Township Trustee Robert LaPorta shares this letter from Grafton Township Assessor Bill Ottley in a comment under my article about the two court cases that received perfunctory treatment at the Courthouse Monday:

Ottley has posted a letter to the township about why he filed his lawsuit.

http://www.graftontownship.us/files/LettertoTaxpayers.pdf

It is worth reading.

Grafton Township Assessor’s Office
10109 Vine St. Unit C. Huntley, IL 60142 – Phone: 847-669-3383 – FAX: 847-669-8233 – Website: http://www.graftontownship.us

June 6th, 2012

Bill Ottley

A letter to the taxpayers:

There seems to be a misperception as to why I instituted the law suit against the supervisor of Grafton Township. Supervisor Moore claims it’s about the windows I wanted to install that could be opened, so we could reduce using expensive air conditioners. The windows were the 4th item on the list when the suit was filed. The main reason for the suit was the phone bill was going unpaid, followed by DCI, and Brown & Co. When the assessor’s office received a phone bill for more than $800, I called AT&T to find out why the usual $200 bill had grown to this amount.

I was told that it had not been paid in a few months. I then asked at what point they disconnect or discontinue providing services. The response was, “I don’t know why they haven’t disconnected the phones already.” Phone service is a vital link between our office and the public, between our office and the courthouse, and provides our high speed internet service. Lack of a phone would cripple the activities of our office and jeopardize our work. Delays would force Grafton Township to turn in our books late, thus forcing the need for the county to possibly work overtime to get the tax bills out on time, or send them out late. This in turn would mean the governmental bodies would receive their tax dollars late. I ask you, how it would be perceived if I knew this could happen and I did nothing about it?

The next important bill that has not been paid was to DCI. This repair/service bill has gone unpaid even though it was presented and approved more than once by the trustees to be paid. It has now been sent to a collection agency. DCI is a company that has serviced our computer wiring and internal phone system for about 20 years. They have now dropped us as a client due to non-payment of invoices. This company knows our whole system and could respond faster than any other provider to issues that arise. During my terms as assessor, our buildings have been hit by lightning at least seven times. It has blown out our phone service in the past. It has also blown out our computer network. A few years ago, that happened twice within two weeks. DCI was right there to help us get up and running within hours and repaired the system within days. We have not found another company that will service our current phone system. One of the reasons they provide is because they afraid that they won’t be paid.


Grafton Township Assessor’s Office
10109 Vine St. Unit C. Huntley, IL 60142 – Phone: 847-669-3383 – FAX: 847-669-8233 – Website: http://www.graftontownship.us are

The Brown & Co. bill was brought about by the threat of the supervisor to claim reimbursement of expenses as additional income to my employees and myself. The opinion letter was requested to either confirm or refute these possible actions by the supervisor. The letter from Brown & Co. stated that these expenses were reimbursement of properly incurred expenses and not income. This bill was also presented more than once and approved for payment by the trustees each time, and still is not paid.

I could continue with the twelve additional bills that have all been approved by the board of Trustees and are not paid. Instead, I would like to make the following additional comments.

As I mentioned before, our building has been hit by lightning many times. Whether this is a cause of our electrical problems or whether it is the need for more circuits, still needs to be determined. However, the three contractors that I have contacted don’t want the job because they are afraid of not being paid. I believe that these electrical problems have already cost more than $1500 in damages this year. At risk is our computer data backup system, the phone system, and our internet. Continued problems of this nature will definitely affect the timely manner in which the books are turned in. This in turn will affect the entire county and the governmental bodies that are in it.

Ironically, the supervisor has filed a law suit against the trustees for not approving her bills, when she already doesn’t pay the ones that they do approve!

DO WE HAVE A DOUBLE STANDARD?

Sincerely,

William Ottley, CIAO-S
Grafton Township Assessor
Your comments are welcome at assessor@graftontownship.us

Grafton Township Assessor’s Office
10109 Vine St. Unit C. Huntley, IL 60142 – Phone: 847-669-3383 – FAX: 847-669-8233 – Website: http://www.graftontownship.us