McHenry County Blog

This is the second article on this suit. Here is the one published yesterday:

For the first time while Lou Bianchi has been McHenry County State’s Attorney, he has filed suit against a local governmental entity for breaking the Open Meetings Act.

On February 28th four people, myself, Kim Willis, Jane Collins and Iris Bryan, were evicted from the building prior to the end of the meeting, which lasted until well after midnight.

The flow of events cited in the complaint are as follows:

The board went into secret session about 9:30.

“…a short time later, security officers were called to the boardroom where said meeting was taking place to assist in talking with an individual, Cal Skinner, about not taking photographs through the windows of the boardroom while the proceedings were in closed session.

“…shortly thereafter, McHenry County College President (Walt) Packard, called the head of security, Harriet Johnson, and asked her to send a security officer to the boardroom to cover windows for the closed session because Cal Skinner continued to take flash photographs through the window of the proceedings which was purportedly causing a disruption to the closed session. Security then assisted in covering the windows of the boardroom.

“…around approximately 10:00 p.m. Security Officer Daniel Wrobleski and Security Officer William Schultz advised the four citizen, Kimberly Willis, Jane Collins, Cal Skinner, and Iris Bryan, who had been attending the meeting and were standing outside the boardroom waiting for the closed session to end, that it was after 10:00 p.m. And the college was closed to the public, and they would need to leave the building.

“…the four citizens explained to the security officers that a public meeting was in session and they should be allowed to remain. However, the security officers told them that they were following standard operating procedures for security.

“…Officer Schultz stated to the individuals that if they did not leave they would be issued trespassing violations.

“Thereafter, the four individuals were escorted to the exit doors and forced to leave the building…

“As a result of the conduct set forth above, these four individuals and any other member of the public, were denied the right to be in attendance for the duration of the public portion of the meeting after the closed session and until adjournment.

“The MCC Board violated Section 2.01 of the Open Meetings Act (5 ILCS 120/.01) which states

‘all meetings required by this act to be public shall be held at specified times and places which are convenient and open to the public.’”

The civil complaint asks that the college board “has violated the Open Meetings Act” and be “enjoin(ed) from future similar violations of the Open Meetings Act” and “order Defendants to make their public meetings open and convenient until the adjournment of the public meeting.”

The assistant state’s attorney on the case is Mamie M. Rein

Sounds like a slam dunk to me.

Jane Collins, one of those evicted filed a complaint with the state’s attorney’s office. I asked her to comment on the suit and here is what she wrote:

“I continue to believe that the selective expulsion of 4 constituent taxpayers from a publicly owned property was not done for security purposes, but to shield the broadcast tower proponents from any further public scrutiny and photographing by Cal Skinner after the closed session concluded.”

Here is the reaction of Iris Bryan, who writes the Town Crier:

It is sad that it was necessary to take the issue to legal heights with the need to go through court proceedings when the situation has been resolved by the College, as evidenced by a Board Policy Revision, to be enacted by the Board at its meeting this evening.

As a long-time member of the Society of Professional Journalists, (36 years) I have always felt the need for governing bodies to conduct the public’s business in the open, as much as possible. The Illinois Open Meetings Act does state that certain matters MAY be conducted in closed session. Security is one of those and in view of occurrences in other universities; it is understandable that security is a touchy topic.

I was happy to receive a personal apology from College President, Dr. Walter Packard in response to my letter regarding the February 28 incident. I was also delighted to hear apologies issued publicly by Dr. Packard and Trustee Scott Summers on behalf of the Trustees.

As has been stated, the matter serves as a lesson to other governing bodies regarding how they conduct their meetings.

= = = = =
At the top you can see efforts from inside the board room to keep me from taking pictures of the power point slides that John Maguire was showing the board. You can click on them to see a much bigger image. On the top left is MCC President Walt Packard moving the American flag in front of the window. The head you can see is his. Freedom of Information Officer Pat Kriegermeir can be seen applying opaque plastic to the other window near the American flag. It is the only flash picture I took and, obviously, it did not penetrate the room. You can see other photos in

The photo of the security guards putting up yellow plastic is from that night, as are the two photos of Officer William Schultz telling us we must leave the building. The clock shows the time I walked past it on the way out of the building. The woman taking notes is Iris Bryan. Jane Collins can be seen in the background in the first picture. A head shot of Collins appears next to her comments. Between the two photos of Schultz and Bryan is one of John Maguire, the man making the top secret, hush, hush presentation about radio towers to the MCC Board. The picture would not have been so fuzzy, if I had used a flash. The bottom picture was taken at an early February meeting. It shows Maguire sitting in the center flanked by Mark Saladin and Cindi McDonald. The article from which it was taken is

Articles written about the incident are listed, with links, below:

MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 1

MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 2

MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 3

MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 4

MCC, the Junior College That Just Keeps on Giving

This is the second article on this suit. Here is the one published yesterday:

For the first time while Lou Bianchi has been McHenry County State’s Attorney, he has filed suit against a local governmental entity for breaking the Open Meetings Act.

