McHenry County Blog

The current McHenry County Ethics Commission has three members whose terms are expiring:

• Walter J. Packard, former McHenry County College President, who is now retired with a golden parachute
• Robert Blaizer, recently retired Crystal Lake Chamber of Commerce Exec and former District 47 Grad School Superintendend
• Rev. Karen Stunkel, former Home of the Sparrow administrator

Replacements being recommended at Tuesday’s 8:30 AM meeting of the Management Services Committee are

• Deborah Nier – Administrator, City of Marengo
• Major John Price – Salvation Army, Crystal Lake
• Robert Martens – Director, Family Service & Community Mental Health Center

It appears that the original members, appointed Feb. 1, 2005, were

• Walter J. Packard, President McHenry County College
• Art Osten, Jr., Village Administrator Fox River Grove
• Robert Blaizer, President Crystal Lake Chamber of Commerce
• Timothy J. Clifton, City Manager City of Woodstock
• Karen Stunkel, Executive Director Home of the Sparrow

That didn’t take long.

Interim President Larry Tyree replacing Interim President Brian Sager replacing the faster-you-get-out-the-door-the-better President Walt Packard has stepped down after a month in office as head of McHenry County College.

As the last one standing, Kathleen Plinske, inherits the unstable throne during the institution’s period of greatest growth as a result of the McHenry County College Promise’s great influx of recent high school graduates.

Niranjan Shah, the former University of Illinois Board Chairman, has a welcome connection to McHenry County.

I’m told that former McHenry County College Trustee David Murphy of Cary initiated a $500,000 pledge from Shah to help purchase the college’s Shah Center in McHenry.

It is dedicated to his wife Patrima.

Those in the photos are identified from the Fall, 2006, MCC newsletter thusly:

Pratima Shah prepares to cut the ribbon as her husband, Niranjan and members of the MCC Board of Trustees look on, including, L-R: Mr. David Murphy, former trustee; Ms. Donna Kurtz, board chair; Ms. Barbara Walters, and Mrs. Carol Larson.

Foundation Board Members with the Shahs: Bob Cormier Jr., Pratima and Niranjan Shah, Joseph Like, executive director; Sandra Pierce, Todd Bessey, and Monica Heydari.

With his wife, Pratima, at his side, Niranjan Shah introduces himself.

MCC President Walt Packard displays a framed open house invitation from Crystal Lake Chamber ambassador Kathi Etten.

Thursday the Elgin Courier-News and McHenry County’s Northwest Herald both featured junior colleges as a low cost way to go after high school.

But what a difference three generous millionaires made in McHenry County—at least for the McHenry County College district part. (District 300 is in the Elgin Community College District and ineligible for MCC’s free tuition offer.)

The headline above the fold on the NW Herald was

It’s a story about the McHenry County College Promise.

In the Kane County paper, there was a photo of South Elgin High School Counselor Chris Boden talking to three 17-year olds.

Along the left was

HIGHER
TUITION
+ books
+ room
..equals

then in large block letters,

The NW Herald article indicates that the donated money might run out sooner than the five years for which it was thought to last.

Before I learned that the college board had decided to waste upwards $300,000 on Ex-President Walt Packard’s little-work going-away present, I sent in a contribution.

I had second thoughts after I read of that monumental exercise of poor judgment (I’m willing to be convinced otherwise), but have concluded that really bad management should not be used as an excuse to discourage others to contribute to this earmarked fund.

It’s not as if the college board can spend it on a baseball stadium.

You might want to consider doing so, too.

Click to enlarge any image.

It was political pressure that led to the release of baseball promoter buddy Mark Houser’s feasibility report after months and months of secrecy…at the meeting where the board majority censured then-Board President Scott Summers and Donna Kurtz, no less.

It was a combination of political pressure from the Northwest Herald and an almost on point May 21st Illinois Supreme Court decision ordering the release of the Wheaton Warrenville Unit School District Superintendent’s contract that led to the McHenry County Board’s back flip.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I’ll be at President Brian Sager’s office looking for the copy of ex-MCC President Walt Packard’s $200,000 a year golden parachute contract that I requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

I wonder if there will be any justification for giving him and his wife health benefits through August 21, 2012.

You can read the contract here.

This was going to be a story of praise for the new format of the McHenry County College Board Packet. You can see it above. Click to enlarge.

Now there are shortcuts to the various items on the agenda.

One does not have to scroll down through the less interesting items.

Click on the report you want to see and you go right to it.

So, I looked at the agenda on top and found

I scrolled down the index and clicked on it.

Here’s what I saw.

You can imagine why I laughed so hard.

I thought the phone call I received yesterday from the MCC attorney indicated the board was ready to roll over and release the contract with ex-President Walt Packard.

You remember that contract.

The one that gives health insurance through July 21, 2012.

People are talking about it all over McHenry County.

The meeting starts at 7.

