining one percentage point a day in the closing days of the campaign. (Stanley paid bribes to Metra Board member Don Udstuen and got a lighter sentence, after protesting loudly that he would not flip, for helping in the George Ryan corruption case.)

Of course, Chicagoland’s politicians have learned from that experience.

No future tax hike will have to be approved by referendum.

You can bet on that.

I do find almost quaint the title of the consensus report:

Moving Beyond Congestion

In whose lifetime?

Incidentally, blogger Dan Johnson-Weinberger is doing work for the project.

It’s campaign contribution and expenditure reporting month again and I admit to having not been as diligent as I was six months ago.

One new political action committee in McHenry County caught my eye, however.

It’s called Solutions NOW and its purpose is to

Support Larry Snow, the presentation of his views, and advocate legislative & local reforms that serve to lower taxes, improve educational learning & decision making within school districts, decrease congestion on our roadways, promote community values...

It looks like there is more, but that is all that fits in the space on the State Board of Elections web site.

Snow started this campaign fund the third week of January. Since then, he has collected $6,340, plus $257.12 in in-kind contributions from himself.

Despite the call from a Northwest Herald columnist that Snow report the phone calls announcing ex-school board member Glen Stewart’s $101,000 new school administrative job, there is no in-kind donation listed from Libertyville’s Saddle Shop and automated phone bank owner Jack Martin. (A State Board of Elections attorney told the Daily Herald that the phone calls did not have to be reported. Here is post one, two and three.)

The largest contributor is the Family Taxpayers Network at $1,500.

But the biggest category of contributions is labeled “non-itemized.” That means they are under $150.01. The total on that line is $3,990.

I asked Snow how many contributors he had. His answer was “hundreds.”

There are other itemized contributions over $150, 3 for $200 and 1 for $250. If you are really curious, here’s the place to find them. Just type in Solutions NOW and search away.

= = = = =
Photograph shows Larry Snow speaking to the Algonquin/Lake in the Hills Rotary Club at Port Edward about the Carpentersville School District 300 tax rate and bond referendums.

Today there are two messages, one occupational, the other an intellectual statement, I think.

The license plate holder shows this car owner to be a plumber and member of Local 93 in Waukegan, Illinois.

The bumper sticker below seems to show a fish that has eaten “Darwin.” The fish has legs. From what I can find on the internet, it seems to be a pro-Darwin sign.

I think this is the third in a series of bumper stickers and counter bumper stickers.

The first, of course, was the fish, an ancient symbol of Christianity.

The second was a fish with Darwin inside.

I'm a little fuzzy on the meaning of that.

Can anyone add anything?

Comments on Illinoize are now up to 20 on my story about the Chicago City Council's big box ordinance. You can read them here.

One commenter took me to task, probably justifiably, because I don't know unionization law as well as he must, for saying that the signature of a hospital chain president would be enough to put the designated employees in the union. I guess I should have said that it would relieve the union of the onerous work to get enough signatures to force an election. Thanks for the correction.

And, yesterday, on page 2, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a column by David Roeder which seemed even stronger than my story.

Under the heading “Missed opportunities,” here’s the last part of his column:

Workers' desperation writes the script for a union organizer, those that are left. But most unions won't pick up the opportunities handed to them. The U.S. Labor Department says union membership of the total work force is down to 12.5 percent from about 20 percent in 1983. But if you strip out government jobs, you've got a union share in the single digits.

The public sector is among the few areas showing union growth. It figures. Access to the workers is greased with campaign contributions, and there's an easy mark, the taxpayers, on the other end of the bargaining table. So the union brass won't dirty their hands with organizing the private sector. They're more comfortable at political fund-raisers than they are with people who could use their help.

So Wal-Mart avoids a head-on fight. In Chicago, the heirs of the Wobblies are weenies.

If my original story angered union supporters, what will this do?

Moderate Party candidate for congress Bill Scheurer has come up with a gimmick that made me smile.

Someone has sown half of a plush toy elephant to half of a plush toy donkey yielding what Scheurer calls a "donkephant."

He calls it "McBeaney," a combination of his two opponents' names--David McSweeney and Melissa Bean.

Scheurer is at the Lake County Fair this week. I would expect he would take his road show to the McHenry County Fair, as well.

$41,538.12, to be exact, is left over from the District 300 tax hike committee’s spring campaign.
While the committee’s purpose says,

"To pass a school referendum"

that can be changed at any time.

