The Edgar County Watchdogs continue to unearth information about the Algonquin Township Highway Department. Reprinted with permission:
Algonquin Township – Filed Court documents conflict with sworn Township records
We suspect it is going to be a very interesting weekend for the former Algonquin Township Highway Commissioner Bob Miller and his lawyer, Thomas Gooch III . Interesting from a standpoint of what will go through their minds after reading this article. I suspect it will establish free rent space for days!
Bob Miller
As most of the residents of McHenry County know, the current Highway Commissioner has filed a lawsuit seeking an accounting based on numerous identified missing items and alleged misappropriations of public funds. While some may squabble about such a suit, the fact remains it is only proper to have a full accounting of assets as outlined by law and an accounting of how money was spent.
An affidavit was filed by Mr. Gooch in his Motion to Dismiss that is troubling on numerous fronts, to say the least. For starters, why would any elected official ever fight to avoid transparency? Yes, that was sarcasm.
The Gooch Lawfirm website reflects they specialize in Legal Malpractice. That being the case, why would an attorney have his client sign an affidavit that clearly conflicts with official public records, also signed by his client? This filing may become very problematic on several fronts.
Affidavit: “Exhibit A is a true and correct copy of the Highway Commissioner’s Annual Report, with Inventory attached, which I filed more than 30 days prior to the annual meeting conducted in 2017, and which bears my signature.
How are we to believe his affidavit claiming he filed his annual report and inventory more than 30 days prior to the annual meeting conducted in 2017 when the signature on that filing is dated April 6th, 2017 for the annual report and April 5th, 2017 for the inventory, which is a mear week prior to the annual meeting held on April 11th, 2017? His own sworn filed document with the Township conflicts with his sworn affidavit.
Additional matters that are sure to be problematic for this group:
Annual Report “I, Robert J. Miller, Highway Commissioner of Algonquin Township Road District, McHenry County, Illinois, being duly sworn, depose and say that the following statement is a correct report for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 2016, and ending March 31, 2017″
Looking at the “claimed” true and correct copy of the Highway Commissioners Annual Report we see a problem.
Note that the amount listed on page four, for unpaid liabilities under the Road & Bridge Fund is zero, as in no liabilities.
Bob Miller
The signature on the Annual Report was that of Bob Miller and dated April 6th, 2017. So how is it there were no liabilities listed in the sworn Annual Report on April 6th, 2017, which included Road and Bridge fund, when just six days later Miller presented a liability of 263 sick days under the Road & Bridge fund for $47,381.84?
You can’t have it both ways. The sworn affidavit says one thing, the record says another.
In the attorney’s reply to the Plaintiff’s response to the Motion to Dismiss we find yet another troubling statement that is sure to be problematic.
“Only because of unfamiliarity with the township code and the records of Algonquin Township the highway commissioner presently fails to understand that the liability he speaks of was a liability of the township for sick pay as the road district had never paid the highway commissioner’s salary or sick days, there is no reason such a liability would be listed in the annual report.”
Unfamiliarity with the Township Code and the records of Algonquin Township Highway?
Interesting the attorney provided no citation of the Township Code to support his argument on this liability and we must assume, he is the one that is not familiar with the records in question.
The records reflect the sick pay was, in fact, submitted to and paid from the Road & Bridge Fund. If this claimed liability was a liability to the Township, why would the liability be submitted to the Road & Bridge fund? The record points to Bob Miller as the one who fails to understand the records of the Algonquin Township, not the current highway commissioner.
The paper trail proves Bob Miller submitted a liability to the Road & Bridge fund six days after submitting a sworn statement that such account had no liabilities. We contend, based on the evidence, the affidavit that Mr. Miller signed and his attorney filed as an exhibit in the recent pleading is in conflict.
Mr. Miller’s annual report can’t be true if six days later he submits a massive liability. So we are left with one of two options. Miller’s sworn Affidavit is wrong on this point or Millers’ sworn annual report is wrong. Either way, Miller appears to have a problem to deal with.
Next item of contention for the attorney and Miller is the claimed true and accurate inventory.
The attorney takes the position in his reply; “As argued below, they still are unable to point to anything actually missing”. The attorney is attempting to take the position that the Plaintiff is unable to point to anything actually missing as a reason to dismiss this case. For starters, if something is missing it would be pretty hard to point to it, but all that aside, I can tell him one thing that is missing, as in missing from the inventory.
