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March 29, 2024

Edgar County – Why did Board Member Charles Mike Heltsley write the letter?

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen

On February 2, 2016

PARIS, IL. (ECWd) –

Over the past several days, many people have asked why Charles Mike Helstsley would have written such a letter to the so-called editor of the Prairie Press.

He went from claiming everything the county board did was lawful (LOL), to being proud of the good ole boy system in Edgar County (which, by  design, discriminates against everyone not part of said system), to projecting an envious attitude towards those with honorable service (something he will never achieve), to complaining about no indictments or convictions.

Next he reminds people that we are not lawyers and not police – something we have never, ever, pretended to be. Unlike when Heltsley pretended to be retired from Department of Corrections, when the real story was he was fired from there prior to obtaining retirement. Or when he claimed to have sat right next to the DOC Jail Inspectors for six years and filled out “tons” on jail inspections, only to be proven wrong by DOC through the use of (not abuse of) the Freedom of Information Act. We mention this to show people how Heltsley thrives on embellishing his past – only to get called out time after time…in short, he is a habitual liar.

Now we get to why he might have written the letter:

“They are not police, nor are they lawyers – never have been and never will be regardless of how many citizen’s arrest they make or lawsuits they file or million dollar airport grants they disrupt because they don’t like Zimmerly Ready Mix or its owner.”

First I would like to point out that Heltsley is not “police” either. He is a failure at those jobs, his first “police” job he claims he fled the Edgar County Sheriff’s Department because he supported the wrong Sheriff candidate, and the other “police-type” job at the Department of Corrections he was terminated prior to obtaining retirement eligibility. He had a fake-police-type-job at one time (Hint: “Good Ole Boy System”) when former Sheriff Crippes wrote a letter claiming Heltsley was a “covert investigator” (laugh at it here) where no such position is authorized in Illinois and he never received any pay for it, meaning it was solely for him to carry a weapon illegally. That letter, and former Sheriff Motley’s refusal to provide Heltsley with another one, was when Heltsley all-of-a-sudden had problems with Motley.

The lawsuits I or we file are because we have exhausted our remedies with attempting to get the board to follow the law. We talk to them for years, and finally give up and sue them. Our lawsuits consist of Freedom of Information Act suits, a lawsuit to stop them from stealing healthcare for their own personal benefit, and a lawsuit to have a judge tell them to follow the procurement laws and bid the liability and workman’s comp insurance out as the law requires they do.

Disrupting the Airport grants – One airport grant was ordered stopped by the  Federal Aviation Administration. Heltsley would have you believe “we” stopped it, but the fact is Edgar County lied on its grant application and got caught. The FAA and IDOT-Division of Aeronautics read what they were provided and stopped that grant. Heltsley would have you believe we make stuff up (like they do), but the FAA and IDOT saw thru their smoke-screens and called it what it was. They asked the county to submit a new grant application, which they filled with more “inaccuracies”, leading to:

Disrupting the Airport grants – the next grant, (we think this one is why the letter was written) we have reason to believe, due to a recent chain of events, has also been halted, maybe temporarily or maybe permanently, because of more “inaccuracies” put on paper by the county and because of alleged violations of grant assurances. Again, Heltsley would have you believe the board did nothing wrong and we are barking up the wrong tree. Ask yourself this: would the FAA and IDOT-DA order work to be stopped on grants if there was not sufficient evidence to justify stopping the grant? You decide.

I “abused FOIA” again this morning (phrase credited to the so-called Prairie Press) by requesting all communications between the County and the FAA and IDOT to see if they have halted any work on this new grant. I believe they have, but still need the supporting documentation to state it as fact.

Finally, he makes the claim we do this because we don’t like Zimmerly Ready Mix or its owner. There was a time when we fought against the ‘owner’ of Zimmerly Ready Mix, Chris Patrick, but that was solely because of the real, and statutory, conflict of interest with the owner being elected to the county board and while still selling materials and supplies to the county, or attempting to sell them to the county. Once Chris Patrick resigned, and the two-year contracting clause built in to state law expired, that was no longer an issue. We wouldn’t expect Heltsley to understand that, he would have to actually read as well as comprehend to get an understanding of it.

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1 Comment
  • G. Barraclough
    Posted at 11:44h, 02 February

    Me Tim Crippes

    Interesting name!

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