Attorney General to Investigate IL Fire Chief's Termination

Attorney General to Investigate IL Fire Chief's Termination

Susan Vela On Jun 10, 2017
Source: McClatchy

The public attended the Boone County District 2 Fire Department board meeting where the chief was terminated.

Photo credit: Courtesy of WIFR

June 09--BELVIDERE -- The Illinois Attorney General is investigating whether the Boone County Fire Protection District 2 board violated the Open Meetings Act when it terminated Brad Bartell as chief.

The district's firefighters association requested the investigation.

"Trustees willingly and deliberately violated the OMA," the association's letter to the Illinois Attorney General's Office reads. "The emails we received via FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) were first sent to the fire district's attorney for screening prior to being sent to us.

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"This filtered out many critical documents that are pertinent to your investigation. The documents we did receive however show a pattern of discussion and decisions being made behind the scenes."

Annie Thompson, the Attorney General's press secretary, said the state will take up an open meetings and FOIA investigation as it does with all requests.

The fire district's firefighters association requested the state's review because members say trustees should not have fired Bartell and haven't been transparent about why they let him go. When the association asked for a rationale, the trustees provided a list of concerns about Bartell that included allegations of mismanagement, missing equipment and failure to follow proper protocols.

Association members have been appearing at trustees' meetings to protest Bartell's firing and to express solidarity with their former chief.

Bartell, who serves as the Boone County Emergency Management Agency Coordinator, has said the trustees began asking him to leave closed sessions he normally would sit in on.

"With Brad, it was a family around here," volunteer firefighter Josh Dummer said Monday as the trustees discussed personnel matters in closed session. "If they're not going to respect him, why are they going to care about us?"

They've also let trustees Jack Ryan, Kevin Stark and Jim Marrs know they are circulating petitions aimed at putting a referendum question before voters asking whether trustees should be elected. Right now, the Boone County Board chairman appoints them.

The trustees and Bartell's replacement, Chief Bob Koehn, have declined to comment about Bartell's termination.

The fire district covers about 150 square miles, including the unincorporated communities of Irene, Herbert and Garden Prairie.

Bartell also declined to comment about the attorney general's review. He was with the fire district for 26 years -- five of them as chief -- when he was let go after an April 3 meeting.

Illinois' Open Meetings Act requires that public bodies cite why they're going behind closed doors. They're allowed to discuss personnel matters during these closed sessions. Fire district trustees didn't give a reason until the April 3 session.

Marrs then said the closed session was for "the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance or dismissal of specific employees of the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee."

Springfield attorney Donald Craven, who specializes in First Amendment issues, noted that Bartell was not a member of the board, and that the trustees had every right to talk about his leadership without him being there.

"To properly go into closed session, there has to be a motion to go into closed session," he said. "That motion has to recite what exemption under the act they're relying on and there has to be a roll call vote on that motion.

"Then when all of that happens, they can go into closed session ...there has to be a verbatim recording of that closed session, which is usually just an audiotape."

The Illinois Attorney General public access counselor may review the audiotape, he said.

Susan Vela: 815-987-1392; svela@rrstar.com; @susanvela

___ (c)2017 Rockford Register Star, Ill. Visit Rockford Register Star, Ill. at www.rrstar.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Above is from:  http://www.firehouse.com/news/12342755/attorney-general-to-investigate-il-fire-chiefs-termination-firefighter-news

MIT Study: Living Wage for Rockford Metro Area

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Above is from:   http://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/40420

Rail regulators ask Great Lakes Basin for more info before acting on rail line bid

Transportation June 5, 2017

Rail regulators ask Great Lakes Basin for more info before acting on rail line bid

New rail line to bypass Chicago; UPS supports proposal.

By DC Velocity Staff

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Federal rail regulators have asked Great Lakes Basin Transportation Inc. (GLBT), which plans to build a 261-mile rail line connecting with six of North America's seven largest railroads to bypass Chicago, for more information before they can evaluate its bid to resolve the bottlenecks that plague the nation's busiest and most congested rail hub.