On February 28th four people, myself, Kim Willis, Jane Collins and Iris Bryan, were evicted from the building prior to the end of the meeting, which lasted until well after midnight.

The flow of events cited in the complaint are as follows:

The board went into secret session about 9:30.

“…a short time later, security officers were called to the boardroom where said meeting was taking place to assist in talking with an individual, Cal Skinner, about not taking photographs through the windows of the boardroom while the proceedings were in closed session.

“…shortly thereafter, McHenry County College President (Walt) Packard, called the head of security, Harriet Johnson, and asked her to send a security officer to the boardroom to cover windows for the closed session because Cal Skinner continued to take flash photographs through the window of the proceedings which was purportedly causing a disruption to the closed session. Security then assisted in covering the windows of the boardroom.

“…around approximately 10:00 p.m. Security Officer Daniel Wrobleski and Security Officer William Schultz advised the four citizen, Kimberly Willis, Jane Collins, Cal Skinner, and Iris Bryan, who had been attending the meeting and were standing outside the boardroom waiting for the closed session to end, that it was after 10:00 p.m. And the college was closed to the public, and they would need to leave the building.

“…the four citizens explained to the security officers that a public meeting was in session and they should be allowed to remain. However, the security officers told them that they were following standard operating procedures for security.

“…Officer Schultz stated to the individuals that if they did not leave they would be issued trespassing violations.

“Thereafter, the four individuals were escorted to the exit doors and forced to leave the building…

“As a result of the conduct set forth above, these four individuals and any other member of the public, were denied the right to be in attendance for the duration of the public portion of the meeting after the closed session and until adjournment.

“The MCC Board violated Section 2.01 of the Open Meetings Act (5 ILCS 120/.01) which states

‘all meetings required by this act to be public shall be held at specified times and places which are convenient and open to the public.’”

The civil complaint asks that the college board “has violated the Open Meetings Act” and be “enjoin(ed) from future similar violations of the Open Meetings Act” and “order Defendants to make their public meetings open and convenient until the adjournment of the public meeting.”

The assistant state’s attorney on the case is Mamie M. Rein

Sounds like a slam dunk to me.

Jane Collins, one of those evicted filed a complaint with the state’s attorney’s office. I asked her to comment on the suit and here is what she wrote:

“I continue to believe that the selective expulsion of 4 constituent taxpayers from a publicly owned property was not done for security purposes, but to shield the broadcast tower proponents from any further public scrutiny and photographing by Cal Skinner after the closed session concluded.”

Here is the reaction of Iris Bryan, who writes the Town Crier:

It is sad that it was necessary to take the issue to legal heights with the need to go through court proceedings when the situation has been resolved by the College, as evidenced by a Board Policy Revision, to be enacted by the Board at its meeting this evening.

As a long-time member of the Society of Professional Journalists, (36 years) I have always felt the need for governing bodies to conduct the public’s business in the open, as much as possible. The Illinois Open Meetings Act does state that certain matters MAY be conducted in closed session. Security is one of those and in view of occurrences in other universities; it is understandable that security is a touchy topic.

I was happy to receive a personal apology from College President, Dr. Walter Packard in response to my letter regarding the February 28 incident. I was also delighted to hear apologies issued publicly by Dr. Packard and Trustee Scott Summers on behalf of the Trustees.

As has been stated, the matter serves as a lesson to other governing bodies regarding how they conduct their meetings.

