Jack Franks’ Personal Agenda & Secret Legal Opinion Trumps State’s Attorney’s Opinion re Committee Chairman’s Control of Committee Agendas – Part 2

Michele Aavang

The Committee then proceeded to complain about the lack of availability of meeting agenda packet information to Committee Chairman Aavang .

MIchele Aavang, chairing the meeting, agreed that agendas have not been readily available in a timely fashion.

She also stated she has had to make numerous phone calls to staff requesting agenda packets to be posted earlier so committee members had adequate time to prepare for the committee meetings.

At this point, (2:25 – 2:31 of the recording) County Board Chairman Jack Franks entered the meeting

Heexplained that because he was out of town and did not have his phone, the agendas were not posted in a timely fashion and that he had apologized to the Committee Chairman, that he would do better next time.

Craig Wilcox

However, Board Member Craig Wilcox questioned the County Chairman’s approval of the agendas, when clearly the States Attorney opinion states the County Board Chairman does not have the authority to approve or disapprove a committee agenda.

Chairman Franks disagreed, “That’s part of the job we do for the committee chair.

“That is what we do”.”

Board Member Wilcox pushed back by stating, “Reviewing them, but not approving them”.

“No”, stated Franks, “we do both”.

Wilcox continued by stating that the County Board Rules established that a majority of the committee can determine whether an item should be on the agenda.

Franks countered that by stating, “Perhaps, but not if it’s illegal”.

Committee Member Mike Walkup questioned the validity of Franks’ statement and said there was no States Attorney or AG opinion that would support what Franks said.

Chairman Franks responded that he had other legal opinions but upon Walkup requesting those legal opinions Chairman Franks refused to provide these opinions.

Chairman Franks closed the discussion by saying he needed to go to a different meeting and he didn’t have time to talk further with the committee.

But he did say that he would do better next time in terms of improving his turnaround time for approving agendas.

Board Member Walkup responded that it is irrelevant for the County Board Chairman to have a faster turnaround time for committee meeting agenda approval when the County Board Chairman has no authority to be approving agendas in the first place.

The County Board Chairman then responded that there were no problems about him taking this
level of authority except for “a couple of people who are working their own personal agendas”.

= = = = =
You can listen to the meeting here.”>.


Comments

Jack Franks’ Personal Agenda & Secret Legal Opinion Trumps State’s Attorney’s Opinion re Committee Chairman’s Control of Committee Agendas – Part 2 — 16 Comments

  1. Re: “did not have his phone”

    It may be legal to lie during a campaign but when one holds office, she / he is held to a higher standard.

    I want proof!

    If he lied, start ‘quo warranto’ proceedings.

    Why is the County Manager allowing the County Chairman to approve agendas?

    Time to fire the County Manager for malfeasance?

  2. What difference does it make (sound familiar?)?

    Aavang appears to be a rubber stamp for anything that Franks wants.

    If she ever had an original thought in her head, it would surely die of loneliness.

  3. Roles, Responsibilities, Authorities –

    Is there an “official” document or documents within the McHenry County Government that delineate the roles, responsibilities and authorities of the Chairman of the Board, Board Members, County Administrator and Chairpersons of Board Committees?

    If there is a document or documents, are the “roles, responsibilities, authorities” sufficient to determine outcomes of the disputes since the current chairman assumed his office? If not, can “precedent” from decades of previous Board and Chairman business matters be used as a determinant of the outcomes of disputes over the last year?

  4. So, the initially unapproved, yet claimed essential hire of two supporting staff members to the chairman, aren’t helping anything get done more effectively, or timely?

  5. Some history:

    February 27, 2003 – Jack Franks writes a letter to Rod Blagojevich’s Deputy Chief of Staff, requesting the administration consider 12 people for jobs, including his wife, father, a brother, and John Bartman.

    Subsequently, John Bartman receives a job with the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT).

    November 6, 2012 – Jack Franks pushed a failed referendum for an elected county executive with a county executive form of government.

    Jack Franks seems to lose a debate with Michael Tryon about the matter.

    March 18, 2014 – Jack Franks pushed a successful voter elected county board chair referendum.

    Previously the 24 member county board elected one of their own as county board chair.

    Now there is a 24 member county board plus a voter elected county board chair, adding to the number of elected politicians in McHenry County.

    The pitch was voters would have the power to elect the top county board position in county government, giving more power to the voters.

    At no time did Jack Franks indicate he would run for the position or advocate the position be changed.