Maybe it will sit around for five years when District 300 insiders seem to think that another tax rate referendum will be needed.

Or, maybe some of it will be used to beat back any challenges to the "Vote Yes, Vote Yes" District 300 Board members who are up for election.

Would it have made any difference to Carpentersville District 300 referendum voters if they had known that Superintendent Ken Arndt gave $600 about a month before election day?

We’ll never know, because Advance 300 failed to report the February 22nd contribution until July 26th.

State law says that any contribution over $500 from February 19th through election day should have been reported within two days of its receipt.

So, Advance 300 was only about 5 months late.

I wonder if anyone will file a complaint with the State Board of Elections. (And, if a reader does, please let me know.)

Whether the $600 contribution had any affect on this week’s School Board vote for $14,500 pay raise, $50 increase in monthly allowance and $1,000 annual increase in deferred compensation is unknown.

Prior to Wednesday’s filing of its campaign disclosure report, the pubic had no idea whether anyone was making small contributions.

Surprise.

They were.

Of the $158,242.94 contributed in cash and things like office rent, $4,746.77 came from people and businesses who gave less than $150. As few as 32 such contributions were made, if most gave $150. Probably, there were many more.

So, 3% of the tax hike donation was from small contributors.

Most, of course, were from developers, vendors, developers, developers and vendors, developers, developers, developers, and developers.

As I looked through the District 300 tax hike committee’s expenditures, I found something a bit strange.

Advance 300 paid School District 300 $1,180 in rent.

What’s that all about?

Did they rent the space to fly the green ribbons on the fence?

Or did they rent the auditorium at Jacobs where the student rallies were held?

I wish I had more answers than questions about the School District 300 tax hike committee’s expenditures.

Today, I’ve asked what tax hike committee Advance 300 rented from District 300, why Advance 300 did not report District 300 Superintendent Ken Arndt’s $600 contribution on a timely basis and here’s another question:

How does a tax hike committee spend $45,236 on computer services?

Portland’s Winning Mark was give that amount in three payments:

$18,805 on 2-21
$8,840 on 3-3 and
$17,590.80 on 3-13

So, what computer services could possibly be worth more than any other expenditure made by the District 300 tax hike committee?

The answer apparently is that one doesn't.

It was direct mail, not computer services, that Winning Mark brags about on its web site.

So, can we expect tax hike committee Advance 300 to correct what the $45,000 was spent on?

Or will the tax hike committee be as opaque as it was when it failed to report the $600 contribution from District 300 School District Superintendent Ken Arndt? (Again, if anyone files a complaint for the committee's not having reported the purpose of the expenditure accurately, please let me know.)

Thought folks might be interested in what’s happening with regard to the validating the Protect Marriage petitions. McHenry County volunteers did their part at the County Clerk's office, as I explained here.

Since then, I have been looking at petitions in north central Illinois and have found numerous "bad signatures" in DeKalb County. Given the fact that I registered to vote over 40 years ago, I think the odds are good that my signature does not closely resemble the 21-year old version on record in Woodstock.

I've also looked at the petitions from Winnebago County. There happen to be two election authorities there, one for the city and the other for the rest of the county. I was impressed with the number of people with Rockford addresses who signed petitions found not registered by the Rockford Election Commission. My guess is most live outside Rockford, but inside Winnebago County.

When I was running for statewide office, there was no requirement that my petition signatures be segregated by election authority. That makes little sense, unless one is trying to make it difficult to get questions on the ballot, which, of course, is why the requirement exists in the first place.

At any rate here’s what the Illinois Family Institute just sent out:

Illinois: Massive Errors Uncovered

...here's where we stand in Illinois: we are working to recover enough names to pass the State Board of Elections (SBE) sample, to qualify for the ballot. (We need a projected number of at least 95 percent of the required 283,111 to make it; click here for more on the math.)

The good news is that we have found about a 10 percent error rate in the SBE's findings in Chicago and Cook County. Some of the mistakes were blatant: for example, a woman who was registered to vote as "Deidra" signed our marriage petition, but her signature was disqualified because she signed as "Dee."

And the signature of another woman who signed as "Sue" was disqualified because on her voter registration certificate she signed as "Susan."

One woman, probably in the rush to sign a petition, omitted the last digit of the street number of her home address. She is a registered voter, but because of that single missing digit, her name was disqualified by election officials.

