On October 4th, the date of the last McHenry County College board meeting, I asked for copies of the meeting handouts from no-bid $400,000 oversight and coordination guy Mark Houser of Equity One and no-bid construction management company FCL Builders‘ Carrie Carney.

While any responsible local government would have made them available to the audience on the night they were made public, MCC did not.

I had to wait 11 days.

And, MCC couldn’t scan them and email them to me.

Oh, no.

But, they could hire Chicago lawyer Howard Metz to send me a letter. He wouldn’t return my phone call yesterday though.

The college made me drive out to the campus and write a check for sixty cents.

Pretty petty, but that’s what we’re dealing with here, folks.

So, what was in the documents that were withheld for eleven days?

The FCL-prepared GANT chart presented by Carney caught my immediate attention.

Enlarge it and look at the detail through October 16th.

That’s today.

“CL City Council – MCC Preliminary PUD Approval” is listed as item number 6.

Look at the date to the right.

It says, “10/16.”

Guess the college contractor knew with a large amount of certainty that council approval was in the bag at least 12 days before the official vote, the Thursday before last.

I wonder what gave her that idea.

Doesn’t that give you confidence in the openness of local government around here?

= = = = =
While the decision may be in the bag, it seems to me that those really concerned about the issue should go city hall for Tuesday’s night’s 5:30 PM meeting. They should also call their city councilmen. The numbers are in an article above.

The photo at the top shows Equity One’s Mark Houser and FCL Builder’s Carrie Carney at the October 4, 2007, McHenry County College Board’s Finance Committee meeting.
Below is a close-up of Carney.