If you want to say something, the board members will give you three minutes, but don’t expect even the subject matter of what you say to show in the sanitized minutes.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s what’s in the board minutes for the February 26, 2008, meeting for public comment:

“OPEN FOR RECOGNITION OF VISITORS AND PRESENTATIONS

“Mr. Eric Snave, Mrs. Julie Snave, Mr. Phil Snave, Ms. Berghaus, and Ms. Ritter addressed the Board.”

Wouldn’t you like to know what three members of the same family thought important enough to say to the board?

That didn’t used to be the case.

Take a look at how Barry Glasgow’s scathing criticism of the baseball stadium what was mangled in the minutes.

This gymnast’s trampoline back flip you see from my son’s 11th birthday party is nothing compared to the one that the McHenry County College Board Freedom of Information attorney signaled this morning.

MCC attorney Joseph Perkowski of the Chicago firm of Robbins, Schwartz, Nicholas, Lifton & Taylor, Ltd., told me this morning that he had been told to call to alert me that the board would consider my and the Northwest Herald’s appeal to the college’s refusal to release the details of ex-President Walt Packard’s honey pot contract, which, AFTER the election, was revealed to contained 3 1/2 years of health benefits (through July 21, 2011!).

Causing the change of mind was the Illinois Supreme Court decision that came down in a Wheaton Warrenville Unit School District 200 Freedom of Information case in which a 2005 school board candidate filed an FOI request for the superintendent’s contract.

Chicago Tribune reporters David Kidwell and Bob Goldsborough pulled out this direction from the decision:

In this instance, “liberal” doesn’t offend me.

The school superintendent, Gary Catalani was only being paid $380,000.

Does anyone think these overpaid guys and gals could get that much anywhere else?

The school board explained after the decision that it had defended the secrecy “in order to protect the personal privacy of its administrators and staff.”

The Tribune article revealed that the school board had wasted (no, that’s wasn’t in the article, but certainly is true) $62,000 on legal fees.

So, Thursday night, even though its law firm doesn’t think the FOI decision was “on point” because the college’s denial didn’t assert the same reason that Wheaton Warrenville did, the board is going to consider giving it up.

The rejection letters to me and the Northwest Herald asserted the contract contained “confidential and personal information,” Perkowski told me.

With the decision already been made to throw ex-President Packard’s privacy to the wind, I wonder if the MCC Board will waste more money by having Perkowski drive out to Crystal Lake.

I assume the college pays for the time it takes its Chicago lawyers to drive to and from Crystal Lake, but, we’ll never know because the college refuses to identify separately what is billed for handling Freedom of Information requests.

Other instances of MCC hiding information from the public (by no means a complete list of McHenry County Blog’s 55 articles mentioning “MCC” and “Freedom of Information”):

McHenry County College Stonewalls on Consultant’s Baseball Stadium Report

So, What Did the McHenry County College Board Authorize on April 26th?

Thursday at MCC Meeting: What Answers Would You Like About the Baseball Stadium’s Finances?

MCC, the Junior College That Just Keeps on Giving

“We Know Nuthin”

Junior College Refuses to Release Mega-Tower Documents that Would Prove Anyone Did Any Due Diligence

The Daily Herald doesn’t call it a scandal, but it is.

Lenore Adkins has written a story about how gone, but not done gone, ex-McHenry County College President Walt Packard is still being paid what he was when he was working full-time—over $200,000 a year until June 30, 2010, and family health benefits through August 21, 2012.

MCC Board President George Lowe offers this insight:

“”I understand people get upset, but we’ve got better things to do right now,”

Options the board had?

“I’m not sure anymore. It’s a difficult situation when you get into them, there’s choices you make. We’ve tried to make the least onerous choice and we’ve done that.”

What’s that all about?

Donna Kurtz, who voted with the rest of the board for the deal, added,

“I think what is upsetting to people is they just want to understand the (personnel) issues and that’s part of what’s happening right now.”

Yes, we do.

Show us the ex-junior college president’s contract and give us your reasons why this isn’t a waste of our money.

That’s the headline that the Northwest Herald put on a letter from my 90-something friend Julie Covert in Saturday’s paper.

I suspect that Julie would have preferred

There certainly wasn’t any doubt in her mind when we discussed it at dinner with her and Leona Nelson, another 90-something.

Both were incensed that the McHenry County College Board is paying ex-MCC president Walt Packard over $200,000 a year through next June and his and his wife’s health insurance through mid-August 21, 2012!

Yes, that deserves an exclamation mark, too.

It’s quite a golden parachute.

It’s good to see the latest article about Packard in the Northwest Herald reports this information.

= = = = =
That’s Julie Covert sitting and Leona Nelson standing behind her. Julie organized a manufacturing plant in Chicago that was paying women less than men.

A withholder of information while he was McHenry County College president, Walt Packard now wants to share.

He has started two blogs:

Distance Learning 2.0 – Emerging Technologies that Redefine the Online Classroom

and

Executive’s Web 2.0 Toolkit.

Helping him will be former assistant Kathleen Plinske, who has a four other of blogs.