McHenry County Blog

House Bill 5154, the bill that would allow McHenry County College to keep ex-President Walt Packard’s performance standards secret, passed the Illinois Senate overwhelmingly on December 1st.

The vote was 48-3.

The only local state senator who voted against this restriction of the Freedom of Information Act is Dan Duffy. Pam Althoff supported hiding Packard’s performance evaluations with her vote.

Pam Althoff voted for the rollback.

The roll call for House Bill 5154.

Here’s the article on the House amendatory veto override.

The vote there was closer. It “only” passed a bit over 2-1.

This ostrich doesn't see the need to hide anything.

The title of this article could have been

“Blogger Sued,“

but there’s enough drama without bringing that up.

Or the headline could have been

“MCC Sues MCC Founder.”

I even have a ribbon from the dedication of the current campus saying that around here somewhere.

In the worst way, a majority of the McHenry County College Board want to keep its evaluation of of ex-President Walt Packard secret.

The strategy continues to be to run out the clock in the hope that the Illinois General Assembly will override Governor Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto on House Bill 5154 , which, in its amended state, would continue to allow the public to view performance evaluations of people like Packard.

The bill passed 70-39 in the Illinois House and 49-9-1 in the Illinois Senate. On July 26th, the Governor filed his amendatory veto. A bare majority is all it takes to override an amendatory veto.

Did you know ducks were bottom feeders?

So, you can see the college law firm is expecting the law to change as soon as the fall veto session takes place after the election.

So, what strategy does the esteemed firm of Robbins, Schwartz, Nicholas, Lifton & Taylor advise.

Slip, slide and duck.

The latest ploy is to file suit against the Illinois Attorney General and yours truly for Administrative Review.

The Cook County Summons. Click to enlarge.

Not in McHenry County, but in Cook County.

The assertion of the suit is Public Access Attorney Matthew M. Sebek’s opinion “is not in accordance with the law.”

That is pretty much what Sheriff Keith Nygren is doing with Zane Seipler’s attempt to regain his job has a deputy sheriff.

An administrative body has made a ruling that someone does not like. The someone, be it Sheriff Nygren or the McHenry County College Board, has the right to ask a judge to overturn the administrative ruling.

Of course, with the way our court system works, that will take time.

In the case of the MCC suit, my guess is that the vote will be held on whether or not to override Governor Quinn’s amendatory veto before a judgment is rendered.

Ex-President Walt Packard

And, given all the patronage workers in both parties who don’t want people to be able to see what their supervisors think of their job performances, my prediction is that the bill will be approved in its original condition and the McHenry County College Board members can continue to hike some of the real reasons that Walt Packard was ousted.

Incidentally, there are a couple of MCC Board members up for election.  Petitions are now available for circulation.

Other articles that might be of interest:

6-2-10
Freedom of Information Request for Walt Packard Performance Evaluations Hits MCC Nerve

6-3-10
Beaubien, Duffy, Franks and Tryon Vote Against Stripping Employee Performance Standards from Freedom of Information Act

8-18-10
Attorney General Rules McHenry County College May Reveal Walt Packard Percformance Evaluation

8-20-10
McHenry County College Continues Stonewalling on Release of Walt Packard’s Performance Evaluations

Why should I be surprised that the local government that has been least transparent—even to the point of

• ejecting press and taxpayers from its building during a secret meeting,
• being sued by the McHenry County State’s Attorney and
• being admonished in court for having unlawfully done so

—would follow the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Division’s Matthew Sebek’s recommendation to release ex- President Walt Packard’s performance evaluations?

I just received the following email from Pat Stejskal, McHenry County College’s Freedom of Information Officer:

“In accordance with Section 11.5 of the Freedom of Information Act, the College will be filing an action for administrative review of the Attorney General’s August 17, 2010 determination.

“As such, the College is not required to provide the records at issue pending the administrative review process.”

It is clear that MCC officials plan to keep fighting the issue in court until after the election, when they hope the Illinois General Assembly will override Governor Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto of House Bill 5154.

It is completely in keeping with this college board’s past lack of trust of the public, but does not bode well for transparency under newly installed President Vicky Smith, to whom the Freedom of Information Officer reports.

Do you think hiding this obfuscating will help the college pass it next tax rate hike or bond issue?

The stalling tactics of McHenry County College didn’t work.

OK, so it's photo shopped. You get the point, right?

You may remember that I filed a Freedom of Information request for the performance evaluations of ex-President Walt Packard.

You remember him.

The one sent packing Feb. 26, 2009 with no explanation, but with a golden parachute that kept him on the payroll through this summer and he and his sick wife on tax-paid health benefits through August 21, 2012, according to the MCC press release.

That’s three and a half years.

The reason given for hiding this man’s performance evaluations follows:

“because it contains personal information, which if disclosed, would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

The denial letter then quotes Section 7(1)(c) of the Freedom of Information Act thusly,

an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy means “…the disclosure of information that is highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person and which the subject’s right to privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining the information.”

Now comes Public Access Division Assistant Attorney General Matthew Sebek telling the college that it has not met its burden of proof in its lawyer-prepared denial.