In a decision issued Friday, the Surface Transportation Board (STB), which oversees what remains of rail regulation, asked GLBT to provide a list of cities and counties to be served; GLBT only submitted a list of the counties, the agency said. The Board also directed GLBT to file a copy of its latest balance sheet and income statement documents. The Board also rejected GLBT's designation that its list of its 10 principal stockholders and their respective holdings be classified as 'highly confidential."

The agency set a June 22 deadline for filing the additional information.

The privately funded line would skirt Chicago to the south, passing through counties in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. According to GLBT, the line would permit a train to travel between any two of 26 proposed interchange points in eight hours or less. Currently, it can take as long as 30 hours for trains to navigate Chicago's existing rail network to deliver goods not destined for the city or its environs. GLBT said the line would allow up to 110 trains per day to avoid the Chicago terminal.

In response to concerns that the line would encroach on residential neighborhoods, GLBT said it would build a one- to two-mile buffer zone separating it from towns along the proposed route.

GLBT founder Frank Patton has called the line the largest freight rail project in the Chicagoland region in more than a century.

The proposed railroad is part of an ambitious multi-modal scheme that includes the construction of the "Burnham Expressway," a privately funded toll road designed to route traffic around Chicago by connecting the Indiana Toll Road with five interstate highways, and an airport in Chicago's southern suburbs that would relieve traffic congestion at O'Hare International Airport northwest of the city and at Midway International Airport on Chicago's south side.

Three of the top five executives, Jim Wilson, vice chairman and president of Great Lakes Basin Transportation; Mike Vlaszak, chief legal and administrative officer of the parent; and William Miller, chief commercial officer, spent time at the old Santa Fe Railway, which was acquired by the former Burlington Northern Railroad Co. in 1995 to become what would eventually be known as BNSF Railway.

Two of the six "Class I" railroads, Omaha, Neb.-based Union Pacific Corp. and Norfolk, Va.-based Norfolk Southern Corp., have said they would not participate in the project. Other railroads would have to pay to gain access to the line, and those that aren't interested may believe that the cost would be too dear or that a new line would threaten their own market shares.

However, Atlanta-based UPS Inc., the nation's largest transportation company and a huge user of the rails to move intermodal traffic, supports the proposal.

In an April 28 letter to the STB, UPS said that "any effort to build new rail capacity and bypass the notorious Chicago rail bottleneck would have a material positive impact on the fluidity and velocity of the freight rail network, and a direct benefit to UPS and our customers."

Above is from::  http://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20170605-rail-regulators-ask-great-lakes-basin-for-more-info-before-acting-on-rail-line-bid/

GLBR must release largest shareholders June 10

Federal board: Transportation company must reveal shareholders for new railroad through Rock County

Jim Dayton

A proposed 261-mile rail line through Rock County hit a temporary snag Friday after a decision by the federal Surface Transportation Board.

The board directed Great Lakes Basin Transportation to share more details in its application to build a new railroad. The company also must reveal its 10 principal shareholders after the board denied a request for confidentiality.

The board disagreed with Great Lakes Basin's position that a list of stakeholders was “highly confidential” and contained “proprietary and commercially sensitive information.” Great Lakes Basin had said revealing its shareholders could damage the company, but it did not justify why, the board wrote in its decision.

The rail company must file a public list of stakeholders by Friday, June 9, according to the document.

Great Lakes Basin President Frank Patton said Friday he had received the Surface Transportation Board's decision and was studying the document. The company will respond soon, he said.

Mirjam Melin, co-founder of local opposition group Rock Against the Rail, said if the railroad line is eventually approved, landowners along the route have a right to know who is taking over their property.

She applauded the board's decision to reveal shareholders because it showed opposition groups were being heard, she said.

Great Lakes Basin's current proposed route begins in Milton and cuts between Janesville and Beloit. It then turns south into Illinois, loops around Chicago and ends in Indiana.

The company submitted its application to build the rail line May 1. Patton has told The Gazette the rail line will allow trains to avoid congestion in Chicago.

