An email arrived from the Better Government Association’s Andy Shaw.

It announces the unveiling of its data base of state and local governmental pensions.

“We’ve updated the BGA Payroll Database of 500,000 government workers with 2012 numbers and, for the first time, we’ve compiled the BGA Pension Database, which contains searchable information on 400,000 retirees from the largest public-sector pension funds in Illinois. ”

Type in a person’s last name and find the pension.

I tried it for myself and got lots of hits for “Skinner,” but none whose first name was “Cal.”

Then I went to the part that allows searches by pension type, found “Judges/Legislators” and typed in “Skinner.”

And there is was, as you can see below:

It does not have non-Chicago police and firefighters yet.

The following BGA piece, first published in the Chicago Sun-Times on June 1st, is reprinted with permission of the Better Government Association.

Local Government Has Obesity Problem

Public agencies need a crash diet, with unnecessary units of government eliminated and duplicative functions consolidated.

The Land of Lincoln still has about 7,000 units of government, more than any other state. Cook County alone has 50 library districts, 38 fire prevention districts, 30 townships of dubious value and four mosquito abatement districts. If I’m a mosquito I’m flattered by so much attention, but if I’m a taxpayer I’m fuming at the wasteful overlap.

Illinois also has more than 300 boards and commissions, including the Human Rights Commission, which lavishes a dozen politically-connected members with generous pensions, low-cost health care and salaries of nearly $50,000 a year for — hold on to your wallets — 12 hours of work each month!

The state also has nearly 900 public school districts but nearly a third of them have — you guessed it — only one school. Gov. Pat Quinn and a few reform-minded lawmakers have been promising a major downsizing but so far it’s been mostly talk. Like most diet plans. So maybe it’s time for a 12-step program that works.

The Biggest Losers?

Technically, all 177 seats in the General Assembly are up for grabs this fall. The reality’s a different story.

Roughly 40 Democrats ran unopposed in the March primary and don’t have Republican opponents in the Nov. 6 general election, the BGA found.

Several dozen Republicans had the same luck.

And, collectively, nearly 40 Republicans and Democrats had primary opponents but now have no general election foes.

That means more than 60 percent of the seats in the Legislature are basically already won — so long as nothing changes.

For instance, there is a window in early June for the two parties to file a candidate in uncontested races and third-party candidates can file later in June. Pat Brady, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, said he plans to file roughly 18 candidates in uncontested races while Democrats wouldn’t say what their plans are.

Either way, it appears many legislators still will have no competition. And that poses a problem.

“The more competition you have . . . the more you engage voters,” said Kent Redfield, a retired professor of political science at University of Illinois at Springfield.

And an apolitical redistricting process would increase the competition, which is why incumbent politicians oppose it.

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This column, a weekly feature in the Chicago Sun-Times called “Public Eye,” was written and reported by the BGA’s Andy Shaw, Patrick Rehkamp and Andrew Schroedter. To reach them, email  prehkamp@bettergov.org or call (312) 386-9201.

The Better Government Association includes a short article on McHenry County Board member Bob Bless in its half page report in the Chicago Sun-Times today.

You can find the story on the BGA web site here.

Reprinted with permission, it’s entitled,

A heaping mess for Mr. Bless

These days, McHenry County Board member Robert Bless must feel cursed.

An attorney and cop in addition to being a Republican politician, consider the trouble he’s in:

• The agency that regulates lawyers is investigating Bless over misconduct allegations including, among other things, money scammed from a client who also was his mistress, according to court records.
• The woman is suing him in Cook County Circuit Court.
• Prosecutors have questioned people in front of a grand jury about some of the same things.
• And the Cook County sheriff’s office, where Bless works as an officer, is trying to fire him for, among other things, allegedly not reporting that he has outside employment.

As one person familiar with the situation relayed, “You have a guy who basically had an unblemished record . . . and all of a sudden it’s fire and brimstone raining hell and fury.”

It’s a convoluted situation, and it’s still unfolding. Details continue to emerge, including revelations the ex-mistress pleaded guilty years ago in an insurance fraud scheme.

Voters might be the final jury.

Bless is up for re-election this fall.

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Four Republicans and one Democrat are contesting for four seats on the McHenry County Board in District 1.  The Democrat is Nick Chirikos.

Here’s how the GOP primary in which four candidates–Yvonne Barnes, Robert Bless, Anna May Miller and Robert Nowak–turned out:

Chirikos received 876 votes.

District 1′s boundaries have spread west into Lake in the Hills, as you can see below:

When I figured out that the Better Government Association was only searching for information about Gary Gauger from the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department, I wondered if that meant searches for similarly situated past inmates was occurring.

Without doing an exhaustive search, I can tell you that a request for similar information for three men was made to the Kane County Sheriff’s Office.

They are

• Davis Lavelle
• Lionel Lane
• Victor Perez

My guess is that a survey of the backgrounds of these and other men will be the result.

When McHenry County Blog published “Better Government Association Looks at Sheriff’s Department,” the article was based on an incomplete answer obtained from the Sheriff’s Department as a result of a Freedom of Information request.

