McHenry County Blog

This is my favorite flag photo.

I took it about a half a dozen years ago when our family went East and spent a day in the nation’s Capital.

We didn’t plan well enough to know that one needed to make a reservation to go to the top of the Washington Monument.

But, we lucked out.

I had been once before when I lived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I don’t know whether that was the trip when I saw President Harry Truman walking to work at the White House.

“Walking to work” sounds strange, doesn’t it?

But he was living in Blair House while the White House was being refurbished. “Rebuilt” is probably a better word.

We were on the sidewalk in front of the old War Department Building that became the Executive Office Building where I worked for the better part of a year as a baby Budget Examiner, having responsibility for the Small Business Administration’s budget. Now, it has Eisenhower’s name affixed to it.

The wedding cake building is located just to the West of the White House.

Visiting the Washington Monument reminded me of my father’s telling me he and other 4-H All Stars had camped on the grounds. Since he was born in 1916, that was probably in the early 1930′s. Undoubtedly due to a politically astute Ag teacher at Sudlersville High School, Dad was elected President of 4-H at a convention in Hagerstown, Maryland.

I think he told me that story as we drove past the County Fairgrounds where the convention was held on a trip from Crystal Lake to Washington for his treatment for lung cancer at Georgetown University Hospital.

Yesterday, McHenry County Blog summarized Judge Michael Caldwell’s conclusions in the lawsuit filed by Grafton Township Supervisor Linda Moore against her fellow Grafton Township Board members, Trustees Gerry McMahon, Rob LaPorta, Barbara Murphy and Betty Zirk.

Today, we’ll look at his logic.

After summarizing the testimony, Judge Caldwell wrote:

“There was voluminous evidence of

• canceled gasoline credit cards belonging to a department of the township,
• the failure to halt direct deposit of employees’ paychecks,
• Moore’s attempts to put the meetings of the township board on the the internet via the assessor’s website and the Illinois Township Officials Association,
• misdirected mail,
• the changes in the bus schedule (labeled as a “…complete failure…” by a single resident),
• the complete history of the Grafton Township Food Pantry,
• the history of the terms of Supervisors [Mildred] Ruth and [John] Rossi and
• an evidentiary comparison of the workings of Nunda Township with Grafton Township.

“None of this has any relevance to these proceedings”

“It may be interesting, even entertaining for some, but on the whole it is immaterial and irrelevant….It is nothing more than evidence of

• simple mistakes,
• poor judgment and
• a past that is over and not about to return any time soon.

“As such, none of this has any relevance to nor does it contribute to any decision that I must make regarding the state of affairs in Grafton Township.”

In his analysis section, the Judge pointed concluded,

“That there is an all-out, political and personal war between the Township Supervisor and the Board of Trustees of Grafton Township is readily apparent from the evidence.

“Not only do these parties intensely dislike one another, but both sides of this controversy seem dedicated to all out conflict, all of the time, regardless of its effect on township government or its programs.

“At the heart of these proceedings is the toxic relationship between the township board and the supervisor….

“Any ruling I make can affect some aspects of the relationship but not all of them.

“I cannot judicially regulate impolite, abusive, or course discourse between parties. It may be rude and hurtful, but the harm is not irrevocable and no one has the ‘right’ to compel others to be polite.

“Someone far wiser than I once said, when commenting on the First Amendment,

‘It takes a thick skin to be an American citizen.’

“Additionally, politics has always been a rough and tumble pursuit. Apparently in Grafton Township, it has been elevated to the level of a blood sport.

“That being said, there is nothing this court can do to compel these parties to be “…nice…” to one another, as was requested in one of the prayers of relief.

“The only think I can offer is the advice of the late President Harry Truman who said,

‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’”

Ancel Glink partner Keri-Lyn Krafthefer looks up a point of township law after she had been dismissed by Supervisor Linda Moore.

Judge Caldwell then indicated he would rule on the “supervisor/ board relationship.”

In other words, on the separation of powers.

And, how those powers were balanced was reported in yesterday’s article.