But the Surface Transportation Board believes the application still lacks details.

Great Lakes Basin did not give the board a full list of cities and counties that would be served by the rail line. It also must file a balance sheet and income statement along with other paperwork, according to the document.

The rail company had not provided any financial information because it has not yet conducted business operations. But Great Lakes Basin has retained a contractor for an environmental study, who should appear on a balance sheet as a liability, the board wrote.

Great Lakes Basin must finalize its application by June 22.

Melin believes the application's missing details show the company is "not ready for prime time.”

The board also simplified how opposition groups such as Rock Against the Rail can file legal responses. The groups must give copies of their responses to the board and Great Lakes Basin but not all parties of record, which would have included all citizens who have submitted public comments.

Once Great Lakes Basin submits the missing information, opposition groups will have an undetermined amount of time to file new responses.

Rock Against the Rail does not want the railroad, Melin said.

“By no means is the fight over. This is not the end of it,” she said. “These are just little things along the way that tell us we are being heard and what we asked for is being considered.”

Above is from:  http://www.gazettextra.com/20170602/federal_board_transportation_company_must_reveal_shareholders_for_new_railroad_through_rock_county

Rock Valley College: A lesson in gov’t bureaucracy

Guest Column: A lesson in gov’t bureaucracy

May 24, 2017May 24, 2017 Editorial Staff 0 Comment

By Paul Gorski
Contributor

I am a new board trustee at Rock Valley College and, as I usually do in any of my jobs, I ask many questions. Unfortunately, despite being a board member, I might have to request answers to my questions through formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests rather than a simple “May I see a copy of that contract?” More on that in a bit.

First, I want to thank local voters for electing me as a Rock Valley College Board Trustee. I received nearly 25,000 votes, which is quite a feat in an off-year election for a community college board position. People who know elections tell me those were phenomenal results. Thank you. I am humbled by the support.

Second, I am not now nor do I expect to be in a position of speaking officially for the Rock Valley College Board. The opinions I express here are my own. My opinions will not likely reflect the official position of the board or other board members. I wanted to make that clear because board “policy” states only the board chairman may speak on behalf of the board.

It is also a board policy that only the chairman and committee chairpersons ask the president of the college for certain information. There are seven trustees. One trustee is the chair and three other trustees are committee chairpersons. The three remaining trustees need to direct their questions for the president and staff to one of four other trustees. Sounds like an unnecessary communications hierarchy for a small seven-person board. Talk about red tape.

By the way, according to Merriam-Webster.com “red tape” refers to: “official routine or procedure marked by excessive complexity which results in delay or inaction.” Yep.

When I served on the county board, the twenty-eight board members could ask any staff member a question. The County Board Chairman at the time, Scott Christiansen, encouraged board members to go directly to staff. County staff answered our questions promptly and politely.

Back to the RVC present: the information in question now concerns certain contracts already made and signed part of the public record; and surveys or questionnaires used to determine the need for a new service on campus, also a public record. My initial request for this information was rebuffed, directing me to the board chair and or committee chair to obtain and discuss the issues.

Local residents may request the very same information simply by asking for it, and by mentioning FOIA the college would have to reply in a matter of days. I, on the other hand, a board trustee, have to go through channels, a process where I could be denied, and then discuss it in committee, which would not happen until next month at the earliest. As I mentioned to RVC officials, that workflow does not work for me.

I would like to review these documents, do some research, list my questions, and then discuss these matters with fellow trustees at an open meeting. I think that is a very reasonable request from an elected official.

I am not blaming RVC staff; these policies are board-driven. I am not sure if someone does not want me digging into these issues or maybe we just need some management training for the 21st century: agile, open and transparent leadership training. That said, I repeated my request to the board chair. As I write this article, I have not received a response.

My political friends and foes know that I ask questions. Lots of questions. I ask your questions, my questions and questions to increase the level of discussion on government financing. I have served on the Winnebago County Board, Cherry Valley Township Board, and Cherry Valley Library District Board (very briefly), and I never had to file a FOIA request to obtain documents like this before.

