The Sunday before the election I was wondering where the Democrats mail was.
You may remember that McHenry County’s Democratic Party accepted some big checks ($32,400 to be precise) from a very, very liberal Chicago millionaire in mid-October and then gave most of it ($27,400) to its undoubted intended source, Jack Franks.
But, as my son used to say while he was banker in Monopoly, there was a “banker’s fee” as he took part of the money making change.
The Dems had about $25,000, once what might be called a “handling fee” and some other donations of $1,000 or more were added to the $18,000 the party had in the bank on October 1st.
That’s enough for a countywide mailing.
When reports came in about a comparison piece in McHenry County Board District 6, I figured similar pieces would soon arrive in the mail in the other five County Board districts.
I got reports one had been seen in District 3, but not in other parts of the county.
But I found the copy on an obscure web site and will share the County Board sides with you over the next five days.
Here’s what was prepared for District 1:
The Democrats’ take on the candidates running for the McHenry County Board in District 1.
Here are the vote totals in District 1:
| KERRI BARBER (DEM) | 8,413 | 20.95% | ||
| KATHRYN POTTER (DEM) | 8,055 | 20.06% | ||
| YVONNE M BARNES (REP) | 12,493 | 31.11% | ||
| TOM WILBECK (REP) | 11,192 | 27.87% | ||
| Total | 40,153 |
So, this is an example of the kinds of lies the Democrats tell.
Yvonne Barnes did not “vote herself an illegal $5000 salary increase”.
For many years the County Board has paid a vice chairman an extra amount for having to possibly take over as Chairman for undetermined periods of time.
Remember that the Chairman is paid $82,000 for mostly undefined duties.
One of our past Chairs had to take considerable time off and the duties had to be taken over by then vice chairman, Jim Heisler.
During the current term, we voted for Yvonne to be vice chairman.
She cast a vote for herself as well.
We were LATER informed by the State’s Attorney, that since the state statutes don’t specifically say that we can pay the vice chairman more than a regular Board Member, despite possibly increased duties, whereas the statute does say that the Chairman’s salary can be separately set, that in the FUTURE we should probably not pay the vice chairman anything additional.
The new vice chairman will therefore receive the same salary as other Board Members.
As to Wilbeck, he, and I think almost all of the other Board Members, have discussed how the traditional fixed route, fixed schedule large buses which run around mostly empty all day and are inconvenient for people to use, are not well suited for a suburban environment where everything is spread out,, and we should be thinking about SUPPLEMENTING this with some other system which offers more flexibility at lower cost.
We would STILL HAVE the buses for those people who preferred to use them and don’t mind having to wait two hours until the next bus comes because their doctor’s appointment took longer than expected and they missed the first one by five minutes.
Or, they could call Uber or something similar and get back home.
This stuff has Jack Franks written all over it.
I realize that this type of thing has become the staple of modern politics, but it seriously erodes our Democracy if voters cannot tell fact from fiction and gross distortions are routinely used in election campaigns.
Once voters stop believing everything that politicians say, they are going to also disbelieve those same politicians when they are rewarded for their dis ingenuousness by being elected into office and all confidence in government will vanish.
I cannot think of anything more harmful to our Republic.
But you and your other Repubs did the very same thing in the primary I want to make sure I spell hypocrite with a double standard correctly
Please specify “More”.
What did I do in the primary that wasn’t factual or was a distortion?
Something can be technically “factual” but can imply something completely different by the way it is phrased.
That makes it a distortion of the facts.
For example, when you say someone did something that was “illegal” you are implying that:
(1) it was in fact “illegal”, like robbing a bank is illegal, and not just a new statutory interpretation, and that;
(2) the person KNEW it was “illegal” at that time; and
(3) that they “voted for” the “illegal salary” rather than just voted for themselves as vice chairman which happened to come with the additional stipend.
It takes someone who did a perfectly ordinary act that everyone thought was proper at the time and make them look like a criminal.
