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March 28, 2024

Edgar County Airport Policy Update –

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen

On January 26, 2016

PARIS, IL. (ECWd) –

The most recent two meetings of the Edgar County Airport Advisory Board had discussions on using the “Airport Policy Manual” as a weapon against t-hanger leaseholders that certain people are trying to evict – even though they pay their rent just like everyone else.

I brought up the fact that there is no legitimate Airport Policy Manual. By legitimate, I mean no policy has ever been approved for use by the Edgar County Board, or for that matter, by the airport board. A requirement prior to actually using it as policy.

A former county board chairman and his side-kick the former airport manager both stated it was approved, and one stated it was approved while he was still on the county board. Both are wrong. It was never approved.

Our previous article (here) discussed the July 2013 approval of the IDOT Airport Manager’s Handbook as “a guideline to develop their own policies for the airport” as noted on the Agenda and in the Minutes from that meeting.

After publishing the article, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request for the date-stamped coversheets of the IDOT Handbook and the Airport Policy. As I suspected, both were date-stamped and filed the same day. The only one of them that is legitimate is the Handbook, and only legitimate for the sole purpose of developing Edgar County airport policies.

From all appearances, both the handbook and the manual were filed with the Clerk’s office in an attempt at passing them both off as having been approved, which is not the case.

The actual policy has never been approved by the county board during an open meeting, therefore it is not a valid policy manual.

Once again, FOIA comes to the rescue! Using FOIA, as the Illinois State Legislature envisioned, helped us get to the bottom of which policies the airport can actually use – and this is not one of them.

[gview file=”https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/AIRPORT-HNDBKPOL_20160125145043.pdf”]

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1 Comment
  • Sick of it all....
    Posted at 11:05h, 27 January

    What is the reason they are trying to evict leaseholders? Have they done something wrong? If so, where is it listed in the manual as to what is legal cause for eviction? You know, in the manual they SAY they’ve adopted. There surely has to be something in it that gives legal causes for eviction? Can we get a copy of this adopted manual? There has to be one somewhere?? You can’t just evict someone without just cause, can you???

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