Some of you asked me last week to keep you updated on how my campaign for Township Supervisor is going. I'm on a slate with 6 other candidates: Clerk, Highway Commissioner and 4 Trustees. Here is the first Press Release of our campaign. We sent it out over the last few days to every local media outlet around. But first a little background.
Here in Downers Grove Township we have a tiny government, sort of a
vestigial appendage left over from the days when Illinois was one of the Northwest
Territories and there were few villages, towns or counties let alone
cities to provide services. DGT government has less than a $5 million
dollar budget and by statute, we have to provide three services, a general assistance program to qualifying residents, property
assessment, and maintenance of township roads and bridges. Beyond these
mandated functions, the township offers a variety of social services
for township residents, including senior citizen and youth programs,
transportation, and cemetery maintenance. To give you an idea of how small
it is the Village of Downers Grove itself has over ten times the number
of employees and is only one of 9 towns within the Township.
If elected, as Supervisor I'll be the
top official on the board, I will sign the checks and make out
the annual budget and financial reports. Our slate has FOIA'd records
from the township and attended some of the meetings.
Republicans, as far as anyone knows, have held every position in DGT
township government since there's been one, or at least since the Whig
party died. They run a very
sloppy ship.
Lately they screwed up appointing board members and don't have a legally constituted board anymore as you'll see below. Their own handpicked
auditor issued an "adverse" opinion on their year end financial statement last year. In accountant speak that's an F. I'll have more on that in the future. The Highway
Commission uses half the budget and is a microcosm of Chicago's Dept. of Streets and Sanitation with all the nepotism there. That's particualrly funny because all we hear out of Republicans around here is if Democrats get elected "they'll make it just like Chicago". This careless compliance, slipshod
accounting, and cronyism are hallmarks of bad government and ought to
raise red flags. If I have anything to say about it we'll be hoisting ones as big as Old Glory in the coming weeks.
So without further ado here is our first press release:
Republicans Botch Appointments to Downers Grove Township Government
Recently several members of the Downers Grove Township Government chose
to retire. Edward P. Smith, the Highway Commissioner left office on
December 31, 2008. Supervisor Barbara Wheat proffered her resignation
letter effective January 16th. It appears rather than serve out the last few
months of their elected terms they left early so their appointed
successors could run as incumbents with the attendant advantages.
Illinois statutes (60 ILCS 1/60-5) say that's a legal maneuver, the
Board is charged with filling vacancies by appointment, but let's look
at the way they did it.
Those same Illinois statutes (60 ILCS 1/60-20) also say "Whenever they
(the Board) accept a resignation, the township clerk shall make a
minute of the acceptance upon the township records." Nowhere in the
minutes published over the last 6 months does it show the Board made a
motion to accept the resignations of either Smith or Wheat. There was
no motion made to accept the resignation of Frank Wurster as Trustee.
The December 4th minutes show the clerk did read a resolution honoring
Highway Commissioner Smith for his many years of service which was
passed by vote along with a mention that his successor, Lawrence
Anderson would be appointed in January. A resolution honoring someone
is not the same as a motion to accept a resignation.
During the January 22 meeting Clerk Diane Konicek acknowledged
receiving Barbara Wheat's resignation letter on January 16, 2009. Clerk
Konicek slso informed the Board Trustee Frank Wurster had tendered his
resignation effective January 22, 2009. Trustee Rita Carlson then made
a motion to appoint Kathleen Abbate as Trustee to fill the remaining
term of Mr. Wurster which was seconded by Trustee Robert Del Sarto with
"all" voting aye.
The next order of business was the appointment of Frank Wurster as
Supervisor. Trustee Carlson then made a motion to appoint Frank Wurster
as Supervisor for the remainder of Wheat's term, seconded by Trustee
Del Sarto, again with "all" voting aye.
In order for Wurster to be appointed Supervisor he first had to resign
his Trustee position (as he did), he's not allowed to hold two voting
positions on the Board simultaneously, however briefly. In order for
Abbate to be appointed Trustee Wurster also could not remain in that
position, the seat had to be vacant.
There are five voting positions on the Board, the Supervisor and the
4 Trustees. Neither the recently retired Supervisor Barbara Wheat or Trustee William
Swanston were present at that meeting. That left three voting members,
one of whom was Wurster who had resigned his position to be appointed
to Supervisor, thus leaving only two qualified voting members.
Two qualified voting members of the Board do not constitute a quorum.
According to the Illinois State Open Meetings Act (5 ILCS 120/1.02)
(from Ch. 102, par. 41.02) "for a 5-member public body, 3 members of
the body constitute a quorum and the affirmative vote of 3 members is
necessary to adopt any motion, resolution, or ordinance". Thus the
appointment of Frank Wurster to DGT Supervisor and Kathleen Abbate to
succeed him as Trustee were not legally done under Illinois law.
Neither is any action the Board has taken during or since that meeting
as they don't have a legally constituted Board.
Now this might seem like nitpicking to some. But appointing successors
for elected officers is a pretty rare occurrence and serious business,
especially right before an election. The law is very specific but also
flexible, there were any number of ways they could have done this
correctly and stayed within the law. But the all Republican Board, many
of whom have been there for years if not decades, and really ought to
know better ignored the statutes and instead made sloppy and ultimately
illegal appointments. If that's how they conduct very rare business
like this in open meetings when it's bound to attract attention, how
are they conducting the people's business when nobody is watching their
everyday activities?
The rest is contact info for local reporters which I won't include here. But I will include
the campaign website where you can see the handbill we're having printed with our smiling faces on it and a link to the Actblue page where anyone who has a mind to can make me and TPM look good by ponying up a few bucks for the cause.
We start canvassing on Saturday and will be tromping through whatever weather Mother Nature throws at us all 7 weekends until election day on April 7th. There's no way we can reach all the voters we need to on foot so anything you give will go toward postage for mailing out these press releases (in modified form) to voters. Needless to say every little bit helps and will be greatly appreciated. If you're going to donate I ask that you tack a penny on the end so we can tell how many contributions we get from TPM. It's an old Kos trick.
Thanks in advance for reading and contributing. Please recommend.
The website