Pecatonica, IL. (ECWd) –
During the October 15, 2019 Pecatonica Township Board of Trustees Meeting, the township attorney, John Nelson, while he was talking about us, stated that the [Edgar County Watchdogs] “have a program where they try to find things that they can sue townships for and other governmental entities to make their organization money.”
Listen to it at around the 4:23 mark in this audio file (click here).
His statement is not true.
Incidentally, we have written about Nelson in the past (here).
We don’t have any “program to try and find things that we can sue over” – what a completely ridiculous allegation.
The bottom line is this: If public bodies hold legal meetings according to the Open Meetings Act, and properly provide records requested under the Freedom Of Information Act, they have nothing to fear in the way of a lawsuit from us.
We recently published a humorous, but true, article explaining what a public body can do if they want to get sued for unfulfilled FOIA requests (here).
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3 Comments
Mike
Posted at 01:47h, 30 OctoberWhat do John Nelson and Thomas Kilbride have in common?
The current Illinois Supreme Court Justice elected from the Third District, Thomas Kilbride, is a past board member, past president and past vice-president of the Illinois Township Attorneys Association.
http://www.illinoiscourts.gov/SupremeCourt/Justices/Bio_Kilbride.asp
Mike
Posted at 02:16h, 23 OctoberJohn M Nelson was a voter elected 16th Congressional District Democratic Committeeman (thus a State Central Committeeman) from 1998 – 2018, prior to being defeated by Tom P Walsh in the March 20, 2018 election.
The Friends of Michael J Madigan PAC opposed a third candidate, Arthur Bardsley, during the March 2018 Democratic primary with $21,850 in printing and postage, per SBE records.
John Nelson is also the 3rd Vice Chairman of the Winnebago County Democratic Central Committee (not a voter elected position).
Both are political operative positions, not government jobs, and are not funded with taxpayer dollars.
John Nelson was elected to a 6 year term as a Rock Valley College board trustee in 2017.
John Nelson is also the President of the Illinois Township Attorneys Association, where he has been a member for 25 years.
In addition to being the chair of the Committee to Elect John Nelson PAC, he is the chair of three other PACs:
– Angelique for IL PAC (Angelique Bodine lost to Joe Sosnowski in the 2018 general election for State Rep);
– Bob Springer for Sheriff PAC (lost to Gary Caruana for Winnebago County Sheriff in the 2018 general election);
– RCV First (Rock Valley College) PAC (Per the SBE website, “To elect John Nelson, Angelique Bodine and Paul Gorski, non partisan Candidates for the Rock Valley College Board of Trustees.”)
Nelson and Gorski were victorious in April 2017.
non partisan?
http://www.winnebagocountyclerk.com/winnebago-county-democratic-central-committee
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/07/illinois-democratic-party-michael-madigan-mailers
https://www.rockvalleycollege.edu/Community/BOT/members.cfm#Nelson
http://www.elections.il.gov
Kathy Sands
Posted at 18:31h, 21 OctoberDo what Carlinville city council did, right?