= = = = =
At the top you can see efforts from inside the board room to keep me from taking pictures of the power point slides that John Maguire was showing the board. You can click on them to see a much bigger image. On the top left is MCC President Walt Packard moving the American flag in front of the window. The head you can see is his. Freedom of Information Officer Pat Kriegermeir can be seen applying opaque plastic to the other window near the American flag. It is the only flash picture I took and, obviously, it did not penetrate the room. You can see other photos in

The photo of the security guards putting up yellow plastic is from that night, as are the two photos of Officer William Schultz telling us we must leave the building. The clock shows the time I walked past it on the way out of the building. The woman taking notes is Iris Bryan. Jane Collins can be seen in the background in the first picture. A head shot of Collins appears next to her comments. Between the two photos of Schultz and Bryan is one of John Maguire, the man making the top secret, hush, hush presentation about radio towers to the MCC Board. The picture would not have been so fuzzy, if I had used a flash. The bottom picture was taken at an early February meeting. It shows Maguire sitting in the center flanked by Mark Saladin and Cindi McDonald. The article from which it was taken is

Articles written about the incident are listed, with links, below:

MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 1

MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 2

MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 3

MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 4

MCC, the Junior College That Just Keeps on Giving

The Northwest Herald scooped me Saturday on what happened after the McHenry County College meeting Thursday night, but I think the four-part series that starts here (see also Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4) adds significantly to Regan Foster’s story.

I do find it interesting that the paper’s web site does not have this story on its front page.

Why?

It was the lead story in the local section of the paper.

First a disclaimer. I was not the one fuming. The article says that was Iris Bryan, editor of the Town Crier.

I was more amused at the juvenile behavior of the person inside the room who presumably ordered the expulsion of the people paying his salary.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from the story:

”College officials said it was a mix of misunderstandings and college policy that led to the ejection, while impacted residents said it was a violation of their right to attend a public meeting.

“If they would have asked me [to leave], I would have told them to go fly a kite,’ said George Lowe, chairman of the college board of trustees. ‘It should have not been done. It’s wrong; I didn’t know about it.’”

Maybe…

But after a security guard threatened to take legal action to charge one with trespassing if one didn’t leave?

Here’s what happened to ex-Chicago Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman when she was arrested for trespassing by hospital security guards.

Consider that the man sitting to Lowe’s left, MCC President Walt Packard, had previously communicated to me through newly hired security guard William Schultz.

I’ll admit it is possible Lowe was ignorant as to what Packard was doing when he used his cell phone.

The extremely new public relations person for the college, Christine Haggerty, simply does not know what she is talking about when she intimates in the NW Herald article that it is standard practice to kick citizens waiting in the hall outside the boardroom door out of the building at 10 o’clock.

Just a month before, no attempt was made to kick anyone out of the building, even through the meeting went beyond 10 o’clock, for example. There were other late meetings as well, but for that one, I jotted down the ending time.

Here’s another post-10 PM meeting where the adjournment date is relatively close to the heading showing the date of the meeting:
In all kindness, I would expect a bit of factual research before such easily refutable statements are made to reporters. There is no reason for Haggerty to lose her credibility so early in the game.

Hint: look at the minutes for January 21st and 28th, November 15th, October 25th. And, that covers only the ones still on the web site.

I see in Haggerty’s statement that the new security officer was not aware of state law allowing people to await the ending of a closed session disingenuous at best. If Schultz had not been given explicit instructions to get rid of us, he had a phone and could have talked to Packard again, given what he was told (which you can read here Wednesday).

I just hope Packard does not try to make Schultz the fall guy for what I suspect was his own decision.

As weekend readers of McHenry County Blog know, I didn’t just try to take pictures through the windows, I did take pictures. Some are shown in Saterday’s article about John McGuire’s presentation on FM and television tower(s) on behalf of what I assume is a firm called BMB. Some private company apparently wants to use public land for its private purposes.

“Our bad” is pretty much what the new MCC PR woman wants readers to take away from the NW Herald article.

It’s worse than that.

And I suspect President Packard knows it.

That’s why he’s not talking to the press.

= = = = =
In the top photo is MCC Board President George Lowe. Below is a picture focused on MCC President Walt Packard, with Lowe in the background. Packard’s head again appears blocking part of the power point slide at the bottom of the article. All images can be enlarged by clicking on them, but the contents of the slide have been re-typed in this article.

When we last left yesterday’s article about the “first we say we will, then we say we won’t” activity of McHenry County College board members and top employee President Walt Packard, two security officers had completed their assigned task to block the view from the hall inside the boardroom.

The room was wrapped up like a son’s Christmas gift to his mom using whatever wrapping material was available.

Shortly thereafter I went to the bathroom.

As we were standing at urinals, the younger of the two security guys informed that I would have to leave the building, that only employees (and, he may have said students) were allowed inside after ten o’clock.

I asked him about the non-employees in the board room and he told me that he had been told they were all college employees.

I informed him that was not the case.