    It was simply to voters would elect, instead of the county board members electing.

    June 6, 2014 – Jack Franks was quoted in the Northwest Herald by reporter Kevin Craver as saying he would not run for the voter elected county board chair position.

    That turned out to not be true.

    March 15, 2016 – Jack Franks wins, unopposed, the Democrat 63rd District State Representative election.

    Fellow Democrat and Jack Franks political campaign supporter Jeffery Lichte ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for 63rd District State Representative.

    May 15, 2016 – Jack Franks announced his candidacy for county board chair.

    July 9, 2016 – The McHenry County Democrat party nominates John Bartman to replace Jack Franks as Democrat candidate for 63rd District State Representative.

    November 8, 2016 – Jack Franks was elected County Board Chair

    Steve Reick defeats John Bartman for 63rd District State Representative.

    Once elected Jack Franks grabs as much power as quickly as he can, not involving the full county board, under the guise that anyone who opposes him has a personal agenda.

    It seems Jack Franks is the person with the biggest personal agenda.

    The switch of power from the county board to the chair is significant and ongoing.

    Do the voters want the county board chair to have more power, and the county board to have less power?

    That was not part of the referendum pitch by Jack Franks for a voter elected county board chair.

    The county board seems to flounder around and be largely ineffective in getting the word out to the public about what has transpired, and seems to be largely powerless against Jack Franks.

    Could that be partly due to the fact the County Board Chair has a taxpayer funded Communications Specialist to deliver his message to the press, and the County Board has no such Communications Specialist on their payroll?

    Did Jack Franks have a team building talk with the county board saying they should work in a bi-partisan fashion to achieve goals for the good of the county taxpayers?

    Hoping the county board members would not themselves go to the press, leaving the Communications Specialist and Jack Franks free to deliver their message to the press?

    Behind the scenes is Chicago Cook County Democrat Michael Madigan.

    The head of the Democratic party of Illinois.

    The person who was in charge of the House and the House Democrats for the entire 18 years Jack Franks was a House Democrat.

    The result of this fiasco has been a vastly changed County Board and County Board Chair.

    Some more recent history:

    – December 5, 2016 – Jack Franks takes oath of office.

    – Jack Franks immediately begins making changes to the way committees and board meetings are run, without involving the full county board.

    – December 20, 2016 – The county hikes property taxes by $80,000, after Jack Franks’ key campaign pitch was to reduce property taxes by 10%.

    – December 20, 2016 – Two Jack Franks patronage workers apply for positions not currently posted that will be changed to positions not yet created, the entire process unknown to the full county board.

    – taxpayer funded electronic voting system acquired, without revelation exactly what was cut to pay for the voting system.

    – January 17, 2017 – taxpayer funded outside parliamentarian hired, an added cost, when the county states attorney had been the previous parliamentarian for no extra charge to taxpayers

    – February 25, 2017 – working as a county employee, one patronage worker is pictured (by a county board member) wearing his bosses (Jack Franks) campaign stickers on his (patronage worker’s) shirt at the county booth at the McHenry Chamber of Commerce expo

    – Jack Franks makes public an issue involving that aforementioned board member attending a closed session meeting related to his expertise, instead of dealing with the matter privately.

    – April 27, 2017 – the county blocks McHenry County Blog from County wifi

    – May 4, 2017 – taxpayer funded Federal lobbyist hired, with the issue going through the committee process in a highly questionable non transparent fashion.

    A consistent theme is when Jack Franks is not transparent or bi-partisan, the message from the Jack Franks camp is people are working a personal agenda to block him, or people are attacking him, or somehow he is a victim, or he is just trying to reduce taxes, etc.

    That’s getting pretty old.

    Which is more prevalent?

    Jack Franks hiding things?

    Or the board hiding things?

  6. I still can’t get over how people see evil and refuse to recognize it for what it is.

    The voters have atrophied.

  7. So how does the Board Chairman go to Springfield and lobby for legislation without Board approval or even knowledge?

  8. Jack “No Thanks” Franks.

    The Great Obstructor.

    One who stonewalls or refuses to answer or cooperate;someone who delays by lengthy speeches etc.

  9. Germany had the same style leader back in the late ’30’s before the war-I believe his name was Adolph

  10. Kudos to Cindy and AZsupporter – bringing the blog to a new low.

  11. “Kudos to Cindy and AZsupporter – bringing the blog to a new low.”

    But fake-Moderate, that’s YOUR job!

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