The Judge confirmed Supervisor Moore’s authority to fire Township Administrator Pam Fender and Township Attorney Ancel Glink, usually represented by Keri-Lyn Krafthefer at township meetings.

Judge Caldwell’s reversal of the political strategy presumably concocted by Krafthefer to allow the Township Trustees to take control of what they could not win at the ballot box is nothing short of stunning.

He confirmed Moore’s authority to run the day-to-day business of the township the same way that a strong mayor or a village president does.

Caldwell did say the Township Trustees could set the agenda at the beginning of every meeting, had approval authority over large contracts and should have the ability to access township financial records.

Among unanswered questions are the following:

• whether forensic computer firm Forensicon’s bill would have to be paid with taxpayer dollars or by the two trustees–Betty Zirk and Rob LaPorta–who signed the contract
• whether taxpayers have any call on the money that was paid to Township Administrator Pam Fender and Ancel Glink after Moore dismissed them from township service
• whether paying off the Town Hall loan to the Township
  Road District mandated at the Annual Meeting requires Board approval
• whether the severance clause in the contract approved by the Trustees for Pam Fender is enforceable
• whether the Supervisor can select the outside auditor (since advice and consent is required for the attorney’s selection

Judge Caldwell did rule that both Moore attorney John Nelson and the Trustees’ Ancel Glink litigator Thoma DiCianni and others in his firm would be paid by the taxpayers for services rendered in this lawsuit.

When I last looked at the bills, the Trustees were outspending the Supervisor 4 to 1.

Part 1 is here.

Just in case you don’t subscribe to the Northwest Herald, here’s the graphic and text of the ad Zane Seipler, candidate to replace McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren, place in the Northwest Herald Sunday.

Informed citizens, local business and government leaders, have long known about Keith Nygren’s questionable judgment, behavior and the atmosphere of intimidation he has created within the Sheriff’s Department. The harsh tactics he has foisted on many private citizens are well known throughout the County.

People tell us that, until now, they felt they had no option other than tolerate a man who has, over a period of too many years, learned to “work” the system.

People wonder how Mr. Nygren somehow manages to afford and maintain three homes . . . in three different states. Most voters are unaware that Sheriff Nygren spends an inordinate amount of time in Florida, where his wife is a full-time resident. In fact, the Nygren’s home is recognized by the State of Florida as housing permanent residents. As a result, Florida has issued a $50,000 Homestead Tax Exemption, as the Nygrens seemingly “work” the system from both ends.

Evidence suggests that Mr. Nygren travels to his Florida home on a more or less regular basis. Official disclosure records indicate that the Nygrens have spent hundreds of campaign donation dollars, in upscale Florida restaurants. (Mr. Nygren also spends time at his Minocqua, Wisconsin home where official records show that the Nygrens enjoy meals at Chy’s Red Steer Super Club, also funded by campaign contributions.) Instead of performing his day-to-day duties, at his desk here in McHenry County, he is apparently living a life of leisure under the Florida sun. It’s time to elect a full-time Sheriff who lives in McHenry County.

At age 36, I am at times questioned about my experience. It’s a little known fact that I am four years older than Keith Nygren was when, at 32, he attempted his first bid for Sheriff, as a Democrat.

I’m inspired knowing Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence at age 33. Of course, I make no claim to be Thomas Jefferson. However, I am fully qualified and well-prepared to serve. I have spent 14 years of my life serving and protecting my country and community.

Unlike Mr. Nygren, I have served in our Nation’s armed forces. I am a Navy Veteran, a certified and experienced police officer as well as a highly trained and qualified correctional officer. For those who may not know, my wife Rose is a registered nurse who has also dedicated her life to serving others. Together, we have three beautiful children, ages five, three and four months. Like yours, our family is a part of the McHenry County community and its future.

My intention is to return the Sheriff’s Department to one based on fairness, honest hard work, and a level of integrity that has been missing for many years. Accountability, transparency and fiscal responsibility will be the hallmarks of my administration. Under my leadership, the Sheriff’s Department will be saying goodbye to questionable ethics, cronyism and the business-as-usual ways of the past.

