McHenry County Blog

Oil pipeline bursting in Romeoville.

Oil on the street.

Oil in a pond threatening to overflow.

Thirty inch gas pipeline blowing up in California.

40-60 years old.

People killed.

People running for their lives, a wall of fire pursuing them.

Some who lived nearby aid they smelled gas before the massive explosion.

Possible corrosion of the pipe, said National Transportation Safety Board member Christopher Hart.

McHenry County has pipelines that age. I remember some being installed while I was McHenry County Treasurer from 1966-1970.

After I wrote this article and discussed it with an engineer friend who had worked in the oil fields, I was told not to worry, because there are “pigs” that rumble through the pipelines searching for weak spots. Any found are repaired, he said.

Below are the gas pipelines in McHenry County.

If you live near one and smell natural gas, let the California experience be instructive.  Call authorities immediately.

Below is a map of liquid pipelines in McHenry County:

One might have thought the campaign ended with the Republican primary victory of McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren over Zane Seipler, the deputy Nygren never wants to see in the Sheriff’s Department again.

But Seipler’s blog, McHenry County Sheriff’s Department Exposed, continues to taunt the Sheriff. His most recent post tells of his father Russell Seipler was an NTSB investigator of the devastating Fox River Grove school bus-Metra train crash in the mid-1990′s. (My brother-in-law Dr. Joe Giangrasso was in Good Shepherd’s Emergency Room when the kids were brought in and my wife was chasing reporters out of hospital bathrooms, where at least one was hiding.)

Seipler’s civil suit continues in the deposition stage, as one can glean from reading between the lines on MCSDExposed.blogspot.com.

Seipler has hired an attorney to elaborate on his pro se filing prior to primary election day.

The first allegations read as follows:

“Elected Official Sheriff Nygren has abused his position and continues to violate the law. An emblem of the Sheriff’s department which Sheriff Nygren was supposed to use for the limited purpose of securing his election is now being used publicly by McHenry County. To this end, tax payer dollars are being used to further Sheriff Nygren’s political goals.

“Additionally, Sheriff Nygren failed to report or investigate the illegal conduct by Deputy Michael Cooper, as should be in line with his duties under the General Orders of McHenry County. Given the importance of maintaining the integrity of the State’s Attorney’s office and the significance of these crimes, it is vital for an independent prosecutor to be appointed to investigate these matters.”

It continues,

“Sheriff Nygren is involved in criminal conduct in the following two ways:

1. the illegal usage of the Sheriff’s campaign logo on multiple pieces of government property; and
2. the failure to investigate known criminal activity by Deputy Michael J. Cooper as related to the State’s Attorney Louis Bianchi investigation.”

The legal filing points out that the Sheriff’s Department has a five-pointed star “used on County documentation and can be seen on an emblem…worn by deputies.”

There is also a seven-pointed star, it continues, that was created by Nygren for campaign purposes.

“Without sanction, Sheriff’s Nygren created a campaign logo for political reasons and then illegally continued to use a political logo instead of the official logo on County property,” Seipler charges.

The question is whether the person charged with official misconduct manipulated his public office or employment in order to perform a proscribed act. Id.

“Clearly, Sheriff Nygren exploited his position as the Sheriff by using bus personal political logo on state property to market himself and his campaign.”

Six examples are offered as evidence relating to documents, as I read the legal document.

In addition, Seipler offers nine more examples on “buses, cars, envelope openers, motorcycles and even tanks.”

Such use violates these state laws, the filing continues:

• Official Misconduct, 720 ILCS 5/33-3(b) and (c) and
• Prohibited Political activities, 5 ILCS 430/5-15(a) and (b)

“Clearly, Sheriff Nygren exploited his position as the Sheriff by using bus [his?] personal political logo on state property to market himself and his campaign.

“Additionally, he used the services of the state and therefore used taxpayer dollars for the installation of these logo – patently abusing his power as a public official,”

Seipler’s brief charges.

