Advisory You Say? Part 2

At some point the good people of this county are going to wake up and demand accountability from their elected officials and to the use of their tax dollars.  I don’t know when that will be but when your finished with yet another large volume of inappropriate actions by what Chris Patrick, current County Board Chairman, claims to be an “Advisory Only” committee at the Airport you will once again be forced to come to a conclusion.  Either he is lying or the documents are, You Be The Judge!

We submitted a FOIA request to the Illinois Department of Transportation, Aeronautics division for all records pertaining to the land acquisition that took place during the recent Airport Expansion.

What we discovered was quite interesting and again, confirmed Mr. Patrick is not being honest with the people when he claims the Airport Board is an Advisory only board.  Its clear with all we have uncovered it was not an Advisory Board when Mr. Patrick was running things as its Chairman and now that he is the County Board Chairman, he doesn’t want anyone else to have control other than himself.

After Reading all the documents from IDOT I submitted this FOIA request to the County Clerk to find out if any Resolution was passed authorizing ANYONE to sign on behalf of the former County Board Chairman, Jim Keller.  The response was as expected, no such resolution could be found, which means no one should be signing “for” the County Board Chairman.

Doing so would not only be well outside their scope of authority but it would also be ACTION taken by the Airport Advisory committee members and an Airport Employee who has no authority to sign for the County Board Chairman.

So what did we find in Part 2 of 2?

• Jimmy Wells signing “FOR” Jim Keller, County Board Chairman (page 22 of 113 pages on part 2 of 2
• Jimmy Wells signing IDOT land purchase documents for the “Sponsor”, which legally is the County of Edgar and should have been signed by the County Board Chairman.  (page 24 of 113 pages on part 2 of 2)
• Page 27 of 113 on part 2 of 2 proves they knew who was supposed to sign as the same Airport letter head was used again and it was the County Board Chairman who signed it.   Same can be found on page 29 of 113 where it was properly signed, unlike the previous documents
• Verlin Funkhouser signing “FOR” Jim Keller, County Board Chairman (page 52 of 113 pages on part 2 of 2)
• Verlin Funkhouser signing IDOT land purchase documents for the “Sponsor”, which legally is the County of Edgar and should have been signed by the County Board Chairman.  (page 54 of 113 pages on part 2 of 2)
• Verlin Funkhouser signing “FOR” Jim Keller, County Board Chairman (page 76 of 113 pages on part 2 of 2)
• Verlin Funkhouser signing IDOT land purchase documents for the “Sponsor”, which legally is the County of Edgar and should have been signed by the County Board Chairman.  (page 78 of 113 pages on part 2 of 2)
• Verlin Funkhouser signing IDOT appraisal certificates for the “Regional Engineer”, which best we can tell from the Airport Statutes, that they know nothing about, would be an assigned Engineer by the County.  Since we don’t have one the only possible authorized signer of such a document would be the County Board Chairman, not Mr. Funkhouser.  (page 101 of 113 pages on part 2 of 2)
• Verlin Funkhouser signing “FOR” Jim Keller, County Board Chairman (page 106 of 113 pages on part 2 of 2)
• Verlin Funkhouser signing IDOT land purchase documents for the “Sponsor”, which legally is the County of Edgar and should have been signed by the County Board Chairman.  (page 108 of 113 pages on part 2 of 2)

As if people signing documents they are not authorized to sign isn’t disturbing enough, the Airport Board minutes have no references authorizing ANY of these ACTIONS nor suggests them to the county for approval.  That leaves us to the very simple conclusion from the facts, Mr Chris Patrick permitted all kinds of actions to be taken while he was the Chairman of the Airport Board and not only didn’t record it in the minutes, but was less than honest with the people of this county when he made the claim that very board was only and Advisory Board.  Character Matters!

What did we find in Part 1 of 2 ?

• Jimmy wells informing IDOT the Airport is willing to not only provide timber rights to property they are buying but will even provide hunting rights if the property is sold. (Page 3 of 118 in part 1 of 2)
• Suggestion from IDOT to move the crosswind runway to the east was shot down by Mr. Patrick with the claim the Airport Board did not want to do that because of delays and cost.   (Page 5 of 118 in part 1 of 2)
• Chris Patrick and Jimmy Wells contacted IDOT regarding property purchase. It was confirmed in that dialog an anonymous DONOR will give them the money needed for the extra cost to the land deal.  This is one month AFTER Jimmy Wells advised the Airport Board of the CD that was gifted to the Airport.(Page 6 of 118 in part 1 of 2)
• Chris Patrick informs IDOT that the board would be willing to accept Mr. Dyers terms which included the sale of his land and FREE CASH RENT for 2009 and a LOCK on a rent price of $150 an Acre through 2011.  No such approval can be found in any minutes, yet Chris Patrick clearly informed IDOT the Board approved “this” offer. (Page 12 of 118 in part 1 of 2)
• Chris Patrick assured IDOT he would have Jim Keller available at the Airport to execute documents.  No mention in any minutes authorizing the execution of any documents.  (Page 13 of 118 in part 1 of 2)
• Mary Lou Wright confirms the Airport Runway expansion was not approved by the County Board, leaving the conclusion that it was again another Airport Committee Action taken on their own.  (Page 43 of 118 in part 1 of 2)

As you can see from reading this vast amount of well documented IDOT information, the Edgar County Airport personnel, under the direction of Chris Patrick, not only have taken action on their own on numerous matters but even appear to be directly involved in the negotiations for the purchase of property and all on a project that seems to be missing from the minutes of the County Board authorizing any such expansion.

Call it what you may but know that I call it a lie when a person claims the very Airport Committee that he chaired for the last 25 years was an advisory only when these type of records prove quite different.

If he is so willing to lie about this how can anyone trust anything the person says?

Character Counts Mr. Patrick!

RESIGN!