With your support on February 2nd, a new era of ethical law enforcement will begin in McHenry County. “A New Beginning” is on the horizon and we can usher it in together. When you enter the privacy of the voting booth to cast your secret ballot, you will have the opportunity to choose the man who will lead the Sheriff’s Department into the future, leaving the unfortunate ways of the past behind.

Zane Seipler

Republican Candidate for McHenry County Sheriff

Paid for by Citizens for Zane Seipler

Imagine my surprise when an alert Crystal Lake South Elementary School parent emailed me that District 47 was going to allow President Barack Obama to speak to its students on September 8th.

Sure, I’m just too much of a cynic. This pitch to kids has nothing to do with future political campaigns, right?

Right. The same way that politicians’ handing out Halloween candy collection bags right before a November election has nothing to do with their campaigns.

If schools think it is important enough to allow the President to speak to them, he must be important, I’d figure, if I were a kid.

Just from casually listening to the radio during the 1948 presidential campaign, I came up with a question for my mother, then a registered Democrat in Easton, Maryland:

“Why are you and Daddy against the president?”

I certainly must have heard some negative comments from my parents about electing Harry S Truman president.

That was probably my first political utterance. I was six years old. I even remember I was standing next to the washing machine on the back porch.

(And when, after the election, I saw Truman walking across Pennsylvania Avenue from Blair House–where he was staying while the White House was being renovated–in front of the building where I held my first job after grad school, that was a thrill. I was at the curb when he left the crosswalk.)

In any event, the parent emailed me the reply he got from new School Superintendent Donn Mendoza:

“Relative to your first question, here are the parameters we’ve set forth in enabling the streaming of the Educational Address:

“1. Parents have full discretion in having their children ‘opt out’ of seeing the address at school. All schools will provide an alternate location for these students that will have adult supervision during the address.

“2. Follow-up conversations after the address has been given will center around the importance of education, goal setting, current events, etc.

“3. Building staff will ensure that advocating for or against any political party will not be part of any preliminary or follow-up discussions related to this address.

“Our principals have been made aware of these guidelines and parameters.

“We will not be broadcasting the ‘I pledge’ video” (in answer to the second question).

The “I pledge video” is one in which children are encouraged to pledge “to be a servant of President Barack Obama,” according to one email I received.

Too bizarre. (I didn’t watch it, but if you want to, you can above.)

I emailed Mendoza asking for details and was told,

“Students who will not be participating will remain under teacher supervision in an alternate location within the school.”

I remember my son’s having been one of Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s “campaign managers” at South School, so he might be one who would want to opt out.

And,

“We’ve set up consistent parameters but as you know, all of our schools are different in terms of available space, etc. At the building level, principals are responsible for determining the manner in which students will be supervised during the address.”

I have learned that at my son’s school, the President’s address will be recorded, previewed and “if it does not turn out to be totally focused on student’s educational success and goal setting, we will choose not to show it to our students.”

Fair enough.

If you have concerns, “Contact your child’s principal,” is the advice I would give.

Here’s a bit of what came from the Department of Education (I received this September 1st and its content may have been altered by now.):

PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities

President Obama’s Address to Students
Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education September 8, 2009

Before the Speech:

Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United Statesand his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions:

• Who is the President of the United States?
• What do you think it takes to be President? To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking?
• Why do you think he wants to speak to you? What do you think he will say to you?

Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.

Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?

During the Speech:

As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate.

As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:

• What is the President trying to tell me?
• What is the President asking me to do?
• What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?

Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about:

• What specific job is he asking me to do?
• Is he asking anything of anyone else?
• Teachers?
• Principals?
• Parents?
• The American people?

Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.

After the Speech:

Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.

Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:

• What do you think the President wants us to do?
• Does the speech make you want to do anything?
• Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
• What would you like to tell the President?

Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education’s “I Am What I Learn” video contest.

On September 8th the Department will invite K-12 students to submit a video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via www.ed.gov .