As mentioned in the article, “The Sheriff’s Department has not yet provided the ‘attached list’ of inmate names…”

I made a mistake in pluralizing the word “name.”

It turns out the BGA was only interested in one inmate–Gary Gauger.

Gauger, you may remember, was falsely arrested for and convicted of murdering his parents when, in fact, a motor cycle gang did so.

The information desired, as revealed in the attachment, was

Inmate
Date of Birth
Date of Arrest
Date of Conviction
Gauger, Gary

It’s not only Tribune investigative reporter Joe Mahr who is asking for detailed information from the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department.

So is the BGA, in the person of policy intern Samuel Cuomo.

On December 29th he sent the following Freedom of Information request (click to enlarge) to the Sheriff’s Department:

The Sheriff’s Department has not yet provided the “attached list” of inmate names, but what is requested follows:

1. the charge or charges filed against each inmate
2. the case number that contains those charges
3. the date the inmate entered jail after his or her arrest on those charges
4. the date of release from jail
5. the type of release from jail (bond posted, transfer to IDOC, charges dismissed, or credited time served
6. if the inmate was incarcerated in the county jail more than once on the same charge, we are requesting the date for each third incarceration

In September, the BGA reported that the Sheriff’s Department was being investigated by the Illinois State Police.

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Please see “BGA Probe of Sheriff’s Office Much Less Than It Seemed” for amplification of this article.

After reprising the indictment of McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi and Metra, which the Better Government Association says has been “long the domain of McHenry County Republicans,” in an article today.

“The State Police (has) launch(ed) an investigation into alleged corruption within the McHenry County sheriff’s office.”

“…nothing has been substantiated,” the article says.

“This is nonsense. We’re not even talking, goodbye,” Sheriff Keith Nygren told whoever called him from the BGA.

Read the press release as it was sent:

MAHON NOTES 911 TAPE SHOWS NYGREN STANCE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION

Candidate for McHenry County Sheriff Mike Mahon Friday said that incumbent Sheriff Keith Nygren’s initial refusal to release the 911 tapes surrounding the suicide of Metra Executive Director Philip Pagano was characteristic of the Nygren administration’s treatment of public information.

Mahon was reacting to a published report in Friday’s Chicago Sun-Times in which the transcript of a 911 call from noted McHenry County Republican Al Jourdan was only released following a threatened lawsuit from the Better Government Association.

According to the report, Jourdan referenced his personal knowledge of Sheriff Nygren and Undersheriff Andrew Zinke in the 911 call.

“We’ve seen this movie before,” Mahon said, “in the March wounding of Deputy Eric Woods at the firing range, and in other cases where Sheriff Nygren and his people have treated public information as if it was their own little secret. Not even Freedom of Information Act requests can pry the whole story loose, but in this case at least the Nygren Administration apparently drew the line at a lawsuit they would have undoubtedly lost.

“Thank God the Better Government Association put up a strong fight, or who knows whether that 911 tape would have ever seen the light of day.”

Also referenced in the Sun-Times was a connection between Sheriff Nygren and another Metra executive, board member Jack Schaffer, who has contributed $1,670 to Nygren’s campaigns.

“In just one newspaper article, one can see the starting lineup in the McHenry County good-old-boy network and how they operate,”

Mahon said.

“My candidacy is dedicated to putting a hole in that network where the Sheriff’s Office used to be.

“Mutual backscratching and personal favors are not the way to conduct the people’s business in an office they pay for, and I’ll put a stop to it.

“When elected Sheriff, I will return this office back to the people of McHenry.”

For more information contact the Mike Mahon for Sheriff Campaign at 847.515.4772.

Why Sheriff Keith Nygren refused to release the 911 call made by former McHenry County and State Republican Party Chairman Al Jourdan is beyond me.

Now, almost most four months after Metra Exec Phil Pagano committed suicide by stepping in front of a train, the call surfaces in a Sun-Times article written by Chris Fusco.  Within the link is another link where you can hear the call itself.

The reply I received after asking for the 911 call said the investigation was still taking place and that private information was included in the call.

Guess I should have asked later or appealed to the Attorney General.

Turns out the private information was caller Al Jourdan’s home phone number and address. What a flimsy excuse not to provide the contents of the call.

And the contents were:

Jourdan got a call “10-12 minutes ago”

• It was from Pagano.
• He “could hear a train in the background.”
• He knew where the car, house keys and suicide note was.
• “I can be helpful, I think, to the police.”
• Pagano was OK when he talked to him at 2 or 3 that morning.

Nygren is quoted as saying he had “no recollection of ever having met” Pagano.

Strange, since Nygren lived in the same subdivision as Pagano, Covered Bridge Trails, before he moved to Lakewood’s Turnberry before he moved to Hebron.

If someone ever places them together, Nygren could say, “Oh, now I recall.”

You can find the Sheriff’s Department’s report on the suicide here.

The denial I got is below.  Click to enlarge it.

Jourdan’s service on the RTA Board is mentioned in the story, as well as Jack Schaffer’s membership on the Metra Board.

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For Keith Nygren’s Democratic Party opponent’s press release, click here.