I hope I do not have to file one now. I will keep you posted.

Paul Gorski is a newly elected Rock Valley College Board Trustee who supports open meetings, open government, and equal ballot access to encourage public participation in local government.

Above is from:  http://rockrivertimes.com/2017/05/24/guest-column-a-lesson-in-govt-bureaucracy/

Belvidere mayor forms ‘Bridge’ to strengthen ties with Latino community

Belvidere mayor forms ‘Bridge’ to strengthen ties with Latino community

Monday

Posted May 22, 2017 at 12:01 AM Updated May 22, 2017 at 2:44 PM

By Susan Vela
Staff writer

BELVIDERE — Mayor Mike Chamberlain was stunned a few years ago to discover that the city’s Latino community accounted for approximately 35 percent of the city’s population.

The nearly 5 percentage point increase in Latino residents since 2010′s U.S. Census Bureau count prompted him to approach local Latino leaders about an initiative that would make both longtime residents and newcomers feel more welcome.

Chamberlain has established a group called Bridge that brings together community leaders of all backgrounds for monthly meetings to share ideas for civic improvement.

“It’s not a political committee. It’s not a committee that has one specific function,” Chamberlain said. “We’re still kind of feeling our way along. I’m just trying to make the opportunity available to see whether we can build something.”

Too often, he said, members of minority groups don’t feel comfortable in their hometowns. Chamberlain wants to vanquish any anxieties through discussion and action. He said Bridge volunteer work is a possibility.

But it’ll be up to community leaders to make Bridge work. Chamberlain said he doesn’t “even like the word ‘minority’ or ‘diversity’ ” and wants Bridge to be about the community coming together to coexist to the most comfortable degree.

Some Bridge members say they would like to see more Latinos frequent the downtown business district. Belvidere’s changing community means a large number of State Street businesses are owned by Latinos, such as Taqueria El Molcajete and Los Girasoles Hair Salon.

“I feel comfortable,” said Los Girasoles stylist Lourdes Medina, who still likes Chamberlain’s Bridge.

Lori Mason recently became owner of Sweets & Sundries, an ice cream and candy shop off State Street.

“Anything that promotes business owners is a smart move,” she said. “I do think the downtown area needs help.”

Chamberlain approached Nancy Razon, the Belvidere School District’s bilingual liaison, when he began considering his new committee. She hopes Bridge participants can boost the number of Latino consumers who shop downtown.

Razon said language barriers had been a problem in the past. Some Latino business owners, she said, don’t feel there’s a strong citywide support network committed to helping them adapt to Belvidere.

“If we want to make it a better town, we need to work with the community,” she said.

Bridge has met twice since February. Chamberlain and Razon said about 15 people, mainly representatives from the Latino community, have attended both sessions. The next meeting is set for 8 a.m. Friday in the City Council Chambers, 401 Whitney Blvd.

Jessica Muellner, who represents District 3 on the Boone County Board, has been attending regularly.

“It’s a worthwhile thing,” she said. “I wanted to see the direction that the mayor was going. A lot of people pay a lot of lip service but this is a way to help things. We all get to know each other.”

Susan Vela: 815-987-1392; svela@rrstar.com; @susanvela

Above is from:  http://www.rrstar.com/news/20170522/belvidere-mayor-forms-bridge-to-strengthen-ties-with-latino-community

Monica’s View of Roger Ailes

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor

Monica Lewinsky: Roger Ailes’s Dream Was My Nightmare

By MONICA LEWINSKYMAY 22, 2017

 

Credit Laura Breiling

This is not another obituary for Roger Ailes, who died last week 10 months after being ousted at Fox News. It is, I hope, instead an obituary for the culture he purveyed — a culture that affected me profoundly and personally.

Just two years after Rupert Murdoch appointed Mr. Ailes to head the new cable news network, my relationship with President Bill Clinton became public. Mr. Ailes, a former Republican political operative, took the story of the affair and the trial that followed and made certain his anchors hammered it ceaselessly, 24 hours a day.