These are blatant violations of a citizen's right to petition their government, and our attorney Mike Lavelle (former chairman of the Illinois State Board of Election) is working hard to build a case showing that enough good signatures were invalidated to overcome the SBE's initial finding that we fell about three percentage points short of the required number.

We are in the middle of this great legal battle. With each passing day, we and our attornies grow more confident that we will succeed and qualify for the ballot in November. So keep praying and thanks to all those who have helped us in this review process!

For more McHenry County Blog, click here.

Two bumper stickers on this Iowa car caught my attention at the Gay Games Regatta in Crystal Lake.

One says,

Talk hockey
to me

The other, beneath the Subaru logo says,

I’LL BE POST-FEMINIST
IN THE POST-PATRIARCHY

There’s a little curly cue on the left side that may mean something to feminists.

Cheryl Meyer is the honcho of the Huntley School District 158’s B.E.S.T. political action group.

Except for Larry Snow, her organization put all the current Huntley School Board in office.

She also was instrumental in passing the falsely promoted tax hike referendum in the Huntley School District.

So, it was no surprise that someone of her talent should be hired by the Carpentersville School District 300 tax hike committee, Advance 300.

As reported on February 13th, Myers, hiding behind something called Campaign Solutions, received $6,750.

The District 300 tax hike committee identified Campaign Solutions as Lake in the Hills resident Cheryl Meyer.

Nancy Zettler wrote in an open letter:

We hired Campaign Solutions based here in Algonquin which is owned and operated by Cheryl Meyer, a Lake In The Hills resident. Ms. Meyer specializes in grassroots campaigns and has over 7 years experience in political and referendum campaigns.

Since January, another $26,873 was paid to Campaign Solutions, presumably still controlled by Meyer.

With Meyer’s Campaign Solutions on the District 300 tax hike committee payroll, so to speak, is it any wonder that the Huntley District 158 School Board members she helped put in office were willing to send a letter condemning Larry Snow for analyzing the District financial situation? In their political salvo, the Ruling Six even urged people to call the Huntley school district “at (847) 659-6158 regarding any concerns about representations by Snow.”

I was not able to identify Campaign Solutions as a corporation in February.

A corporation called Campaign Solutions, Inc, was not incorporated until May 9, 2006. The company’s agent is listed as Huntley attorney Michael J. Fleck. The company’s incorporator was Thomas L. Schnmid, 10,771 Rt. 47, PO Box 992, Huntley, Illinois. The street address is the same as Fleck’s. Meyer’s name appears nowhere. The Secretary of State’s Office told me that the corporation’s officers would usually show up on the firm’s second report, that is, in 2007.

Labels: Advance 300, BEST, Campaign Solutions, Cheryl Meyer, Nancy Zettler

I posted my big box ordinance story on Illinoize, as well as here. Apparently, it has a lot more liberal readers.

If you would like to read the interchange, click here.

Public employee unions have long accomplished through legislation what they could not achieve at the bargaining table.

Think teacher pension increases.

And union organizing used to involve actually talking to workers.

But, Democrats like Governor Rod Blagojevich allowed unionization of, what, 49,000 day care workers by executive order. No messy contested vote once the state employees’ union, AFSCME, pulled out of the election against Service Employees International Union—not coincidentally, Blagojevich’s biggest campaign contributor.

Now unions like the SIEU want hospital employers like Advocate Health Care to just sign over their employees.

That’s right.

No messy democratic election supervised by federal authorities.

Just the signature of the CEO on a piece of paper and all of the designated health care employees would be dues paying members…and getting more dues is what union’s are all about, right? Who wouldn’t want to avoid the difficult job of organizing, if one could?

Tom Balanoff, the SIEU’s Illinois president was even appointed to Blagojevich’s original Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. He didn’t stay long, but wasn’t that part of the SEIU’s stategy to put pressure on Advocate from every direction possible?

Evoking the Governor’s name as a way to induce hospitals to organize is certainly not beyond the SIEU’s pale.

Just picket the homes of the hospital presidents.

And sic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn on organizing targets Advocate and Resurrection Health Care Corporation for charging poor patients to much.

Its called a corporate campaign and it consists of a systematic assault on the reputation of a corporation designed to undermine its relationships with such key stakeholders as its customers, shareholders, regulators, bankers and the general public. For details, click here.