Salt!
Even though Miller claimed his inventory is true and accurate, how can it be when there is zero mention of any Salt in the inventory? How can you leave out a known asset to the Township and claim your inventory is true and accurate? I mention this because we understand how something small like a cardigan sweater, woman’s purse, or I-pad cover might get overlooked and be missing from the inventory, but we all know you cant overlook a salt dome with Salt in it. And yes, we have confirmed there was in fact salt in the Salt dome at the time of the report filing.
The township code does give him an out on the salt.
605 ILSC 5/6-201.15 (4) Any additional matter concerning the roads of the districts the highway commissioner thinks expedient and proper to report.
Why would he want to report the salt in an inventory? Might the fact he was giving salt away be a contributing factor to ignore this asset to the district?
And now for the one big problem that Bob Miller has to worry about, as does the attorney.
Will the attorney’s filing of his client’s Affidavit now become evidence for the criminal investigation? It should be and here is why.
Does everyone remember that sweetheart sweeper deal Miller made with the 2012 Elgin Street Sweeper? You know, the one he sold for $70,000.00 to Village of Island Lake, March 23rd, 2017? We wrote about it in this article.
Why would you sell a piece of equipment worth $225,000.00 for $70,000.00? We find the inventory that he signed April 5th, of 2017 contained an assigned value to the 2012 street sweeper to be $225,000.00. (See page 15).
Bob Miller asigned the value to this Township Asset yet sold it in contradiction to state law for such a sale and did so at a price $155,000.00 below its assigned value.
One last issue……..for this article!
The records reflect the sweeper was sold as of March 23rd, 2017. If it was sold, why on earth does it show up in an inventory that Miller swore was true and accurate on April 5th, 2017?
We will continue to put out the bread crumbs for the authorities and hope that at some point they become hungry enough to start eating!
Miller family Coat of Arms (Booby Miller even submitted this to the TOI for their new logo, but had to step down when Algonquin fleeced taxpayers got rid of him:
http://www.ngw.nl/heraldrywiki/images/c/cb/Schweinberg.jpg
Here’s what it’s all about. Miller never covered his big tracks bc he never really had to.
After Gasser won, he did everything he could think of to:
A) Hurt Gasser (brought in 150 local; sold machinery illegally w/o notice; hired rats, etc.)
B) Covered up big-time —-records have almost certainly been destroyed, that’s how he’ll be nabbed; too many duplicate records are held by third parties, like Banks credit card companies,etc
Will atty Kelly go to jail to cover up for Miller: NO.
Will Loser-Lutzow? No.
Taxpayer Parasite
The Miller hey days are over.
Grand Theft Algonquin Township!
Am I reading this correctly that Miller’s lawyer is making false claims in Court too? Where is the girl seeking complaints to the Attorney regulators?
Why is this in limbo? Does anyone have any knowledge of an investigation by the authorities?
This watchdog guy keeps getting stuff that the tabloid Herald can’t seam to uncover. What gives?
Where’s Hanlon? Isn’t he on this case? Doesn’t he represent the people in that case?
Where is law enforcement?
Linda Moore ran for Township Supervisor in Grafton to stop the building of an unnecessary Town Hall.
Her subsequent actions and behavior tainted her to the point where I seriously doubt she could get elected to any political office ever.
Now we have Gasser who ran for Highway Commissioner to weed out the corruption which was wasting taxpayer dollars. Is he too going to blow any credibility he had with subsequent action (hiring an unnecessary assistant) and his behaviour?
The trouble with government corruption is no one wants their own house looked into so the various LEO’s try like mad to avoid involvement.
Most States Attorneys offices are staffed by newbies or never be’s whose understanding of the Law and its enforcement is weak at best.
Elevating this to a State level is… Well… We are in Illinois.
Now comes the Federal level where the headhunting really is all about making a name for oneself to get promotions or job offers.
Pragmatically, without a very loud public outcry, there is no public LEO capable of, or willing to, prosecute some smarmy nothing has been corrupt official from Algonquin Township.
Gasser is handling this beautifully, under Hanlon’s direction, and will achieve the desired end of Justice but the wheels turn much more slowly than the movies would have you believe.
Patience and continued public energy will be the key to winning this, and every, public corruption battle.
Get involved in your local government and just watch them work.
