SAWYERVILLE, IL. (ECWd) –
We received a tip about the Village of Sawyerville, a small rural community just South West of Litchfield, IL. I requested public records in an attempt at verifying the claim(s) provided from our tip line, sent March 28th, 2017.
No answer.
A follow-up email was sent on June 12, 2017.
On July 10, 2017, I received a letter in the mail telling me they will not send anything electronically and if I wanted any information I had to attend a meeting and ask for it.
I responded asking them to provide the records, a village official called me and told me that not only were they not going to email anything, they were not going to copy or put anything in the mail for me either, and that I had to make an appointment and drive to Sawyerville to look at the record in person.
He claimed the village attorney told him to tell me that.
I responded and asked him to inform the village attorney that he was wrong and that I would see him in court.
Kind of makes me wonder if they sought out advice from Carlinville Mayor Demuzio, Carlinville FOIA Officer Carla Brockmeier, and their election board attorney Daniel Schuering – it reminds me of their FOIA “answers”…
Sawyerville residents and taxpayers need to remind their elected officials that it costs far less to comply with FOIA than it does to fight it in court and lose – which is what will happen. Let your village board know how you feel about their decision to stuff the pockets of their attorney with your tax money, for his bad decision.
SawyervilleFOIA-Denial
5 Comments
Danni Smith
Posted at 12:47h, 13 Julycan we foia the requirements for the village clerk position? This person’s letter writing skill is ghetto.
Warren J. Le Fever
Posted at 13:15h, 13 JulyHello?. Do these people have any brains at all? Can you read this in Sawyerville? I don’t think the word “unprofessional” can be used because this bunch is below the level where unprofessional begins….
King of sawyerville
Posted at 18:38h, 13 JulyI’m from there…what could you possibly want from here? It’s just a 200 population town. Nothing really going on.
jmkraft
Posted at 22:26h, 13 JulySimple stuff like:
(1) Copy of all city policy on use of city property and personnel on private property, and,
(2) Copy of city policy on payment of water bills (place of payment), and,
(3) Copy of all records related to the construction and financing of the new Village Hall, to include agendas, minutes, publication of bid announcements, bid notices, bid awards and the meeting minutes where they were opened and approved – from 2000-present.
Angela Kircher
Posted at 12:57h, 04 AugustMoved here in February. Something is seriously shady with water bills. They are never there and refuse to let you know when they will be there, so you have to leave it in a drop box, with no receipt. They tried to claim two months in a row that I was a month behind when I was not. My dad talked to the mayor, the mayor told the people in charge of it he had even seen me pay…and so this month, instead of claiming I owe a month, despite my bills being consistently around $50 every month, the bill is at around $80…despite no extraordinary water usage or leak or anything to justify it. They never return calls to explain themselves, either. Basically, claiming I owed a month did not get them extra money, so now they are claiming I used more. Shady all around.