I was reminded of how unions and the SEIU specifically use their allies in government to do their dirty organizing work for them by the Chicago City Council’s vote today to impose salary and benefit minimums on so-called “big box” stores like Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Target.

I saw the SEIU tee shirts in the audience.

Why wait for the super stores to enter the market place with new employees to try to organize and, again, not a coincidence, provide competition for the unionized Jewel and Dominick’s stores whose employees already pay dues?

Just get your minions on the city council to make it tough on the folks you want to organize.

36 of the alderpersons do not hold outside jobs in private enterprise or anywhere else.. They are full-timers (like I used to be as a state representative). Being government employees—even elected ones--does not yield a particularly representative group of citizens, even in Chicago.

Besides the relative few jobs per store, don’t what one former Democratic state representative called “alderthings” think their constituents might like to be able to walk to a place where they can buy groceries, soft and hard goods cheaper than elsewhere in Chicago?

Guess not.

So did I with my little oinker during the tollway's toll tax hike hearings in Waukegan in 2002.

I told them that I didn't want my little piggy to grow up to be a toll tax hog.

It worked to a small, and I mean small, extent.

This picture was of my holding the little pig was on the front page of Waukegan's News-Sun, but it was the smalled photograph that I have ever seen on a front page.

In any event, Moderate Party candidate Bill Scheurer is going to unveil "donkephantitis" on thursday. He calls is "Donkephant" for short.

Here's the press advisory:

847-245-3620
Brenda@WinWithBill.com

PHOTO OPPORTUNITY:

Meet the ‘Donkephant’

What is a Donkephant?

See this strange hybrid creature on Thursday, July 27, from 4-10 p.m., at the Lake County Fair, Building #1, Booth #83, where you can meet Bill Scheurer, Moderate Party candidate for the IL 8th U.S. Congressional District.

Scheurer has the cure for ‘donkephantitis’

"Being notoriously stubborn, you can never get them to move where you want to, nor get them to stop or change direction once they have started. The only thing to do is stop feeding them." Scheurer said. "What do they eat? Money. Tons of money. Mostly, other people's money."

Here's a license plate which obviously belongs to a grandmother.

It says,

QT GRAMA

But, what does the "QT" stand for?

A Chicago Tribune article reminds me of some advice I wanted to pass onto GOP gubernatorial candidate Judy Topinka’s staff.

The story is about striking counselors at Sheridan Correctional Center’s nationally hailed drug treatment program. Governor Rod Blagojevich used the program as an excuse of re-open Sheridan, one of the few

“I’ll re-open or open this institution that big, bad Republican George Ryan closed or refused to open” promises

that Blagojevich kept.

But, that’s got little to do with my advice for what could be a newsworthy press opportunity.

I’ve been told that the state’s probation officers have been told to give passes to paroled Sheridan inmates who get in trouble.

Not sending those who break probation back to prison would help with the low recidivism statistics that are reportedly bringing California corrections department officials to Sheridan later this week, wouldn’t it?

So, Judy’s staff, do you know any probation officers who could confirm this possibility?

= = = = =
Photo from Topinka's web site.

Right after the March primary election, citizen activist Pauletta Callendo sent a Freedom of Information request to Carpentersville District 300.

She wanted to know if any administrator would receive a bonus if the referendum passed.

Her specific request was

Please provide any written documentation, minutes of any meeting, and/or any information indicating a potential agreement to give administrator a bonus/stipends/gift/raise/gratuity etc. should referendum pass.

District 300’s response was

The records requested are nonexistent.

The letter says it is signed by “Darlene Johnson,” but “C.F.O.” (Chief Financial Officer) is below a second signature below. It’s probably a fair assumption that C.F.O. Cheryl Crates signed the form and letter to Callendo.

Yesterday, the Daily Herald wrote about the $14,500 raise that School Superintendent Ken Arndt will receive because the referendum passed:

Four months after residents approved a 55 cent tax-rate increase, District 300 board members Monday night gave Arndt a contract extension with an extra $14,300 the first year (totaling $177,000).

“We have money now,” board President Mary Fioretti said. “We said if we could pass this referendum, this is what we were going to do. That’s the bottom line.” …

He had been on a two-year salary freeze….

“His performance over this past year has been exemplary,” Fioretti said, citing the success of the tax increase, the district’s financial stability and student achievement. “The board of education is grateful to Dr. Arndt.”