We both made our way out into the hall where Town Crier editor Iris Bryan, Kim Willis and Jane Collins were talking outside the boardroom, waiting for the board to adjourn.

The officer who had previously been securing the visual privacy of the Broadcast Tower Proposers then proceeded to inform us that we would have to leave the building.

“After 10 o’clock everyone who is not an employee has to leave the building…The campus is closed after 10 o’clock to everyone who isn’t an employee,”

he repeated as various of the women pointed out the presence of the non-employees on the other side of the masked windows.

“If you are not a student or employee you can’t be in the meeting,” are what my notes say he said next.

By then we had learned his name was William Schultz.

He was a pleasant enough young man sent to do what whoever called him from inside the room (at least once President Packard) told him to do.

He had been on the job two weeks.

I reminded Schultz that he had told me that all in the board room were college employees. I pointed out that attorney Tom Zanck was certainly not a college employee.

It didn’t matter.

Iris Bryan was livid.

And she should have been.

I have know Iris for over 40 years. At one point she worked for my father’s weekly newspaper, The Star Reporter.

I have never seen her as angry.

As I said, she should have been.

The public cannot be evicted from a hall outside a secret meeting because they have the right to see the board go back into open session and observe any action, even if it is merely to adjourn.

Now, those of you who have been reading McHenry County Blog for a long while will remember my eviction from the Prairie Grove very Grade School during a secret meeting at which I was also taking pictures through the window.

The effort of Karen Bowman, now school board president, to lower the Venetian blinds while in a fit of rage was even funnier than Packard’s moving the American Flag to block my view of the power point presentation by the BMB high tower folks.

At least this time the person who accompanied me to the door This time wasn’t armed. (Considering what happened at NIU, carrying a firearm probably should be a requirement for college security officers.)

That incident led to this memorable wanted poster, a creation of Heck of a Guy blog’s Allan Showalter, who lives north of Crystal Lake.

Iris and I were certainly the only two people in the building who were in on the formation of McHenry County College. Iris was in charge of publicity for the April 1, 1968 referendum campaign and I assisted her. My father called the meeting to organize the committee that successfully proposed the ballot question that was passed. I know I was at the meeting and I’ll bet Iris was also.

So, she and I have as much stake in this college as any of the current board members or employees.

She was angry. Here is what she wrote for her Town Crier.

I was more amused at how the dysfunctional group of people running things behind the blocked windows had managed to negate any good will they achieved when they posted the board packet on the internet so taxpayers, as well as MCC employees could see the material that the board members would consider Thursday night.

Needless to say, I filed a complaint with both the McHenry County State’s Attorney and the Illinois Attorney General.

The Northwest Herald scooped me Saturday on what happened after the McHenry County College meeting Thursday night, but I think the four-part series that starts here (see also Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4) adds significantly to Regan Foster’s story.

I do find it interesting that the paper’s web site does not have this story on its front page.

Why?

It was the lead story in the local section of the paper.

First a disclaimer. I was not the one fuming. The article says that was Iris Bryan, editor of the Town Crier.

I was more amused at the juvenile behavior of the person inside the room who presumably ordered the expulsion of the people paying his salary.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from the story:

”College officials said it was a mix of misunderstandings and college policy that led to the ejection, while impacted residents said it was a violation of their right to attend a public meeting.

“If they would have asked me [to leave], I would have told them to go fly a kite,’ said George Lowe, chairman of the college board of trustees. ‘It should have not been done. It’s wrong; I didn’t know about it.’”

Maybe…

But after a security guard threatened to take legal action to charge one with trespassing if one didn’t leave?

Here’s what happened to ex-Chicago Alderwoman Dorothy Tillman when she was arrested for trespassing by hospital security guards.

Consider that the man sitting to Lowe’s left, MCC President Walt Packard, had previously communicated to me through newly hired security guard William Schultz.

I’ll admit it is possible Lowe was ignorant as to what Packard was doing when he used his cell phone.

The extremely new public relations person for the college, Christine Haggerty, simply does not know what she is talking about when she intimates in the NW Herald article that it is standard practice to kick citizens waiting in the hall outside the boardroom door out of the building at 10 o’clock.

Just a month before, no attempt was made to kick anyone out of the building, even through the meeting went beyond 10 o’clock, for example. There were other late meetings as well, but for that one, I jotted down the ending time.

Here’s another post-10 PM meeting where the adjournment date is relatively close to the heading showing the date of the meeting:
In all kindness, I would expect a bit of factual research before such easily refutable statements are made to reporters. There is no reason for Haggerty to lose her credibility so early in the game.

