McHenry County Blog

The Northwest Herald’s Kevin Craver has been a busy guy.

He just posted a scathing piece on his blog, “Opening Doors.”

The subject is the very “special” meeting of the McHenry County College Board to extend the contract of President Vicky Smith’s contract, which does not expire until the middle of 2014.

Craver asks if the meeting notice complies with the new provisions of the Open Meetings Act.

The agenda for Tuesday night’s McHenry County College Board meeting does not say that a vote will be taken on extending President Vicky Smith’s contract.

Undoubtedly any vote will be brought to the attention of the Public Access Bureau of the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.

Walt Packard got a Golden Parachute when he was ousted from the MCC Presidency after the minor league baseball and broadcast tower fiascos.

It takes the AG’s Office a long time to render a decision, however.

But back to my headline.

Does anyone on the Board–holdovers or thos whose term of office is over April 25th–think that

will improve the College’s image?

Carol Larson and Barbara Walters had the best ballot positions, but that did not help them to emerge victorious.  If MCC’s image had been favorable, wouldn’t they have won?

Certainly, the “re-branding” under Smith’s leadership didn’t or two of her biggest supporters wouldn’t have lost the election so badly.

So, I ask the current Trustees:

Do you really care about the future of McHenry County College?

If you do, cancel this meeting.

Don’t take action that will get you another negative front page story in the Northwest Herald.

And, who knows, the Daily Herald might even send a reporter and make the situation worse.

The email address is mcctrustees@mchenry.edu for those who wish to comment on the situation.

Walt Packard

That’s the total that McHenry County College came up with for the cost of benefits paid former MCC President Walt Packard after he was forced from his position on Feb. 26, 2009.

Included are

• $253,838 in salary
• $21,672 in accrued vacation pay
• $42,377 for State University Retirement System pension payments
• $12,000 paid into a deferred annuity
• $41,282 in health insurance premiums
• $252 for life insurance premiums

Some might call most of this a “golden parachute.”

Walt Packard in his golden parachute.

Walt Packard and his golden parachute.

Three and a half years was the health insurance part of the $200,000 (maybe the health insurance was not included in that figure) golden parachute that McHenry County College Trustees gave outgoing (don’t let the door hit you on the way out) President Walt Packard.

You remember him.

MCC President Walt Packard pulls American Flag to block photographing of the secret meeting about the broadcast tower.

He’s the one that convinced the Board to approve a minor league baseball stadium and to hide pretty much everything that would be spent to build it from the Freedom of Information Act.

No mention that baseball teams have a life of about 5 years and the bonds were 20 years.

Or that the stadium would provide 36% of the revenues but comprise 38.5% of the cost.

He was the one that convinced the board to allow a firm to build the highest broadcast tower in Illinois overlooking Crystal Lake.

He was the one who used the American Flag to keep a prying camera lens from photographing the secret meeting about the broadcast tower proposal.

He was in control when the campus security illegally forced those outside a secret meeting to leave the building.

When the time for his “leadership” expired, he somehow convinced the board to provide the following:

“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.”

Walt Packard got quite a going away present from the MCC Board.

The Better Government Association, following in Jim Tobin’s footsteps, has revealed large pension payouts to those who have retired from community colleges in the Chicago area.

Mercifully, McHenry County College is not mentioned in the expose.

Lake County College comes in for hits concerning its salary generosity, which, of course, leads to high pensions.

The spreadsheet provided accumulates each year’s pension payment and finds those who have received over a million dollars.

There is only one person’s name from McHenry County College on list of the top 100 pensioners:

Walter Packard

The former President, who left under unexplained circumstances after championing

• a minor league baseball stadium for which taxpayers would have been on the hook and
• the tallest broadcast town in Illinois,

was found to have received $137,122.67.

He retired at age 62, the spreadsheet says.

Information about his college-paid health insurance is here.

Walt Packard in his Golden Parachute

From a press release about the retirement package provided McHenry County College President Walt Packard by the MCC Board of Trustees:

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.

Since ex-President still has a year of McHenry County College tax paid health benefits, I thought you might like to celebrate the anniversary by not going out to eat.

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.

Here’s the 77-36 roll call that was taken yesterday:

Click to enlarge.

McHenry County’s other state representatives, Mike Tryon and Jack Franks voted on the side of openness.

The secrets of Walt Packard's performance review will soon be safe from taxpayer eyes.

When the bill was first up, Beaubien voted against it.

The bill now will be voted upon by the Illinois State Senate. Senator Pam Althoff voted in favor of restricting the Freedom of Information Act the first time around.

That was just six months after it was passed.

Senator Dan Duffy did not.

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?