Arndt's car allowance was increased 8.3% to $650 per month and deferred comp was increased 20% or $1,000 a year. The deferred comp would be in addition to the pension he will receive. It will be based on total compensation for the last four years of his public service.

Arndt also got a $5,000 bonus for improving student achievement.

Maybe no one ever wrote down the board’s intentions.

In 2002, by the way, Arndt contributed $300 to Schools Now, which morphed into Advance 300, the most recent tax hike committee.

San Francisco Democrats are so different from their colleagues in Illinois.

Illinois Democrats passed the “All Kids” health care program primarily to provide health care to children who are in the United States illegally, but didn’t have the courage to say so.

Not so San Francisco Democrats.

Or, maybe, it’s that reporters in San Francisco are more astute than those in Illinois. Certainly, there was an opportunity to quote Republicans about the "illegals" angle to Governor Rod Blagojevich's bill.

I, for one, would have appreciated a little truth in advertising prior to the bill's passage. You know, tell your consituents what you are trying to do before you do it.

I'd even settle for the truth now, although I readily admit that Elgin's Daily Courier-News laddled it up boiling hot on December 4th.

Here’s the lead in the Associated Press story of San Francisco’s pioneering effort:

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to make the city the nation's first to provide all residents with health care, approving a plan that would give adults access to medical services regardless of their immigration or employment status. (Emphasis added.)

The only two news sources in Illinois to reveal the illegal alien angle early on besides Dick Kay on a Chicago Tonight panel was Crystal Lake’s Northwest Herald and the Quincy Herald-Whig.

When Chicago Newspapers blogger Jim Bowman asked Kay a follow-up question, this was his answer:

He has it exactly right! They will not apply under Kids Care because that is a federally funded program. All Kids is state-only and will cover illegal immigrants so long as they can pay the monthly premium and the co-pay. For that matter it would cover children of billionaires so long as they could pay the much higher premiums that would require. Our sister station, Telemundo, has done a couple of stories on the program.

The first hint that illegal aliens might be involved in All Kids didn’t show up until late January in an Illinois AP story and in a Daily Herald story. Of course, neither used the term "illegal alien," but one could read between the lines, if one wanted to.

If anyone can find evidence to contradict my assertion that Illinois reporters failed to discern the primary purpose of All Kids before it was signed, please let provide me with a link. I'd love to publish it (them).

(I would remind folks that Jim Edgar put forth the Kids Care program, which provides welfare medical benefits to poor kids who are legally in the United States. Now, Blagojevich is switching children from Kids Care to All Kids to pump up the latter's numbers.)

At my son’s birthday party, I saw this diapered child, obviously, named

Liam

His name was printed right on the back of his diaper.

When I inquired as to the reason, his mother told me that the baby sitters at Willow Creek wanted the name there so the babies didn’t get mixed up.

According to Lakewood Village Administrator Catherine Peterson, the Gay Games have been billed $3,384.53 for village expenses for its Crystal Lake Regatta.

The original estimate was $5,000, but fewer prople showed up at the Gay Games than the worst case estimate.

As a result, Lake Avenue was not closed for the day.

“At this point we have no reason to believe we will not be paid,” Peterson told McHenry County Blog.

Two messages were left with Crystal Lake's Deputy City Manager George Koczwara asking how much had been billed, but no reply had been received when this article was posted.

The Ctystal Lake Park District collected its fee prior to the beginning of the Gay Games Regatta.

Tom Adams, village president of Green Oaks and former Lake County Republican Party Central Committee Chairman, was accused of distributing child pornography.

In their arrest stories, both the Daily Herald and the Chicago Tribune call Adams a “mayor,” but he isn’t. He’s just the village president of a tiny town of 3,500.

Adams was GOP chairman from 2002-2004 and now serves as chairman of the Mayor Richard Daley-dominated Metropolitan Mayors Caucus. It's financed largely by the John D. McArthur Foundation.

The caucus has been preparing the way for a state income tax and other tax hikes for several years.

In 2003, for instance, the caucus pushed for the state to pay 51% of the cost of local education. That would, of course, require a massive hike in state taxes.

The only tax that has been mentioned by supporters of that concept and which is capable of bringing in significant money has been the state income tax. The Mayors group calls it a “tax swap,” just as the Rev. and State Senator James Meeks, 1994 gubernatorial candidate Dawn Clark Netsch and former Governor Jim Edgar did when they proposed similar plans.

W