Here’s another reason for people to contact Algonquin Township Board members to ask them to resume broadcasting their monthly Board meetings.
So far, no commitment has been made to allow taxpayers to see how their elected officials act if they don’t drive to the Algonquin Township Hall on the second Wednesday’s of the month.
Certainly the minutes are not expansive enough to learn who said what during board deliberations.
Take a look at what the Board thinks is more important to share with residents than their official activities:>
Supervisor Randy Funk
rfunk@algonquintownship.com
Trustee Millie Medendorp
mmedendorp@algonquintownship.com
Trustee Teresa Sharpe Decker
tdecker@algonquintownship.com
Trustee Theresa Fronczak
tfronczak@algonquintownship.com
Trustee Edward J. Zimel, Jr.
ezimel@algonquintownship.com
The previous Clerk took it upon herself to broadcast the meetings, so one might want to contact her predecessor as well:
Clerk Maureen Huff
Email: mhuff@algonquintownship.com
Could someone please tell me what a township is doing having exercise classes?
Don’t they have park districts for that?
Townships have to justify their crooked existence somehow.
I’m surprised we don’t have Bob Miller Petting Zoo, where there’d be prize pigs, venomous serpents, taxpayer cash-cows, a cockroach exhibit, road district rats, vampire bats, and Chmiel sloths +++++ mostly stocked with members of the Bob Miller, Decker and Funk families.
Kids would get bitten tho. They are vicious.
http://2l5j2xfyavy1vtsq1smudbr95.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/rat-bite.jpg
LMAO, Miller Petting Zoo!
I won’t be bringing my grandkids.
Has anyone called all the board members, supervisor, clerk, rd commissioner and asked why they are Not live-streaming the meetings?
And giving Cal their responses?
Have any of the complainers going to the meetings and gotten their complaint on record thru public comment?
Or emailed each one requesting an emailed response?
Or have they staged a protest?
That’s a busy enough road to get the public’s attention!
Have they contacted the Herald to get an article? Have they written a ‘letter to the Editor’ complaint to be printed?
I would suggest taking the above actions in that order.
Cal a question, are you concerned about the CRYSTAL LAKE PARK taking $463.36 of your real estate taxes not zooming their meeting also?
ALGONQUIN TOWNSHIP hits ya for $53.72, CL PD is 8.6 times higher.
CL Library Zoom their meetings?
CARY AREA PUBLIC Library who also doesn’t zoom hits me for $231.35, 4.4 times higher when compared to ALGONQUIN TOWNSHIP $52.25.
Why keep barking up the tree that does the least damage to your wallet?
I’d guess you spend way more trying to save your ash tree.
I do not live in Crystal Lake, so do not pay taxes to support the Crystal Lake City Library.
I am frankly surprised that anyone would oppose allowing citizens to view public meetings of any tax district.
Given we are in the age of the internet, I see little justification for elected officials not to allow their taxpayers to view their public actions.
In Algonquin Township’s case, former Clerk Karen Lukasik purchased equipment to broadcast the meetings and, in the beginning, did the best job of any local official. She had an assistant pointing the camera at each Board member as they spoke. (Much better than McHenry Township, which has a camera in the ceiling giving the same view all the time, but McHenry and Nunda Township with a similar set-up are now more transparent than much larger Algonquin Township.)
But, for some reason, Lukasik did not broadcast all meetings.
You make a good point about the Crystal Lake Park District’s not moving into this part of the 20th century, however.
People have emailed the township folks and gotten no response. IGNORED!
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Pletz claims he spoke to Funk for 30 minutes on the phone. Pletz does not say what Funk said or what Funk’s intentions are. Sounds like those two were giving each other the old argie bargie. Don’t need to have a 30 minute talk but Pletz is weak. You say do this and here’s why you do it and the person says what they think and maybe you have a rebuttal or two and that’s it. For something as basic as streaming a meeting, a 30 minute conversation is not necessary; and the fact that Pletz won’t reveal what was said makes me think Pletz didn’t convince Funk. We don’t know because Pletz won’t say. He’s too busy brownnosing Funk on this blog by talking about having a nice conversation. Hey Pletz it wasn’t a nice conversation unless you convinced Funk to do what you told him to do. Otherwise you’re a loser and a failure and the conversation did not go the way you wanted it to go. There is nothing nice about that. You think someone who tells you no I won’t act with basic decency, common sense, and transparency but who tells you it in a polite tone and blabbers for 30 minutes is good in any way? This is what’s wrong with Republicans these days. They’re all about “civility” even while showing nothing for it. In an ideal world, politicians would fear being skinned or lynched, but we have Republicans like Pletz and you see how things are these days…
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Yes, you could organize a protest but you could go to the meetings too. Cal says the last meeting was only 1 person. If people aren’t putting pressure on government, they don’t do the right thing by default. Even with pressure, it’s not a guarantee but you have a better chance. You could also write letters to the NW Herald to reach a wider audience. Not everybody reads this blog. You might consider writing to the Daily Herald too.
The Nob is a Millerite. Can’t you tell?
Petting Zoo hilarious!
They sort of have it now.
Cal, you can watch ‘Clerk’ Dan Alyward parade around in women’s clothes and high heels on the McHenry Township clownshow. It’s funny as hell. Which is where he’ll go. I can understand why the Supervisor quit in disgust
Correcting, do you ever have anything positive or even neutral to say about anyone?
What a curmudgeon suffering from irrelevance you must be.
Yes, but not too often because most of this blog deals with government people and they are not doing a good job.
This post is about a township that won’t be transparent.
If they are streaming exercise classes why can’t they stream board meetings?
Given that revelation, do any of them deserve to be spoken of positively?
I’ll speak about topics neutrally and say when in agreement with people but as far as kissing people’s butts no I don’t do too much of that.
Pletz is the one who said he spoke for thirty minutes to Funk and my question is rather simple:
What did Funk say and is Funk going to change his mind and stream the meetings?
There is no need to brown nose politicians if they are doing bad things.
Politicians respond to pressure, heckling, and fear of losing elections.
They don’t change their mind because one person has a howdy doody talk with them on the phone.
They change their mind when there are angry people yelling at them.
This happens often.
Isn’t it pretty obvious that they DON’T want to stream meetings?
So you think just asking them to do something that they have chosen not to do is going to make them do it?
They clearly have little regard for their voters knowing what they are doing (with taxpayer money), so why should their voters treat them nicely?
This is peak naivety and from watching John Pletz over the years naive would be a good way to describe him.
Nice guy, but doesn’t know how things work.
These people change their minds when the newspaper is writing negative articles about them or they get funny looks when they go outside.
Negativity works.
Anger works.
Outrage works.
For someone who likes the founding fathers, who went so far as to defend revolution, I’m surprised you don’t get that point.
There is no reason to be nice to people who see us as cattle.
They work for us.
There is something sad about begging the government for your rights or being nice to people who hate you.
It is slave mentality.
No, I don’t feel irrelevant at all, Federal Farmer.
Curmudgeon?
Yeah, that’s probably fair, because there is plenty to be upset about.
I can be in a good mood too!
But this township business gets me angry, and I get irritated hearing about Pletz having a “nice” conversation for 30 minutes with people who are against transparency.
What does he have to show for the nice conversation?
Did he convince Funk or not?
Since he didn’t say, you have to believe he did not.
If he succeeded, he probably would have said so.
That’s what I’m getting at: efficacy. A lot of Republicans are terrible at this.
I was probably being too harsh on Pletz though.
He should be commended for at least contacting the township people and encouraging other people to do so.
Pletz is a politically active person which is good.
Correcting is right on.