This activity alone makes most of these winners so nervous they’ll play straighter than normal on the off chance you might actually know something.
Problem: humanoid favor trading is primary factor in decisions to prosecute/not prosecute bad actors.
Bad actors thrive with all upside and no downside.
Taxpayers are stripped of rights for restitution when bad acting law enforcement declines to prosecute friends (while at the same time being overzealous to prosecute enemies, but that is a tangential problem.
Solution: bulletin board of qui tam lawsuit opportunities for out-of-town lawyers (who cannot be intimidated by local threats).
Example: Recent Fraud and Forgery by Republican primary Candidate Reinert’s Team. All the discovery is done, or is public record. The Bad Actor’s opposing candidate suffered thousands of dollars monetary damages, being forced to prove the petition signatures fraudulent against staunch opposition by Reinert Team.
Evidently because Reinert seceded from the primary, local law enforcement declines to prosecute.
However, local law enforcement is leaving money on the table.
The candidate who spent TIME MONEY and VOLUNTEER GOODWILL to ferret out documented evidence of fraud and forgery is out-of pocket thousands.
The People of the District affected by this primary are out of pocket the potential fines imposed by the Court for such behavior (see Illinois case law for examples).
Most importantly, those bad actors who committed willful fraud, forgery and perjury are left to fight another day without so much as an inconvenience.
In a relevant case, a Northern Illinois political candidate was barred from holding office in the future (in addition to fines and restitution ordered by judge).
The People in this district are having THAT beneficial possibility stolen from them.
Big loss.
Well said, Priest.
No oversight equals disastrous results for the taxpayer, the county/state and eventually the country.
I support local candidates because I never want to see a bad one ascend to higher office (or even be re-elected)
https://boardofwisdom.com/togo/Quotes/ShowQuote?msgid=552328#.Wlk1hK3MxE4
the fact that these blatant in your face acts have disgraced our political arena , and strained once unbreakable ties, now we have to witness our judiciary branch in Mchenry county risk there own careers , and the trust of the people and set aside all ethics to protect the accused , we have judges recusing themselves from this matter , but continue to persecute cases involving the millers as the victims . Ethical?? Honorable ???, absolutely not!!!! the power belongs to the people any judge that has recused themselves from this case needs to be very clear as to why he or she has done so. Any judge /prosecutor/ or states attorney related in any way with this group should absolutely recuse themselves , please share your thoughts.
Priest – spot on! Yet, why is it that time and again we learn of filed documents a baboon would convict Bob with and nothing happens. Somebody please tell us why?
Edgar County seems to think this Gooch guy just had his client admit really bad stuff. Maybe that’s why ECW mentions the irony that Gooch specializes in legal malpractice. Bob might really think about the hole his own lawyer just dug for him.
No worries bob your daughter can sue Gooch for malpractice after you and your wife are in Joliet sharing your second honeymoon!
Does the local county newspaper have any investigative journalists to look into this township’s matters as well as other townships and county government? They do have a lot of people covering stories that should be the exclusive domain of high school newspapers and student run school web sites. Can these “news” people be reassigned to cover stories that matter and not high school chatter.
The newspaper should reorder their priorities to make it relevant to the “majority” of citizens in the county.
Priest, Susan, Bred: You’re all right on!
Where is Mr. Kenneally? Why dead silence from the SA’s office in the wake of the Althoff-Reinert in-your-face criminality?
Althoff & Co. have gotten away with much the same criminality over the years, now, like the Miller Crime Family, it begins to be revealed.
Susan, you’re right, all the evidence of serious crime was already exposed in the SBOE proceedings!
Observing, This is a galling subject as it gets to the very soul of how historically powerful societies and cultures implode.
This comes down to a foundational lack of discipline, values or mores on one side and a lack of personal responsibility and internal fortitude in the other.
The reason why Mark, Susan, Steve and others are admired is they consistently search for ways they themselves may be the accountability our law enforcement lacks.
Law enforcement is a reflection of its society and ours is merely a tax collector with very little motive to attempt to hold any societal values or mores together.
In this comment section there is a continued desire to see the “other” do something while the commenter wonders at why nothing ever gets done.
The foundational strength of Americans is their sense of self responsibility and desire for self determination.
The magic of our Founding Fathers is they saw all the same troubles we have today and they took personal responsibility for directing the path of their own society forward.
