Commissioner Denise Williams Lied About County Auditor Approving Grant –

Veterans Assistance Commission of Will County, IL. (ECWd) –

In a prepared statement during the Sep 1, 2022, special meeting of the Veterans Assistance of Will County’s executive committee, alleged commissioner Denise Williams made a “statement of fact,” most of which were fact-checked and proven wrong in this article, stating the following:

“. . . the Will County Executive, Will County Finance, Will County Auditor, and Will County Treasurer approved this grant and this marketing firm . . . ”

We filed a Freedom of Information Act request for these alleged approvals, and have received an answer from the County Auditor denying any “approval” of any grant, let alone approval of the grant to the VAC.

Read Auditor’s response below:

“We are in receipt of your FOIA dated 9/6/22 requesting a “ Copy of Will County Auditor’s “approval” of the $495,000 grant to the VAC as Denise Williams stated during the VAC’s Sep 1, 2022 meeting.  The Auditor’s office does not have any grant approval role and therefore no records exist.  This concludes our response.”

We suspect others will deny approval also, but time will tell.

On another note, Williams also stated that county board member Amanda Koch abstained from voting on the grant, and we proved she lied about that point by producing February 18, 2021, meeting minutes of the county board (see pages 13 and 14, and pages 227 and 228) where Koch voted in favor of the grant. Since our first article on Koch’s voting, we have found minutes from January 29, 2021, Will County Ad-Hoc CARES Act Funding Committee where Amanda Koch also voted in favor of the grant to the VAC (See item #4, page 13). So not only did Amanda Koch not abstain, she actually voted in favor of it twice.

Denise Williams is doing a disservice to the wonderful American Gold Star Mothers organization by participating in these outright false statements to the public, and by occupying a seat on the Veterans Assistance Commission which she is wholly unqualified to occupy.

More information to come.