PARIS, IL. (ECWd) –
In the February 26, 2014, edition of the Paris Beacon-News (“PBN“), the headline read: “IDOT: Airport Project Justified“.
The subtitle prominently proclaims: “State official says nothing wrong with application“.
Then in the third paragraph, is a statement proudly proclaiming that: “IDOT says Bogue’s claims are without foundation“.
PBN: “IDOT says Bogue’s claims are without foundation” – REALLY!?
Since we are not known for our political correctness, I will simply state that the two statements above are flat-out false. The email referred to in their article is provided at the bottom of this page. Read the email below, and you will see that no state official has said “nothing wrong with the application“.
The first thing wrong with the email, and repeated by the PBN, was that the airport currently had one existing 8,000 gallon tank. Even the smallest amount of research would prove that statement by IDOT to be wrong. We wrote about the tank in THIS article and even took pictures of the tank and data-plate (HERE) that proves it is a 10,000 gallon tank and it is currently being used for Jet-A fuel. There are plenty of pretty pictures in our article and I’m sure all of you can read, so I am asking that you look at the pictures, read the data plate on the tank, and come to your own conclusion.
The second thing in the email, and the reason for calling the PBN out in this article, is that the IDOT representative never even came close to saying “Bogue’s claims are without foundation“, those words never appear in the email, and I cannot even come to that conclusion by reading the email.
What the IDOT Representative said, and you can read it below and come to your own conclusion, was that in his opinion he never believed the “irregularities and inaccuracies” that may have been in the information submitted – he didn’t think it rose to the level of fraud. He is entitled to his opinion. He also stated that any revised submittals would not necessarily change the outcome of the program.
To me, this means that even if the County revised its application for funds to reflect truthful information, the project would still be approved and the County would still get the fuel farm and apron expansion because it is an “eligible project”.
So now we are still left with whether to tell the truth, or to perpetuate a lie. Hanson Engineering knows the information is a lie and the Edgar County Board knows the information is a lie. Everyone knows the project will continue whether the application process was flawed or not. So what’s the big deal?
The big deal here is the hard right over the easy wrong. Just simply acknowledge the fact that the information provided to IDOT for justification on this project was false, and submit a truthful application – something we asked for in THIS previous article.
[gview file=”https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/IDOT-Letter-Airportdoc.pdf”]
3 Responses
Another example of a government agency attempting to gin up a big case just to make sure they get our tax money to play with again. This falsification of documents has got to stop. Some day soon the state and federal gravy train will hit dead empty. These lies only help us get to that point faster. We’ve created a “lying is alright ” mentality as long as the outcome is for “good” purposes. Maybe penalties for falsifying official documents would be a good idea. When are our tea party candidates going to start using that in their campaign stump speeches?
Is the problem with the size of the fuel tank at the Edgar Co airport, the 2000 gal difference in what it holds, or is there some thing else to consider about this subject other than the misstatement on the application to the state?
We covered this in these articles (http://3.133.133.226/index.php?s=fuel+farm). In short, the problem was with the numbers used for justification of the fuel farm and apron expansion. From claiming 35 based aircraft, claims of waiting list for apron tie-downs, claims of only having a 1000 gallon tank for Jet-A, and claims of averaging 5500 gallons of fuel sold per month. NONE of those claims made to justify the work are true. We understand, and even told the board this several times, that they will get the money, we would just prefer the documentation be correct on the justification for it. All that takes is a letter to ammend the original application.