COD- Carlin – blame shift, deceive, and lie?

DuPage co. (ECWd) –

It appears Dave Carlin is still upset over getting beat by Hamilton during the last COD trustee election and thought it would be appropriate to attack her during the COD Candidate forum, even though she is not even running. Thanks Mr. Carlin for providing the public with more evidence that you have no place in public office.

I personally have had it with political hacks who blame-shift, lie, and mislead in order to promote themselves for political gain.

• I have never received any personal benefit from my service on the board.

Dave, when you sit with Breuder and drink alcohol, and the public pays for it, that is a personal benefit.  When you sit and dine and the college picked up the tab, that is personal benefit.  I can only assume you simply don’t know what a benefit is, thus you have no business leading an institute of higher education in my opinion.

• Trustees serve without compensation and when you read about Christmas parties at a restaurant please keep that in mind, mistakes have been made.

Dave, Dillon’s Rule, Learn it!  Compensation, right out of the Community College Act means; any salary or other benefits not expressly authorized by this Act to be provided or paid to, for or on behalf of members of the board.

Not expressly authorized by this Act!  Feeding your face and drinking alcohol on the public dime is a benefit that IS NOT expressly authorized in the act.  If the Law does not give you the permission to do it, you are not supposed to do it.

It is evident that you still don’t get it.  You now try to imply that since trustees don’t get paid, it is somehow OK for you to eat on the public dime at a Christmas Party.

What about the very motion you made during the January 2009 Board meeting?  A motion that had NOTHING to do with Christmas parties or Christmas dinners.  Your attempt to minimize the illegal acts by implying it is Christmas related is deceptive at best. Yes, everyone should pay close attention but not to what you are telling them because you sir are part of the problem and the paper trail proves it!

• There was a trustee on the board, that I think was borderline, or even did, obstructed an ongoing criminal investigation with regard to her release of privileged information, she called me personally, told me about it, state legislators, watchdog groups.  If she had concerns she should have been talking to law enforcement. You should never leak stuff from closed session.

Dave, sharing information that took place in a closed session IS NOT leaking information.  The use of the word leaking implies wrong doing and there is NOTHING further from the truth.  Do your own home work and educate yourself instead of listening to your lawyer friends.

I can think of numerous matters that should be shared publicly that took place in closed session.  Shall we start with the secret Breuder contract extensions you were a party to?  What about items discussed in closed session that are not allowed to be discussed in closed session?  Or items voted on in closed session?  Any one of those examples is more than enough justification for an honest elected official to walk out of the room and tell the world what just happen in that closed session and expose those responsible for it.

But for the sake of educating you Mr. Carlin, let’s assume you just overlooked those obvious examples and meant to take the position that if it was a valid closed session item, it should never be “leaked” as you put it.

You sir are 100% wrong in your assumption and your position is in direct contradiction to the Attorney General opinion on the matter which stated: “There is no provision in the constitution or the Open Meetings Act which expressly authorizes public bodies to sanction their members for revealing what went on during a closed meeting, and there is clearly no constitutional provision from which one may imply such powers.”

From Case law, as in the Illinois 2nd Appellate Court: “There is nothing in the Act that provides a cause of action against a public body for disclosing information from a closed meeting.”

I wrote about this very thing last month.  Had you paid more attention to that article than trying to find something to sue me over maybe you would not have exposed yourself again. (Click here for the article on sharing closed session information)

You imply that a trustee obstructed an ongoing criminal investigation.  The term for that is Obstructing Justice. I highly recommend you go read that statute and educate yourself on what constitutes obstruction in Illinois.  It appears you have a 180 degree difference of understanding of what constitutes obstruction compared to the law.  I don’t see one example in the statute that matches what you insinuated as being a form of obstruction.  (Free Education-Click here)

Mr. Carlin states that he was called personally.  Now I don’t know about everyone else. but the people of integrity that I know would be calling the authorities if someone shared information that was considered to be illegal.  Mr. Carlin, did you contact the authorities once you were made aware of illegal activity going on at COD pertaining to the recent indictment of the radio engineer John Valenta?

It appears Mr. Carlin has failed to place much credence to our Freedom of Speech!

• Where this board has come, it is dysfunctional.

Delusional is the word I would have selected. and it has been that way for some time.  I contend that Mr. Carlin is delusional on this matter  because when a board does the things it did while he was on it, points to dysfunctional behavior.  Its not OK to drink on the backs of the taxpayer.  Its not OK to eat on the backs of the tax payer. Its not OK to vote on matters not on the agenda.  Its not OK to offer contract extension in secret. Only a dysfunctional board does those things!

• Trustees on this board hiring private investigators or releasing 15 year old mug shots of trustees when they  got a DUI when they were 23 years old.

I would encourage Mr. Carlin to once again educate himself on some facts before spreading lies.  Note that I did not say he was sharing his opinion. I said he lied.  It was not any trustee who released a mug shot of Erin Birt.  I, Kirk Allen, released that information which I received from a FOIA response, along with illegaly redacted police records.

My investigation pointed to omissions and lies by Erin Birt that needed to be exposed.  An investigation that in no way shape or form received ANY information from ANY trustee.  Whistle blowers are the key to our success and each and every time the real character of board members gets exposed when the truth starts to come out.  They lash out and blame shift.  It drives them nuts because they all think they “know” the source of the leaks and to date not a single time have these fools been correct.  Sorry, not going to work this time Mr. Carlin!  (First coverage of Birt’s DUI and history of misrepresentations)

As far as a trustee hiring a private investigator, what business is that of anyone, and can you prove that statement or is it simply another lie?

• She reimbursed the college over $900 –

Oh no, she made a wrong right!  Are you serious Mr. Carlin?  You want to attack Trustee Hamilton for making right on something that was wrong?  Doing what every single board member should have done when we raised this illegal act back in November is now worthy of you trying to demonize her?  You sir are the poster child for what is wrong with most of our elected officials. You can not see the very wrongs you have done so why should we expect you to understand when a person is doing the right thing.

Even more ironic with your attack is how it conflicts with the statement reported in the Chicago Tribune, attributed to Chairman Birt, “If any existing employee policy has been violated, the College will seek immediate reimbursement for any violations,”.  (Click here for Tribune Coverage)

Sadly, she wants employees to reimburse but says nothing about herself and other trustees setting the example and reimbursing their illegal expenditures.  Trustee Hamilton should be used as the example of how things are supposed to work when things are done wrong.

You FIX THEM! 

Below are the video clips we put together from the candidate forum that contain the quotes from Carlin used in this article.