That is the distortion.
I agree that both parties do this. Just look at the last Presidential election.
Look at the candidates we ended up with.
That’s why we are in big trouble.
Because of the Northwest Herald, Jack Franks and McHenry County Democratic candidates McHenry County residents believe the Republicans and the Republican McHenry County Board are corrupt.
Neither the Board, it’s members, Administration or the GOP tried to counter the claims throughout the election cycle.
This lack of engagement with residents and the press will be a detriment to Republicans in future elections.
http://mchenrycountyil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=12&ID=2813&Inline=True
It is hard to get anything out these days when everyone has the attention span of a gnat.
If it doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker, you can’t sell it.
The Board members did absolutely nothing wrong.
They signed up for a pension plan that they were told they were entitled to have and were never informed that there was any question about it nor that there were any minimum hourly requirements.
There was nothing on the forms that were signed and HR said nothing.
About 30 other of the larger counties in the state, and many of the townships and municipalities were in the same exact situation, which had been going on for decades.
About 400 part time elected officials in total throughout the state.
Several local municipal and township officials who can’t possibly be putting in anywhere near the time of County Board members have been left untouched.
When McHenry County was singled out from all of these and told to re-create time records going back two years and submit them on a form that would give rise to criminal penalties if anything was inaccurate, they wisely refused and decided to scrap the entire pension.
Do you remember what you were doing in the second week of January, 2015?
Are you willing to risk a criminal prosecution if you have to guess at things and get something wrong?
Are you going to be able to recapture all of your time, including casual conversations at the supermarket with constituents, and thereby not be able to come up with enough just from meeting records and notes and then be subject to prosecution because you came up short?
That was the trap that was laid for the Board Members, and only those in McHenry County.
I wonder why?
IMRF should have sent an alert notification to all local boards with board member IMRF pensions pensions when an IMRF auditor found the issue on the Grundy County Board in 2015.
IMRF was not legally required to send an alert notification.
Bu an alert notification would have been made sense using the thought process, if there is an eligibility issue in Grundy County, maybe there is an issue in other counties.
As it turns out, there were eligibility issues other counties.
Thus IMRF didn’t make an effort to alert other boards of an issue that first surfaced in Grundy County in 2015.
Jack Franks was able to score press and political victories over an issue that should have been addressed a year earlier as a result of actions that first surfaced in Grundy County, not McHenry County.
One question, was Grundy County the first, or were there others before Grundy County that surfaced as a result of an IMRF audit or tip.
If Grundy County was the first, past IMRF audits have obviously been lacking.
When was the last IMRF audit of McHenry County?
Had to block Kerri Barber from my FB group of 1,505 members.
Not because I don’t welcome ALL sides and opinions but because she was abusive.
Cynthia?
Just goes to show you how Kabuki theater pulls in all the dregs of society.
Cool story.
You have 1505 FB friends.
Cynthia the only thing you said that was true was that you blocked Kerri Barber from your group.
Mike Walkup, everything you wrote is a lie, disproved by the link Martha posted.
No one noticed?
Just like the time you said I was lying about the theft of millions from tax payers of Valley Hi levy money when just last week, at the board meeting, you now openly admit…”may not have been legal”.
Now, a warning?
You are more politician than lawyer and a RINO at that.
Its ok, people will still vote for you, shielded behind that “REP” on the ballot.
I’m all for arguing policy, but not lying.
If you can’t be honest, rethink your plan.
This is what Cynthiana is referring to – not wanting facts to get in the way of her “safe space” echo chamber.
The offending post?
A link to an ABC news story about Paul Ryan preparing an executive order to reform Medicare in a voucher program.
Instead of talking to me about it, asking me to remove it, you blocked me.
Now you come on here to call out my name?
Coward.
Jack won big, Kerri lost kind of big.
Sometimes the voters get it right!
Special!!!!!