Ex-MCC President Walt Packard

“Evaluations of public employees directly address the manner in which public employees perform their public duties.  Public bodies use these evaluations to determine the public duties of public employees for purposes of Section 7(1)(c) of FOIA.  Accordingly, disclosure of such evaluations would not constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

The letter goes on to say,

“We further note that MCC’s citation to Section 24A-7.1 of the Illinois School Code and House Bill 5154, in support of its 7(1)(c) assertion, is unpersuasive.”Section 24A-7.1 of the Illinois School Code, which exempts from disclosure performance evaluations for certain public educators is simply not applicable to MCC, which, as a community college, is governed b y the Public Community College Act [citation given] and not the School Code.”

Is that a smack down of MCC law firm Robbins, Schwartz, Nicholas, Lifton & Taylor or what?

But there’s more.

“With respect to House Bill 5154′s proposed amendment of Section 11 of the Personnel Record Review Act to exempt performance evaluations of public employees, that Bill was amendatorily vetoed by the Governor on July 26, 2010 in a manner that significantly limits the scope of that legislative change to certain law enforcement personnel.

“In accordance with this letter, MCC may release the requested records to the requester.”

The opinion is below. Click to enlarge it.

Yesterday I frothed about our local very junior college’s playing games with the Freedom of Information Act.

Walt Packard

Two weeks ago I requested the performance evaluations for former McHenry County College President Walt Packard. I was told there was only one, but it was too personal to share.

How personal?

So “highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person and which the subject’s right to privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining the information.”

Really?

If Packard did something so outrageous that a June 2008 performance standard could not be shared with those of us who pay his salary, I have to wonder why he lasted another seven months.

And, of course, we don’t know why the board decided to can him.

Or why it allowed him to stay on the payroll doing nothing through this month.

Or why we taxpayers are being forced to pay his and his wife’s health insurance into August 2012.

It’s so, so horrifying that the board has to keep it secret.

In any event, foreseeing such embarrassment as this, those representing public employees convinced legislators such as our State Senator Pam Althoff to voted to repeal that section of the less than six-month old law. Dan Duffy, the new state senator also representing McHenry County, voted, “No.”

But, let’s award some credit, too.

McHenry County’s three state representatives—State Representatives Mark Beaubien, Jack Franks and Mike Tryon—all voted against repeal. The vote in the House was 70-39.

In the Senate, the vote was 45-9-1.

Remember how the teachers’ unions got the performance evaluation part of the Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s Freedom of Information Act reform law repealed earlier this year.

I figured that there was one performance evaluation that a lot of people in McHenry County would find of interest—that of former McHenry County College President Walt Packard.

You remember.

Walt Packard floating gently down from his McHerny County College presidency.

The guy with the very golden parachute.

So I filed an FOI request on May 17th. MCC took the maximum amount of time to reply, knowing that there was a bill to strip the FOI Act of any citizen right to discover how public employees’ performance was evaluated.

So, let me share MCC’s “let’s run out the clock” and hope Governor Pat Quinn, that man with the flagging reputation for transparency response from our nontransparent junior college.

The reply points out that Packard’s service as President ended on Feb. 26, 2009. They don’t point out that he is on the payroll until the end of this month. They put it in politer terms.

There is a four-page document evaluating his performance from June 1, 2007 through June 30, 2008.

But you and I can’t see ANY of it,

“because it contains personal information, which if disclosed, would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

The denial letter then quotes Section 7(1)(c) of the Freedom of Information Act thusly,

an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy means “…the disclosure of information that is highly personal or objectionable to a reasonable person and which the subject’s right to privacy outweighs any legitimate public interest in obtaining the information.”

I don’t know about you, but considering taxpayers are taking about a $200,000 hit for keeping Packard on the payroll from the time he was put into emeritus status—which seems to mean “get paid a lot for no work product”—until the end of this month, I think that creates a pretty big “legitimate public interest in obtaining the information.”

It might help explain why our McHenry County College Board allowed us to be fleeced (with apologies for former Unites States Senator William Proxmire’s Golden Fleece Award).

The letter points out that Packard’s emeritus status ends June 30, 2010, but conveniently ignores the following from its own press release:

“Dr. Packard will also continue to be enrolled in the College’s medical, dental, and vision insurance plans through June 30, 2010, and upon his retirement as President Emeritus, the College will pay the Board’s percentage share of the premium cost of health insurance coverage for Dr. Packard and his spouse for the period from July 1, 2010 through August 21, 2012.” (Emphasis added.)

More “legitimate public interest in obtaining the information.”

Very interrresssting.

Remember the smoking Nazi guy from “Laugh-In” who used to say,

“Very interesting”

That was my reaction as I read this article in the Daily Herald yesterday.

It is so typical of Illinois school politics.

The Federal government is trying to bribe states to improve teacher evaluations.

So, states like Illinois are rushing to pass laws that might put them in the Winner’s Circle.

Last week Illinois passed a law to impose tougher evaluations for school teachers and administrators.  These standards will evaluate how their students perform.

BUT, parents and taxpayers won’t be able to see the evaluations.

The General Assembly and Governor Pat Quinn have exempted the evaluations from Freedom of Information requests.

Isn't that special?

How typical?

And how symptomatic of how powerful the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers are.

Perhaps the Church Lady from “Saturday Night Live” had a more appropriate comment:

“Isn’t that special?”

“Public employees first” ought to be the new slogan for the State of Illinos.

One commenting reader suggested the Bell Curve would look funny with 85% of the teachers being rated “excellent.”