Hint: look at the minutes for January 21st and 28th, November 15th, October 25th. And, that covers only the ones still on the web site.

I see in Haggerty’s statement that the new security officer was not aware of state law allowing people to await the ending of a closed session disingenuous at best. If Schultz had not been given explicit instructions to get rid of us, he had a phone and could have talked to Packard again, given what he was told (which you can read here Wednesday).

I just hope Packard does not try to make Schultz the fall guy for what I suspect was his own decision.

As weekend readers of McHenry County Blog know, I didn’t just try to take pictures through the windows, I did take pictures. Some are shown in Saterday’s article about John McGuire’s presentation on FM and television tower(s) on behalf of what I assume is a firm called BMB. Some private company apparently wants to use public land for its private purposes.

“Our bad” is pretty much what the new MCC PR woman wants readers to take away from the NW Herald article.

It’s worse than that.

And I suspect President Packard knows it.

That’s why he’s not talking to the press.

= = = = =
In the top photo is MCC Board President George Lowe. Below is a picture focused on MCC President Walt Packard, with Lowe in the background. Packard’s head again appears blocking part of the power point slide at the bottom of the article. All images can be enlarged by clicking on them, but the contents of the slide have been re-typed in this article.

When we last left yesterday’s article about the “first we say we will, then we say we won’t” activity of McHenry County College board members and top employee President Walt Packard, two security officers had completed their assigned task to block the view from the hall inside the boardroom.

The room was wrapped up like a son’s Christmas gift to his mom using whatever wrapping material was available.

Shortly thereafter I went to the bathroom.

As we were standing at urinals, the younger of the two security guys informed that I would have to leave the building, that only employees (and, he may have said students) were allowed inside after ten o’clock.

I asked him about the non-employees in the board room and he told me that he had been told they were all college employees.

I informed him that was not the case.

We both made our way out into the hall where Town Crier editor Iris Bryan, Kim Willis and Jane Collins were talking outside the boardroom, waiting for the board to adjourn.

The officer who had previously been securing the visual privacy of the Broadcast Tower Proposers then proceeded to inform us that we would have to leave the building.

“After 10 o’clock everyone who is not an employee has to leave the building…The campus is closed after 10 o’clock to everyone who isn’t an employee,”

he repeated as various of the women pointed out the presence of the non-employees on the other side of the masked windows.

“If you are not a student or employee you can’t be in the meeting,” are what my notes say he said next.

By then we had learned his name was William Schultz.

He was a pleasant enough young man sent to do what whoever called him from inside the room (at least once President Packard) told him to do.

He had been on the job two weeks.

I reminded Schultz that he had told me that all in the board room were college employees. I pointed out that attorney Tom Zanck was certainly not a college employee.

It didn’t matter.

Iris Bryan was livid.

And she should have been.

I have know Iris for over 40 years. At one point she worked for my father’s weekly newspaper, The Star Reporter.

I have never seen her as angry.

As I said, she should have been.

The public cannot be evicted from a hall outside a secret meeting because they have the right to see the board go back into open session and observe any action, even if it is merely to adjourn.

Now, those of you who have been reading McHenry County Blog for a long while will remember my eviction from the Prairie Grove very Grade School during a secret meeting at which I was also taking pictures through the window.

The effort of Karen Bowman, now school board president, to lower the Venetian blinds while in a fit of rage was even funnier than Packard’s moving the American Flag to block my view of the power point presentation by the BMB high tower folks.

At least this time the person who accompanied me to the door This time wasn’t armed. (Considering what happened at NIU, carrying a firearm probably should be a requirement for college security officers.)

That incident led to this memorable wanted poster, a creation of Heck of a Guy blog’s Allan Showalter, who lives north of Crystal Lake.

Iris and I were certainly the only two people in the building who were in on the formation of McHenry County College. Iris was in charge of publicity for the April 1, 1968 referendum campaign and I assisted her. My father called the meeting to organize the committee that successfully proposed the ballot question that was passed. I know I was at the meeting and I’ll bet Iris was also.

So, she and I have as much stake in this college as any of the current board members or employees.

She was angry. Here is what she wrote for her Town Crier.

I was more amused at how the dysfunctional group of people running things behind the blocked windows had managed to negate any good will they achieved when they posted the board packet on the internet so taxpayers, as well as MCC employees could see the material that the board members would consider Thursday night.

