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.
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