It worked like magic: The story hooked viewers and made them Fox loyalists. For the past 15 years, Fox News has been the No. 1 news station; last year the network made about $2.3 billion.

Some experts have noted that viewers found Fox for the first time because of the crisis. John Moody, a Fox executive editor, reflected on that period: “The Lewinsky saga put us on the news map.” As he put it in another interview: “Monica was a news channel’s dream come true.”

Their dream was my nightmare. My character, my looks and my life were picked apart mercilessly. Truth and fiction mixed at random in the service of higher ratings. My family and I huddled at home, worried about my going to jail — I was the original target of Kenneth Starr’s investigation, threatened with 27 years for having been accused of signing a false affidavit and other alleged crimes — or worse, me taking my own life. Meantime, Mr. Ailes huddled with his employees at Fox News, dictating a lineup of talking heads to best exploit this personal and national tragedy.

For myriad reasons — information gathering, boredom (I couldn’t leave my home without being trailed by paparazzi) and a touch of masochism — I watched the news around the clock. On Fox, it seemed, no rumor was too unsubstantiated, no innuendo too vile and no accusation too abhorrent.

Let’s not pretend that Fox News was the only network to cover this story in the gutter. Mr. Ailes’s station may have pioneered this new style of television reportage, but the other cable news channels didn’t hesitate to join the race to the bottom. In fact, in late 1998, when Keith Olbermann briefly left MSNBC, he expressed disgust with the frequent Lewinsky coverage.

Just as television news was devolving into a modern coliseum, the internet came along and compounded this culture of shame and vitriol. Remember: The story of my affair was not broken by The Washington Post, The New York Times or the networks, but online by the Drudge Report. The comments on television and online were excruciating. I ceased being a three-dimensional person. Instead I became a whore, a bimbo, a slut and worse. Just days after the story broke, Fox asked its viewers to vote on this pressing question: Is Monica Lewinsky an “average girl” or a “young tramp looking for thrills”?

Our world — of cyberbullying and chyrons, trolls and tweets — was forged in 1998. It is, as the historian Nicolaus Mills has put it, a “culture of humiliation,” in which those who prey on the vulnerable in the service of clicks and ratings are handsomely rewarded.

Photo

Monica Lewinsky in Washington in 1999. Credit Greg Gibson/Associated Press

As the past year has revealed, thanks to brave women like Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly, it is clear that at Fox, this culture of exploitation wasn’t limited to the screen. The irony of Mr. Ailes’s career at Fox — that he harnessed a sex scandal to build a cable juggernaut and then was brought down by his own — was not lost on anyone who has been paying attention.

There are some positive signs that the younger generation at Fox — James and Lachlan Murdoch — seem to want to change the culture Mr. Ailes created. Last week Bob Beckel, a Fox pundit who made a racist remark to an African-American Fox employee, was dismissed. Would this have happened in the Ailes era?

Although I imagine the desire by the Murdoch brothers to present a clean record to the European Commission reviewing their proposed takeover of Sky News played a role in their thinking, the Murdochs deserve praise for their part in the decision to fire Bill O’Reilly, whose show brought in $100 million a year in ad revenue but who harassed and bullied women he worked with. I hope the Murdochs understand that Americans will no longer tolerate a corporate culture that views hate and harassment as part of running a successful news business.

None of this is to say that we shouldn’t have a credible conservative point of view in our media — quite the opposite. If we’ve learned nothing else from the 2016 presidential election, it’s that we must find a way to foster robust and healthy discussion and debate. Our news channels should be just such places.

So, farewell to the age of Ailes. The late Fox chief pledged Americans fair and balanced news. Maybe now we’ll get it.

Monica Lewinsky is an anti-cyberbullying advocate and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

Above is from:  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/22/opinion/monica-lewinsky-roger-ailess-dream-was-my-nightmare.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&_r=2&mtrref=undefined&assetType=opinion