Shelby County Board Meeting – Video Captures Truth – Lies Disproved

Shelby Co. (ECWd) –

The Shelby County Board held their regular meeting last night which included a question and answer session from the forensic auditor.

One point, in particular, was when the auditor stated the cost to the taxpayers could be “multiples” of the $700,000.00 cost to the taxpayers being discussed. This point is important because it directly refutes the false narrative being pushed by the State’s Attorney who claimed the final result was $6,283.00 being owed to employees.  There were others present in the room that have pushed the same false narrative so hopefully, they listened to what the auditor said and correct their misrepresentations to the public.

The State’s Attorney Nichole Kroncke was not present during the meeting so a lot of issues could not be addressed, such as the board’s need for legal counsel since the State’s Attorney had recused herself from the Sheriff’s payroll matter.  Kroncke had said in a prior meeting she could have legal counsel appointed but to date that has not happened.

The AFSCME union representative spoke during public comment and urged the board to adopt yet another Memorandum of Understanding, this one to provide additional benefits to the AFSCME union members, similar to what they did for the FOP union. The Board later declared that matter an emergency and adopted the MOU after making an emergency budget amendment.  Neither the Chairman nor the Board articulated what the actual emergency was.

The Treasurer Erica Firnhabor spoke during public comment to set the record straight after more false information was presented by Jake Cole regarding the Keith Petard insurance issue.  This is another case of the citizens needing to get all the facts before pushing lies and false narratives.  It turns out the actions by Petard, submitting claims he was not entitled to,  caused every employee’s insurance rate to increase. We note that Cole was silent on Petard’s use of the county resources to operate his Engineering business he was a partner in with the former Highway Superintendent Alan Spesard.

Gary Patterson appeared excited to present the Law Enforcement Committee report by disclosing the auxilary deputies program being disbanned.  He cited the inability to meet the training olbigations from the new laws.  How special that he failed to disclose the fact they were not operating with any authority to begin with becuase the board had never approved the axuilary force and number, a requirement in the county code.

The video of the entire meeting is below.  The question and answer portion for the forensic audito begins at the 1:02:40 mark of the video.