Needless to say, I filed a complaint with both the McHenry County State’s Attorney and the Illinois Attorney General.

First a step forward with the publishing on the college web site the board packet for that evening and the woefully unconvincing second feasibility study (more analysis to follow) prepared and re-prepared after being reviewed by MCC President Walt Packard.

Then, the board majority took its first step back by refusing to allow those with rejected Freedom of Information requests to appeal to the elected college board trustees.

Then the board went into secret session, which turned into a super-secret session.

At the beginning, I made sure that MCC Board President George Lowe lived up to his promise of a prior meeting to reveal who was going to be in the executive session before I left the room.

As I do with every meeting I’m forced to leave, I started taking pictures.

When the privileged few inside saw that I was trying to take a picture of the subject of the secret meeting, the coat rack you see above was moved between my vantage point and the TV screen where the power point presentation was being projected.

Two days ago McHenry County Blog began chronicling the little the 24-hour transparency dance that McHenry County College performed last Thursday.

When I went around to the other side of the room, President Packard used his body to block my view and, then, moved the American Flag we had just pledged allegiance to (“with liberty and justice to all”) between the window and the other screen.

I took some pictures of the main speaker, BMB’s John Maguire. All were fuzzy because I didn’t use a flash.

Then opaque plastic was put on the window by the new Freedom of Information Officer. Other duties as assigned, I guess.

Then two security officers showed up with a large piece of material.

Then, they duct taped it over the main door so one could not see in its window.

Guess the coat rack wasn’t good enough to hide a Mr. Kirchner, whose first name I didn’t get, who was sitting in the audience, plus MCC attorney Sandy Kerrick.

Maybe they think I can read lips.

I went up and scratched it to try to figure out what it was made up. I think it was canvas. Maybe they found it in the art department.

Later the two came back and removed it.

They taped a smaller piece over the vertical window next to the door.

Acting on instructions from inside, they systematically covered every window.

As they taped up what looked like a yellow piece of plastic, a burly guy with a full beard walked by and made this comment:

”It just doesn’t go. It’s the wrong color.”

When they were finished the room reminded me of a Christmas present that a little boy had wrapped using whatever he could find to hide the important parts of the box containing his mother’s present.

All that was missing was a bow.

Tomorrow’s “MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 4″ begins in the men’s room.

First a step forward with the publishing on the college web site the board packet for that evening and the woefully unconvincing second feasibility study (more analysis to follow) prepared and re-prepared after being reviewed by MCC President Walt Packard.

Then, the board majority took its first step back by refusing to allow those with rejected Freedom of Information requests to appeal to the elected college board trustees.

Then the board went into secret session, which turned into a super-secret session.

At the beginning, I made sure that MCC Board President George Lowe lived up to his promise of a prior meeting to reveal who was going to be in the executive session before I left the room.

As I do with every meeting I’m forced to leave, I started taking pictures.

When the privileged few inside saw that I was trying to take a picture of the subject of the secret meeting, the coat rack you see above was moved between my vantage point and the TV screen where the power point presentation was being projected.

Two days ago McHenry County Blog began chronicling the little the 24-hour transparency dance that McHenry County College performed last Thursday.

When I went around to the other side of the room, President Packard used his body to block my view and, then, moved the American Flag we had just pledged allegiance to (“with liberty and justice to all”) between the window and the other screen.

I took some pictures of the main speaker, BMB’s John Maguire. All were fuzzy because I didn’t use a flash.

Then opaque plastic was put on the window by the new Freedom of Information Officer. Other duties as assigned, I guess.

Then two security officers showed up with a large piece of material.

Then, they duct taped it over the main door so one could not see in its window.

Guess the coat rack wasn’t good enough to hide a Mr. Kirchner, whose first name I didn’t get, who was sitting in the audience, plus MCC attorney Sandy Kerrick.

Maybe they think I can read lips.

I went up and scratched it to try to figure out what it was made up. I think it was canvas. Maybe they found it in the art department.

Later the two came back and removed it.

They taped a smaller piece over the vertical window next to the door.

Acting on instructions from inside, they systematically covered every window.

As they taped up what looked like a yellow piece of plastic, a burly guy with a full beard walked by and made this comment:

”It just doesn’t go. It’s the wrong color.”

When they were finished the room reminded me of a Christmas present that a little boy had wrapped using whatever he could find to hide the important parts of the box containing his mother’s present.

All that was missing was a bow.

Tomorrow’s “MCC – One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Part 4″ begins in the men’s room.