Shelby Co. (ECWd) –
We once again find the ongoing misinformation campaign on social media presenting a narrative that is not only false, but one that appears to be designed for one purpose, to create division. We say that because throughout a recent post, there is false information and assertions presented as facts or questions with an urging for everyone to come to the county board meeting. How special, throw the chum in the water and see what bites.
A select group took issue with the State’s Attorney and the scanning of records during the last county board meeting which can be viewed in this article. A laundry list of accusations was made and questions asked during the board meeting yet not a single person asked those questions to the person who could answer them, the State’s Attorney.
The misinformation poster knows the office holder does not need board approval to perform the tasks in their office, yet they had no problem claiming:
“Mr. Hanlon had already contacted Ms. Jandernoa and begun the process of scanning these documents before he had board approval to do so.”
Such a statement is totally false because the board is not the approving authority for him to start scanning the records he needs to get scanned. This author plays those kinds of word games regularly.
The next misleading statement, which begs the question of why he worded the above statement as he did:
“We believe that he could scan the documents without board approval, but the funds necessary to pay Ms. Jandernoa had to be approved by the board.”
So which is it, division master?
“..why did Mr. Hanlon feel comfortable enough to have Ms. Jandernoa begin updating courthouse records before board approval“
In one statement he claimed to believe that he could scan the documents without board approval then in another rambling paragraph of insinuations cast he poses the question in such a way that leads the reader to believe he was doing something without board approval. There was no need to get board approval because the board does not run the offices within the county and the author believes as much according to his own words. That begs the question, why the misleading statement?
The Board approved the office holder’s budget. The office holder does not need to go back and get approval to spend money on the work they are getting done. The board approved special funding for the project. If the project was already underway, and now, rather than it being paid from a normal budget line item, it was approved to be paid from the Federal ARPA funds. This is not rocket science.
“We must admit we are also concerned about the security of these documents if they are being transported to Woodstock, Illinois for this project.”
We find such a statement rather interesting in light of the fact there is an ongoing criminal investigation by the ISP regarding missing records in the very office the poster is talking about yet not one word of concern about the security of those missing records.
“If Ms. Jandernoa was already scanning documents before Mr. Hanlon had secured the funds to do so, then we must ask where would the funds have come from to complete this project had the board refused?”
Why would the author assume Hanlon had not secured funds to do the work? He has an approved budget and his budget limits what he may be able to accomplish. I recall that he believed the requested additional funds would be able to complete the project. Had the board not approved the additional funding, it would have clearly taken much longer to get the task completed under normal budget restraints. Again, not rocket science.
More evidence the author’s ramblings are not about getting a problem solved but rather creating division towards an office holder:
“Were any board members aware that this project was ongoing when they voted to approve funds for it?”
Yes, they were aware because the office holder explained how he came to the number he thought he would need based on the scanning he already started doing and confirmed it took a week to scan the 4 boxes of files. If this author was at the meeting they would know the answer to the question. If they were not, the answer is found in the video of the meeting, which they have had no problem reviewing thanks to our no-charge live streaming service we have provided of those meetings for years now. That same meeting provided an explanation of the scanning process and contrary to numerous insinuations, the project entails a lot more than just putting a piece of paper in a scanner.
In one other post on a personal site, the author posted pictures of a couple of printers/scanners insinuating those could be purchased to do the job at hand. He is correct, they could. 
The Board approved $15,000.00 for this project. So if the State’s Attorney followed the advice of this person, we must ask, does anyone believe they could purchase a printer scanner for $13,000.00 and possibly get the project completed on the remaining $2,000.00 of what was approved? Better yet, the one suggested printer scanner cost is over $18,800.00. That figure is $3,800.0 beyond what was approved to be spent. That means if that printer/scanner was purchased as insinuated, the entire approved funds would be spent and his budget depleted another $3,800.00 before any more records even got scanned. Not sure we follow the logic of such a suggestion.
As we said in the meeting, there are answers to the questions being raised however we caution the way in which some of these questions are being placed in the public sphere of social media. They do not appear to be based on any real intent of solving a problem but rather to create one based on their dislike for certain people in office based on other false information they shared before getting to those facts.
Truth is easy, accepting it hurts when it doesn’t fit your agenda!
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