College of Dupage – Sapyta: Electioneering and lies about watchdog groups –

DuPage Co. (ECWd) –
A recent article in the Daily Herald exposed key reasons COD controller Lynn Sapyta was fired, according to her attorney.
My first thought was that she might want to get another attorney as we were shocked to see him expose the laundry list of wrongdoing, however, upon reading it we took great interest in portions of the information.
For example, one of the charges listed was “Violating the college’s ethics policy by using the school’s email system on Feb. 24 to solicit votes on behalf of candidates for the April election.”
If such a thing took place not only is that a violation of board policy but it would also rise to electioneering, which is a violation of state law.
Electioneering is nothing new to those at COD as it is clear they used public funds for political purpose during the passage of the $168 Million dollar bond referendum in 2010.  An action that we know is part of a criminal investigation at this time. (Articles on that found here and here)
We filed a FOIA request for Sypata’s emails and sure enough, contrary to her attorney’s claim, that charge is neither vague or over-broad. In fact I think most 5th graders could understand it.

• “If you are putting out endorsements still, I hope you will consider COD. Kim Savage, Nancy Svoboda, Sandy Pihos or Matt Gambs would be great.”

and…

• “Make sure you tell people to vote for the first 3 names on the ballot.”

As you can see, there is nothing vague or over-broad about e-mailing a person and telling them to tell people how to vote. The use of public computers to solicit votes in an election violates the COD ethics policy and state election laws.
I wonder when former trustee Savage will file a state board of election complaint on this matter…you know…as a matter of principle?
Even more interesting with these e-mails is the characterization she makes of the watchdog groups exposing all the wrongdoing at COD over the 15 months.

• “So good to hear from you. The last six months at the college have been painful. We have a board member who is a member of the tea party. She lies and is always creating a scandal at the college.  She tells everyone the controls are terrible and there is corruption. Bottom line we have 3 trustee seats up for  election this April and she is trying to get the spots filled with  tea party people so she can be chairmen. She wants to make a  name for herself so she can run for the house. It’s very difficult, she is banded with two watchdog groups:  openthebooks.com and Illinois leaks. They are right wing militia people with lots of money.”

It’s no wonder we have the problems we have in this country when we see comments like this from public employees.  The only truth in the above statement we can find is that the last six months have been painful, as I am sure they had been for her and others considering all the malfeasance that has been exposed.
To claim we are right wing militia people with lots of money is a new one for us, as we have been called about everything under the sun by people from the left and the right depending on who is getting exposed.
A simple review of our work shows that we are neither a left wing or right wing group, let alone a militia.  We are simply an organization that wants the rule of law followed and enforced in our public bodies.  We don’t care what political side of the isle these people are on.  We just want the illegal spending stopped.
Our work has led to millions of taxpayer dollars being saved and we will not stop our work because of name calling and false characterizations.  Saving taxpayer money by exposing illegal acts knows no political party and we take great pride in exposing it regardless of the letter behind their name.
In the interest of keeping people informed as to what we’ve been up to, we thought it might be a good idea to list all of the legitimate news media and legal publications that have included us or our data in their articles. Below is a listing of either us or our work being published in various publications across the nation – (click to read them)
Ms. Sapyta, if you have a shred of evidence we are a right wing militia with lots of money I challenge you to provide that information to the Chicago Tribune, Daily Herald or any other local media.  The fact you are unable to provide any supporting evidence for your claim makes you no different than so many other liars being exposed at COD.
Below are the e-mails we received from COD that prove Lynn Sapyta did in fact solicit votes in her e-mail communications from COD which is a violation of policy and law.
[gview file=”https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/25-Kraft-documents_Redacted-00000002.pdf” save=”1″]

Photo credit: Chicago Tribune