Yesterday I frothed about our local very junior college’s playing games with the Freedom of Information Act.

Walt Packard

Two weeks ago I requested the performance evaluations for former McHenry County College President Walt Packard. I was told there was only one, but it was too personal to share.

How personal?

So “highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person and which the subject’s right to privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining the information.”

Really?

If Packard did something so outrageous that a June 2008 performance standard could not be shared with those of us who pay his salary, I have to wonder why he lasted another seven months.

And, of course, we don’t know why the board decided to can him.

Or why it allowed him to stay on the payroll doing nothing through this month.

Or why we taxpayers are being forced to pay his and his wife’s health insurance into August 2012.

It’s so, so horrifying that the board has to keep it secret.

In any event, foreseeing such embarrassment as this, those representing public employees convinced legislators such as our State Senator Pam Althoff to voted to repeal that section of the less than six-month old law. Dan Duffy, the new state senator also representing McHenry County, voted, “No.”

But, let’s award some credit, too.

McHenry County’s three state representatives—State Representatives Mark Beaubien, Jack Franks and Mike Tryon—all voted against repeal. The vote in the House was 70-39.

In the Senate, the vote was 45-9-1.