Be the one to make a phone call to the SA’s Office to have them tell you they have neither jurisdiction nor expertise to pursue Miller and his ilk.
Then be the one to call Madigan’s Office to have them take all your information to have an investigator get back to you only to find out six months later they’ve never heard of either of you.
Then call the FBI and have an investigator laugh at your serious tone as they explain all the thousands of similar complaints they’ve gotten just in Illinois and they only have the resources to investigate “major corruption”.
Then steam in your home as you cannot fathom the depths of the endemic depravity in our system and realize… YOU are the problem.
Get out of your house, help Hanlon investigate, send a donation to Edgar County Watchdogs, go observe/ask questions at one single governmental meeting, give tips to Cal, get to know six of your neighbors… Quite literally do ANYTHING other than wondering why someone else doesn’t do something.
One day you’ll get to the point of realization we can cut every governmental budget by over 50% and do better as a nation if we just realize our own worth and power.
Then go work for that.
Jackie boy is a nothing never had been never will be and yet folks think his glare at them in a county board meeting means something.
Go glare back.
Good Lord!
If any of you figure out the magic potion to motivate people to take self responsibility on as a value in their own interests let us all know.
The press/newspapers had played a more vibrant role in rooting out corruption of government in times past in the U.S. and elsewhere. Centuries ago the press became known as the Fourth Estate.
Today, that Fourth Estate would include newspapers and tv and radio news organizations. Unfortunately, many of the most prominent of these “organizations” operating newspapers, network and cable news and radio stations have become extensions of a political party, Democrat, here in the U.S. There are varying degrees of bias in what they choose to report favoring Democrat politicians and government and disfavoring Republicans. One particular cable news channel currently devotes a great portion of its broadcast day nitpicking every conceivable thing about the current presidential administration including the kinds of shoes the First Lady wears.
We have a mostly dishonest media (newspaper, tv and radio news) that not only biases their reporting but chooses to use an amount of its manpower/womanpower on trivialities and nonsense to titillate rather than keeping government honest with genuine investigative journalism.
Is investigative journalism dying a slow death in the U.S., in Illinois and in this local county?
Your local rag has a headline about how Trump is Unfit to Serve. The story is a communist rant on nothing. Your government in Illinois is made up of complete nitwits that understand nothing. While we were laughing at stupid, they somehow are the ones running everything into the ground. In the sixties, we laughed at the draft dodgers, the drugged out hippies, the women’s libbers and the society dropouts. They are the ones now making policy. This is how we got here. Evil reigns.
See this piece to see how dark it is getting.
https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/01/13/blame-the-nra-illinois-ag-candidate-robbed-at-gunpoint-during-photo-shoot/
Many presidents in the past from Truman and afterwards used coarse language in both private and public. They were not castigated nor turned in by rats and finks who might have been present in a private meeting in the white house. What this president should finally learn is who from each of the political parties that absolutely cannot be trusted and like a rat will immediately go out to the media and turn him in on any matter. The current senator from our state is a guy that absolutely cannot be trusted on any matter. Back in year 2004, he famously made disparaging remarks about our US Miltary comparing them to nazis and pol pot.
Dirty Dick Durbin has never had a shred of integrity.
His shtick has always been convincing people to vote for him because he’s not quite as sleazy as the Cook County crowd, but in reality, he is.
Dear immense sunshine blog readership (not really, around 14 or so): Aren’t you entertained by the mental juggling tricks our sunshine commenters use to justify the trash coming out of the little brain of our “grab-them-by-the-pussy”, sexual-assaulter-in-chief, little hands, downright racist president? They even have the audacity of labeling Sen. Durbin or anybody who make the American public aware of the barbaric comments coming from this little president, as “traitors.” What happened to the “transparency” you advocate here so much? The answer is obvious. We know these conservatives too well. It’s the family values, compassionate conservative, parallel cyber-universe in action. In this sunshine blog, the nonsense comedy never ends..stay tuned…tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock, tic, tock…
Apparently, our Asterisk-American troll is not familiar with Dirty Dick Durbin’s lobbyist wife.
She allegedly only lobbies the State of Illinois, but by some miraculous coincidence, her clients have a very good track record of receiving federal money.
Nothing to see here, move along folks.
Creative racism, always impressive…tic, tock, tic, tock…
Latest fiasco to come to light?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Qoaa5C1hPKk