Will County VAC – Hey G Consulting – “I am not a contractor”

Will Co. (ECWd) –

The Will County Veterans Assistance Commission, (“VAC”) received a Freedom of Information Act request for specific records related to expenditures by Hey G Consulting which received $495,000.00 from the VAC to perform certain services under an agreed contract.

The requester pointed to the FOI Act, specifically the portion of records of a contractor being subject to FOIA.

5 ICLS 140/7(2) A public record that is not in the possession of a public body but is in the possession of a party with whom the agency has contracted to perform a governmental function on behalf of the public body, and that directly relates to the governmental function and is not otherwise exempt under this Act, shall be considered a public record of the public body, for purposes of this Act.

When the VAC reached out to Hey G Consulting owner in a valid attempt to obtain those records, the response was mind-boggling in light of the signed paperwork we have.

“I am not a contractor” (See page 4 of the documentation provided by the VAC in our FOIA request at this link)

Not a contractor?

How can a person claim they are not a contractor when their very own contract with the VAC refers to her company as an Independent Contractor?

“7. INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR. The Client is hiring the Marketer as an independent contractor. The following statements accurately reflect their relationship:” (see page 3, paragraph 7 of the contract at this link)

Hey G Consulting, Geriann Wiesbrook specifically, refused to provide the records requested however the very contract she had with the VAC states, on page 1 of the contract at this link, that the Client owns the work product. Reviewing the requests made in the original FOIA it would appear Weisbrook and Hey G Consulting are refusing to comply with FOIA and provide the VAC’s owned work product she contracted to provide.

“2.1 Client Owns All Work Product. As part of this job, the Marketer is creating “work product” for the Client. To avoid confusion, work product is the finished product, as well as drafts, notes, materials, mockups, hardware, designs, inventions, patents, code, and anything else that the Marketer works on-that is, conceives, creates, designs, develops, invents, works on, or reduces to practice-as part of this project, whether before the date of this Contract or after. This means the Marketer is giving the Client all of its rights, titles, and interests in and to the work product (including intellectual property rights), and the Client will be the sole owner of it. The Client can use the work product however it wants or it can decide not to use the work product at all.”

We note that Hey G Consulting has basically vanished from the internet.  Even the non-profit this same person created has scrubbed the 501C nonprofit web page – https://militarymamanetwork.org/

Stay tuned as more information is gathered on the malfeasance that took place at the Will County VAC and their expenditure of $495,000.00 that the contractor received, who is now claiming they are not a contractor.