With permission from Algonquin Township Republican candidate for Township Supervisor Randy Funk, here is his response to the McHenry County League of Women Voters:
Randy Funk answers to question submitted by League of Women Voters.
Ladies, Thank You for letting me provide your fine organization with information about my candidacy .
I am running for Algonquin Township Supervisor because the Township needs normalcy brought back.
The voters in the Township need someone who will act in their best interests.
Past problems with the Township were mostly created by the current Township Road Commissioner.
He claimed the Township was being poorly run by Mr. Miller.
Yet, his first day in office he fired union workers without cause.
Lawyer fees are nearly $750,000 to date and counting. He lost every legal battle. Legal battles that should not have happened.
The Township needs to resell itself to the voters and re-earn their trust. I plan on doing that.
The main function of the Algonquin Township Supervisor is to provide financial assistance to support the less fortunate in our community.
For 24 years, I have been doing this for the McHenry County community as a proud member/leader of the Crystal Lake Lions Club.
Our club, through my leadership, provides eyecare, hearing aides and many other services to support to those in need.
I am known as a leader and inspirator of people.
My vision for the future of the Township is to do a better, more focused job of providing the needed services to our community.
Also, focus will be on improving the public relations of our Township.
I will also do my best to avoid unnecessary controversy in our Township government.
What has gone on in the past has only been harmful and should never had happened.
The pettiness has only been harmful.
The lawyer is the only person who won.
The Township is funded by real estate taxes and thus has no financial hardship.
The amount of taxes in one’s real estate tax bill is made up of only about 2% Township dollars.
We must avoid costly litigation.
The current financial assistance that the Township provides to the public is essential.
Helping folks get their utilities bill paid or their rent paid is vital.
Making sure they can get food on their families’ table is important.
I have worked with the township in the past, coordinating providing assistance to needy individuals and families.
In these current times, it is vital that when continue to do this and work
on improving it.
The Township also provides recycling centers for a number of items.
This is widely used by the people of the Township. To some degree the buildings of the Township have been used as community centers.
I will work on making this more available to our citizens.
Having Covid-19 vaccinations done in Township buildings must be looked into.
Gasser fired patronage employees who were related to Bob Miller who had helped them to unionize during the transition period after he was defeated in the primary election.
Gasser basically had no choice other then to either try to work with employees who were likely to be hostile to him and undermine whatever he would try to do, or fire them and risk the legal fallout.
This was an attempt by Miller to sabotage his successor.
Townships don’t have to follow patronage rules that bind other units of government, which gives rise to corruption and nepotism.
The Millers were Exhibit A for this.
I see nothing in the “pledges” above that offers to change this, not that the township Supervisor would have any power to do anything about the Road District which is a separate and independent entity.
What he talks about is continuing to pay a Supervisor a large salary, and devote other money to the large building and staff, all to dole out a small amount of money to about 25 people per YEAR, while they are waiting for their Public Aid applications to be acted up on by the state.
That’s 2 per month or one every other week.
The paperwork is done by a paid staff person, not the Supervisor.
This could be handled by the county or IDPA itself.
The County Chairman is authorized to do this if no township Supervisor is available.
Recycling is not part of township government, nor is COVID vaccine distribution.
These are make work projects to try to endear the township to local residents and justify it’s continued existence as a patronage sink.
The two other township functions for the Supervisor are to maintain the small postage stamp sized township cemeteries, for which a landscape company has been hired, and sign the checks for the Road District employees which are generated by a computer or handled by ADT or some similar company.
Also he chairs the monthly meetings of the township board which rarely last more than an hour and which have nothing really to do anyway.
If you add all of this up I would be surprized if it takes more than 20 hours per MONTH.
The Supervisor also gets a pension and health insurance.
County Board members put in a lot more time than this and are only paid a fraction of a Supervisor’s salary and have no pension thanks to Jack Franks (who still gets a pension and health insurance from the state).
Electing a different Supervisor who promises to “return to normalcy” is not going to change this.
Normalcy in this case is the perpetuation of a bad system.
Because Science is indeed correct on ALL the above.
I aside in the preceding post that Because Science seemed to be Brian Sager.
I regret writing that, because I cannot believe Brian Sager could ever write the above.
I apologize.
“and to set the record straight ladies, it was Buddy Holly’s guitarist who lost the plane ride coin toss to Richie Valens. Not Waylon Jennings!”
BecauseScience your commentary on Andy Gasser shows you lack any common sense.
He illegally fired union employees and because he has no one to answer to when it comes to the budget, he spent nearly a million dollars on lawyer fees on a terrible lawyer. Lost on every issue!
Face it your in the minority on the Township issue and probably as stupid as they are!
Complaining about a Township Road Commissioner having unchecked budget control is valid.
The rest of your comments belong in the garbage!
‘VOTE FUNK FOR ALGONQUIN TOWNSHIP SUPERVISOR’
Maybe the Gasser/Sandberg supporters would be a little more willing to admit Funk aint their dude now!!!
I tried planting those seeds. Here
http://mchenrycountyblog.com/2021/02/08/algonquin-township-gop-holding-fundraiser-wednesday/
Funk just threw Gasser under the bus and said almost NOTHING about Miller being a problem.
That is simply revisionist history.
Why was Miller replaced in the first place by a man with little to no road work experience?
Because something STUNK, and Miller was in charge!
Everybody knows it.
Gasser lost his cases because the labor laws are stacked against him in this situation.
What you had here was a “reverse collaboration”.
Here the employer (Miller) collaborated and conspired with the employees (mostly his relatives) to agree to the formation of a union.
The NLRA (National Labor Relations Act) favors the creation of unions. So there is no legal remedy where the employer is in bed with the employees to form a union so the employees can’t be fired.
So the case was a loser to start with but what it did was buy time.
Now Gasser is leaving office, so it’s the next person’s headache.
Mission accomplished.
What needs to happen now is some AL township citizens need to circulate a new set of petitions to abolish the township and road district, and this time get more signatures.
Such petition has to be filed for the election that occurs next, so that would be the 2022 primary or, if cirulated after the primary, for the general election. It can provide whatever dissolution date is desired so long as that date is at least 90 days after said election.
Since this would take place within the terms of the sitting township officials, such officials could not preside as an Election Board under Anderson vs McHenry Township Election Board et al. because their salaries would be affected by the dissolution.
That was not the case this last time as none of the members of the Election Board sought re-election.
So you would have Joe Tirio, and someone from the SA’s office plus one other person selected by Chief Judge Cowlin on that board.
Just don’t hire the same guys that Reinardt used.
Tirio bagged the petition.
Shame on him.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
Because Science. That is the MOST concise and well-thought-out post you have EVER done. I heartily agree!👏
Boy, BecauseScience, what a thrill to be complemented by Goon Cindy.
How lucky can one get?
Joe Blow, blow away.
Come back in six years.
Gee that didn’t last long. Then you went and ruined it all with your claptrap about abolishing. Back to your New World Odor propaganda, I see.
BecauseScience you keep proving my point about your ignorance!
If you can’t find fault with Gasser’s(who by the way is the most despised politician/office holder in the county) abuse of his power, then shame on you.
His arrogance and stupidity cost nearly $1 million dollars!
The facts on the ‘outsiders’ petition is that nearly 50% of the signatures were invalid and 4 of the petition sheets were fraudulently/criminally signed.
They were hoping nobody was paying attention to their work.
Look up Funk’s history of falsehoods and deceptions.