Extension of the Speech:

Teachers can extend learning by having students

• Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.
• Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.
• Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
• Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
• Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals.
• Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
• Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
• Graph student progress toward goals.

Earlier segments of this biography of my father can be found below on McHenry County Blog.

In 1952, my youngest sister Ellen was born.

That was also the year Dad switched his registration from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in order to be able to vote for Dwight Eisenhower for president. (Maryland has a closed primary, unlike Illinois’.)

And the state was as Democratic then as it is now.

To understand how Democratic the area was and how significant it was for the President of the Easton Town Council to switch parties, let me tell you about the 1952 Halloween paintings I helped put on the barber shop’s front window.

It was a parade to a haunted house. On a wagon was a sign that said,

A day or so after we painted it, my 5rh grade teacher, Miss Ornett, suggested that I should change the sign to

Compliant child that I was, I did.

The Eastern Shore had always been conservative. Today my birth place is firmly in Republican Party control.

But I remember in 1948 when I was six asking my mother why she and Dad weren’t in favor of President Truman. I am not sure of the answer, but that’s the first political thought I remember…unless watching my mother cry when she heard the news that President Roosevelt had died in 1945 when I was two years and ten months counts.

Just as Dad may have been the first to get a student loan, he certainly was one of the first Democratic Party office holders to switch to the Republican Party—all the rage while Ronald Reagan was in office.

My mother, who was the daughter of a Queen Anne County, Maryland, Democratic Party county board member James Clayland Stevens didn’t follow suit until 1954.

Her father was the swing vote who tried to keep the county’s two Democratic Party factions honest after he was recruited by one to run on its slate.

In 1953, the family moved to Salt Lake City.
Dad found that he could not get a job at the National Canners Association because the national association did not want to offend its regional affiliate.

So, he looked outside of the food industry.

He found the National Chinchilla Breeders and Marketing Associations in Salt Lake City. It had lots of employees, but was looking to modernize and downsize. Dad did both. The association keep voluminous records of the genealogy of the little animals with the softest fur on earth. He implemented a pre-computer filing and sorting system using cards about the size of 4 by 6 inches with places to punch out indicators around all four edges.

That must have meant there needed to be many, many fewer employees, because by the time he moved the office to Middletown, New York, in 1956, the association did not need very many people.

The office was moved because Dad convinced his board that if the industry was going to survive they needed to sell some pelts for coats and stoles. Since the fur market was in New York City, being fifty miles up the Hudson was close enough to make sales pitches in the city and far enough to avoid the high cost of labor there. The pelt is pretty poor, but the black and gray fur you see above is the natural color. The marketers experimented with dying the pelts blue, among other colors.

After about a year, my father was let go. The board figured his two top assistants earning $5,000 each could do the job he was doing earning $10,000. (My sister Jan covers this much better than I.)

So, Dad was looking for a job while I was a sophomore at Middletown High School. What he found paid less than the NCBA, but it was a job. He was the natural resources man for the National Association of Manufacturers dealing with the big lumber companies, among others.

I suspect he immediately starting looking for a job that paid more and would allow him to see his family more than Wednesday night and weekend. (While Middletown was fifty miles from New York, the same distance as Crystal Lake is from Chicago, the train trip was at least an hour and a half. The track was so bad, the commuters called it the Eire and Lackadaisical.)

He stayed in a single room occupancy hotel in NYC, meeting all sorts of interesting people, as he did in Chicago when he preceded us to take his new job as Manager of the Barley and Malt Institute.

“Tell Grandmom—his mother—it’s about malt, like malted milk,” he told me by phone. (You see Addie Watlin-Skinner in her mid-nineties here.)

Addie Skinner was not one who favored alcohol or cards. She and her husband left the Methodist Church about 1944 because it was getting too liberal. My grandfather Skinner built a Holiness Church near Crumpton, Maryland, where they retired.

Dad came to Chicago while us kids finished the school year. He lived in a single room occupancy hotel.

Dad and Mom decided on Crystal Lake as the place they wanted to live. It had a lake that seemed safer than Lake Michigan.

