Who would have ever thought that how public officials parade in McHenry County would become big news?

The same Chicago Tribune reporter, Robert McCoppen, who wrote the article on the fight between the forces grouped behind Sheriff Keith Nygren and those behind State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi for Sunday’s Tribune has written another.

This time about parades and the use of public employees who receive compensation, either in the form of compensatory time off or overtime.

The article’s starting point is the count in Bianchi’s indictment by the Special Prosecutor Henry Tonigan-led grand jury.

One count of the indictment was for allowing employees who participated to take one and a half times as much time off from work “for marking in public parades during 2006 and for participating in community expositions fro 2006 through 2010…”

The indictment did note that “both legitimate community awareness  and political campaign purposes were undertaken by the participants.”

Hence, the premise of the article, while serving as a public official, where does one draw the line between doing one’s job and politicking?   Can one use public resources to advance one’s political career in parades?

Those ares such good questions.

Nygren is brought into the article when he “openly defends the practice, insisting it’s perfectly legal because it’s not for campaign purposes,” according to the article.

He keys his defense on the fact that he was not saying, “Vote for me.”  His people didn’t pass out any election material.

Indeed, in the parades I have attended, Nygren did have anyone handing out anything until the Lake in the Hills and Johnsburg parades, after Bianchi was indicted.

In those, avid supporter Brent Smith marshaled some people to hand out election material.  (It seemed to have been left over from the primary election.)  The two contingents were separated.

Nygren’s defense is similar to the one that school districts have used when they put out information about school tax hike and bond referendums that stops just short of using the words, “Vote Yes.”

That has kept school officials out of trouble so far in all but Lake County, where State’s Attorney Mike Waller got so upset about one taxpayer-financed pro-referendum piece that he put out a memo advising school districts that he wouldn’t let them off the hook next time around.

In September of 2007, after filing a complaint with the Attorney General’s office about Bianchi’s payment for parade candy out of his office budget, then McHenry County Republican County Chairman and McHenry County Treasurer Bill LeFew told the Northwest Herald,

“It’s purely political.  There’s no way around it.”

So there is a disagreement among McHenry County’s officials.

The Tribune reporter picks out a telling sentence from Bianchi’s statement after his indictment:

“Under this same scrutiny, most public officials in America could be indicted by an out-of-control special prosecution.”

But the rest of Bianchi’s statement is also of significance, because it lays out the political background he says is behind the indictment.

In Cook County those driving sheriff’s vehicles get comp time, the article says.

DuPage County State’s Attorney and Sheriff use only volunteers.

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney and novelist Scott Turow, who chaired Governor Pat Quinn’s Illinois Executive Ethics Commission, whose recommendations were largely ignored even by Quinn told the Tribune:

“This is a really bright line. There’s no campaigning on state property or time or with state money.”

Turow, of course, has never had the experience of being a county or state elected official.

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It seems to me that the definition of “campaigning” is not as clear as he thinks.

Let me give you an example: you are running for office and a reporter gives you a call about a charge that your opponent has made. The reporter has called you on your office number.

Do you say, “Just a minute, I’ll have to walk outside and call you back on my cell phone?”

Or just answer the question and get back to work on the government work you were doing when interrupted.

I am quite interested in reader responses on this question, because I don’t believe the line is as distinct, that is, recognizable, as Turow does.
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But, back to the article. What you see below is the jump page headline on the Tribune’s web site:

Turow says paying employees to hand out campaign literature is clearly illegal. They are not charged with doing that, as I read the indictment.  Indeed, Bianchi was not even on the ballot in 2006, the year parades are referenced in the indictment.  (See that section of the indictment above.)

Nygren’s GOP primary opponent is quoted in the article as saying Bianchi’s indictment strengthens his legal action requesting a special prosecutor to probe Nygren’s use of county resources to campaign for office.

Seipler reprises what he has published on his blog, McHenry County Sheriff’s Department Exposed.  He has pointed out there that Illinois State Board of Elections records show the purchase of candy and gasoline for parades.

Not to mention Nygren’s use of privately owned cars he and his wife from  which he and his wife wave and throw candy at parades.

Seipler summed up his position to the Tribune:

“It’s absurd to say he’s not participating in a political activity.”

As would be expected, Nygren’s fall opponents, Democrat Mike Mahon and Green Party candidate Gus Philpott, agree with Seipler.

The article ends with some new information from Bianchi attorney Terry Eck.  He said both Nyrgen and McHenry County Associate Judge Gordon Graham, who is running for a full 22nd Judicial Circuit judgeship against Independent Sally Wiggins, had sent campaign solicitations to Bianchi at the State’s Attorney’s Office.  Nygren was listed first on Graham’s fund raising letter.