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October 31, 2024

Algonquin Township Road District seeks Preliminary Injuction, Mandamus, Declaratory Judgment and other Relief against Algonquin Township

By Kirk Allen & John Kraft

On November 10, 2018

McHenry Co. (ECWd) –

Summary of the Case: “Defendants illegally reduced the Algonquin Township Road District budget for fiscal year 2018 – 2019 by one-hundred thousand dollars ($100,000), thereby preventing Plaintiff Andrew Gasser, the Highway Commissioner, from performing his statutory duties and meeting the contractual obligations of the Road District as it relates to ongoing, pending litigation commenced by third parties. Plaintiffs seek to overturn the Defendants’ illegal action. Moreover, on June 13, 2017, the Defendants assumed the power to command duties and actions over the Algonquin Township Road District (the “Road District”).”

As we have pointed out in a past article, we believe the Township overstepped their authority and we believe the courts will order the Township to correct their improper actions. We are pleased to see the very court cases we cited in this article were also used in support of the complaint, because it validates the misconception that you have to be an attorney to understand case law.  We believe the direction given by James Kelly, the Township attorney, was wrong and appears to have been done as a mechanism to ensure more billable hours.

We encourage everyone to read the case law cited in the complaint to grasp how wrong the Township was in their actions.  We once again urge the township to terminate their attorney.

The next status hearing is set for November 29th, 2018 with Judge Myer.  This was a result of three motions of reassignment that removed Judge Chmiel, Sullivan, and Costello from the case.

You can download a copy of the Complaint at this link or view below.

1 - Vrfd Cmplnt fr Prlmnry Injnctn filed 6-14-18

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6 Comments
  • Jack
    Posted at 00:32h, 14 November

    I saw all the articles about the DuPage township attorney…. when are y’all going to ask for his resignation. Is he giving bad legal advice on purpose to make more money defending a lawsuit against y’all?

    • jmkraft
      Posted at 08:11h, 14 November

      We haven’t sued DuPage Township yet, but there is one on the way…

  • ang
    Posted at 22:04h, 11 November

    Unbelievable.

    Gee, but the Watchdogs should be plenty busy calling out corruption and incompetence across Illinois, because we have TOO many, costing taxpayers TOO much units of government.

    https://www.illinoispolicy.org

    Let’s consolidate these units and save some money. Even if you don’t pay property taxes, you still get hit with insane sales taxes (Cook County being the worst for high sales tax). The overall tax burden could be halved if we just consolidated.

    Think of all the money saved on FOIA lawsuits if there were less government bodies to FOIA?

    Suburban LaGrange Park, for example, could be merged into neighboring LaGrange, which has a vibrant and successful business/commercial district, unlike LaGrange Park, which most recently attracted some tacky booze shop, a dollar store and has had some vacant storefront spaces unoccupied for months. And the police department has been sued twice in some high profile, made-the-local-newspapers past cases. Why not just consolidate already? And how many other towns could do the same?

    All of these lawsuits cost taxpayers money. Maybe Illinois needs fewer units of government to save money on operations and lawsuits alike? Or would that just make too much sense?

  • Michael Hagberg
    Posted at 12:59h, 11 November

    You might want to review the articles related to St Clair Township Road District.
    https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article67549612.html

    google the terms: st clair township road kernan

  • Kirk Allen
    Posted at 12:30h, 10 November

    The Board does not control the Road District Budget.

  • Michael Hagberg
    Posted at 11:01h, 10 November

    What was the Property Tax Levy for the Road District?

    The Board does control the Road District budget. But, if the Board had passed a Levy for the funds then the funds collected MUST be used per the levy.

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