“The question is whether the person charged with official misconduct manipulated his public office or employment in order to perform a proscribed act. Id. Clearly, Sheriff Nygren exploited his position as the Sheriff by using bus personal political logo on state property to market himself and his campaign.”

Next comes the part about Deputy Michael Cooper and his involvement with Amy Dalby is addressed.

“Dalby gave the USB key drive (from McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi’s office) to Michael J. Cooper, Sheriff Keith Nygren’s deputy and security guard. Deputy Cooper kept the USB key drive with the illegally obtained information in a safety deposit box. He never reported this illegally obtained material to the State Police or any other law enforcement authority.”

Nygren’s lack of investigation of this activity, which Seipler’s brief contends violated the law,

“include, but are not limited to:

(a) Illegal actions;
(b) Dereliction of duty
(c ) Malfeasance
(d) Misfeasance
(e) Conduct that may publicly discredit the Sheriff’s Office.”

The conclusion offered follows:

“Sheriff Nygren failed to report and/or investigate Deputy Michael Cooper’s conduct. While it is not clear if Nygren failed to report the deputy because of his relationship with Dan Regna, it is clear that Michael Cooper’s conduct was illegal and Nygren had a duty to investigate it.”

Next the appointment of a special prosecutor is requested.

Although there seems to be little love lost between McHenry County two chief law enforcement officers, State’s Attorney Bianchi has been representing Nygren, as the law proscribes

If that request for a special prosecutor is granted by Associate Judge Thomas A. Meyer, both Bianchi and Nygren would be facing special prosecutors.

Nygren ally Dan Regna, Bianchi’s Republican primary opponent two years ago, successfully sought a special investigator to probe Bianchi’s alleged political use of his office. Judge Gordon Graham is the associate judge that ruled in Regna’s favor.

Since then, Independent judicial candidate Sally Wiggins has filed to oppose Graham Republican candidacy in the fall election.

Nygren is being opposed by Democrat Mike Mahon and Green Gus Philpott.

The next court date is August 12th at 10 AM.

News today is that a duck (a bus that also acts like a boat or as AP puts it “an amphibious sightseeing boat”) lost power in the Philadelphia harbor, was hit by a city-owned sludge barge and sank. Two passengers remain missing.

I would imagine that barges are pretty hard to maneuver.

When we were in Montreal in June we took a duck tour of the old part of the city and the harbor.

First we went down the street on which the old warehouses faced.

Past old courthouses and the newest “Palais de Justice” that is so ugly that locals call it “the Toaster.”  The architecture of the latter is so totally out of place among its old neighbors that its construction led to rules to prevent future monstrosities.

Of political interest was the parking lot which is located where Canada’s first parliament building was.

Past the famous cathedral.

Then it was off to the harbor.

We went on a road right below what used to block most of the riverfront–grain elevators. All but this one has been torn down.

The road ran next to an old canal.

It led to this ramp.

The sign showed how steep the ramp was.

Unlike Philadelphia, we saw few boats in the harbor.  There was this three mast sailing ship.

A barge was there, too, but it was docked.

The harbor was calm.

The calmness, the guild told us, was a function of this peninsula built of dirt and rock when Montreal’s subway was excavated.

But, at the point the peninsula meets the St. Laurence River, there was much turbulence.

The river was not as swift before the peninsula was created.  My high school physics tells me that the increase in its speed was perfectly predictable. Bernoulli’s principle, right?

Today I wondered what would have happened if our duck had lost power and been drawn into the current and pushed downstream.

As we were heading back to the ramp, the tour guild pointed to a building with holes in its side.

She said there were to make the skyscraper better able to withstand an earthquake.

“But Montreal never has earthquakes,” she added.

The next day, as we were driving south through New York State, Montreal and presumably our car was shaken by an earthquake centered in nearby Ottawa, Quebec.

More photos were taken of the skyline.

It was time to end the tour.

We got a really good view of the end of the canal’s locks.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the accident.