Douglas, Co. IL. (ECWd) –
During the December 16, 2014 hearings on FOIA cases against Arcola Township, I was making the argument that Mr. Petty was not authorized by law to respond to a FOIA requester since he was not an “employee or officer” of the Township of Arcola. One requirement in the Freedom of Information Act, is that the FOIA Officers for a public body must be an “employee or officer” of that public body [5 ILCS 140/3.5(a)]. Additionally, the FOIA officer is the person that has to respond to the requester.
After my presentation to the Court, Mr. Petty stated to the Judge that he was an employee of the Township and had been an employee for more than 15 years, see page 10, line 10 of the below transcript. Judge Broch believed his lie and found that he was an employee of the Township, see page 12 line 19, without any further proof other than his statement.
What Petty is, is a contracted service provider, providing legal services to the Township.
Just to show that Petty must not understand FOIA, I challenged a different public body’s attorney when he initially made similar claims in reference to FOIA requests. His answer was the correct answer, and stated:
So there are some honest ones out there, just not the one from Arcola…
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6 Responses
The appeals process will take some time but maybe that will give Mark, Deana, and Bill Coombe enough time to get rid of all that information that they don’t want anyone to see. After all what else does a $100,000 dollar secretary have to do. They have had enough practice over 25 years they may even know how to hide it on their computer. Maybe they can talk all of their suppliers into hiding their information also. Lots of work to do NOT to answer a FOIA
After reading the post about Rosemont trying to supersed FOIA’s,now we know what Mark and Deana are up to.Any notion of outsiders trying to get information other than what they want to release is in violation of “home rule”,their “home rule”.I know we are going to have to wait a little longer,but the appeal process will show the Watchdogs to be right in their quest for justice.I too wonder where all the support for that band of elected officals from the Township has gone.
Where are all of the supporters that use to come to the defense of the Township Board?Could it be they are starting to understand just what’s going on?Name one other Township that is tied up in this many lawsuits,and Dixion Il. doesn’t count.
That’s what the Township’s been playing since the start of this whole Foia thing .Anybody following these lawsuits knows the Township does not want the information out because more than likely people other than “employees” of the Township have used the credit cards.Math Teacher is right,Petty feels pretty good about his “civic duty” to question the use of tax dollars when the City of Arcola is involved,but it’s entirely different when the Township is questioned.Remember Bill Coombe saying it’s “a question of who deserves the information”,if not the taxpayer how about someone seeking the truth!
What would be the reason Mark Petty is involved with the township not answering Foia requests anyway after all they were just asking for information of how the township has spent our tax dollars. Mark Petty has sent multiple Foia requests to the City asking for how the City has spent tax dollars and has always gotten a response without taking it thru an attorney so he knows how it is supposed to work. Unless he is taking the opposite side when the township is paying him to protect ?. Now something is not adding up here
I’m disappointed to read what some of us were afraid would happen,and that’s the fact that the good ole boys club extends to the Douglas Co. Courthouse.Judge Broch,you know Mr. Petty is not a employee or officer of the Arcola Twonship,just an “outside attorney”.