= = = = =
Here are the links to the other stories in this series:

Biography of Calvin L Skinner – Part 1 – Second Son, School Years

Biography of Calvin L. Skinner – Part 2 – College, Marriage, First Jobs

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 3 – First House, Elected President of the Easton, Maryland, Town Council

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 4 – Storm Sewer Grates, Miles River Yacht Club, Slot Machines, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 5 – Switching Parties, Moving to Salt Lake City, Middletown and Crystal Lake

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 6 – The Early Crystal Lake Days, Dipping Feet Slowly into Political Arena

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 7 – Running for County Auditor, Precinct Committeeman, Calling the Meeting that Led to McHenry County College

Biography of Cal Skinner – Part 8 – The Star Reporter, Daughter Ellen Bored in High School, Prohibited from Attending MCC Classes

Biography of Cal L Skinner – Part 9 – Responsible Republicans’ Slate, County Board Reapportionment

Biography of Cal Skinner, Sr. – Part 10 – Unsuccessful County Clerk Try, County Airport Fight, Wife’s Death

April 14, 2009, blogger and WLS-Radio Sunday night talk show host Tom Roeser reveals that President Harry S Truman played poker with rich guys at the White House and won enough to pay off the debts he owed from running his failing haberdasher store.

Here’s part of what is in the oral history of just deceased Chicago Tribune Washington Bureau Chief Walter Trohan, which is hidden away at the Truman Library:

“Then Trohan found out why Truman had told (U.S. Senator Burton) Wheeler (of Montana) why he couldn’t afford to play. Those who played were brokers, rich men, rich senators, rich lobbyists. At the end of the evening, Truman toted up what they owed him and gave his players bills. Then and only then did Truman put a fixed price on each chip. He didn’t win all the time but he won enough at huge stakes that when the checks flowed, his debt on the haberdasher store started to evaporate.

“People who contributed found themselves named to the federal bench, one to the Federal Reserve. It was a lovely way for Truman to eradicate his debts, have fun with the boys and also entertain a newsman like Trohan with delicious news tips.

“So those of us who are ready to faint because Jesse Jackson, Jr. might have consorted with some Indians to raise dough for Blago to get himself named to the Senate…should recall the evil old days under a man who is purported to have been on of the best presidents we ever had.”

No, you do not have permission to relieve yourself on Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley just because he passed his 75% sales tax increase.

I know you want a larger litter box, Keely, but you are not going to get our new tub liner (for which we shall not pay Crystal Lake sales tax).

It looks as if Keely is standing up and doing, well, you know what.

It reminds me of visiting Washington, D.C., as a kid. I think that was when we saw President Truman crossing Pennsylvania Avenue from Blair House, where he was living while the White House was being renovated. We were standing right in front of what is not called the Old Executive Office Building, where I ended up working as a budget examiner right out of the University of Michigan’s public administration grad school for the U.S. Bureau of the Budget.

For some reason my little sister Janet (two years younger than I; I couldn’t have been more than 6) went into a Men’s Room with us.

She saw urinals covering the side of a wall.

“Daddy, why are the bathtubs standing up?” she asked.

Seeing Keely exploring the tub liner brought back that exquisite memory.

No, you do not have permission to relieve yourself on Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley just because he passed his 75% sales tax increase.

I know you want a larger litter box, Keely, but you are not going to get our new tub liner (for which we shall not pay Crystal Lake sales tax).

It looks as if Keely is standing up and doing, well, you know what.

It reminds me of visiting Washington, D.C., as a kid. I think that was when we saw President Truman crossing Pennsylvania Avenue from Blair House, where he was living while the White House was being renovated. We were standing right in front of what is not called the Old Executive Office Building, where I ended up working as a budget examiner right out of the University of Michigan’s public administration grad school for the U.S. Bureau of the Budget.

For some reason my little sister Janet (two years younger than I; I couldn’t have been more than 6) went into a Men’s Room with us.

She saw urinals covering the side of a wall.

“Daddy, why are the bathtubs standing up?” she asked.

Seeing Keely exploring the tub liner brought back that exquisite memory.