Edgar Co., IL. (ECWd) –
During the Edgar County Airport meeting on Monday night, August 10, 2015, an Edgar County Sheriff Deputy arrived and attended the meeting.
After the meeting, I asked county board member Heltsley if he caused the deputy to come to the meeting. He stated that he did, and that it was for my protection. I disagreed and we exchanged our opinions back and forth using colorful language, and at one point Heltsley, not liking what I said, asked me if I wanted to get arrested (insinuating that he had some type of special arrangement and could cause an arrest if he felt like it).
Not being one to take threats like this without objection, I informed him that he had no authority to arrest anyone.
A few minutes later he ordered me to leave the airport, and once again, I had to remind him that he had no authority to tell anyone to leave the airport.
Jake Payne chimed in with his own colorful language directed at me, when none of the conversation was about him. This is the same person, who when he was the airport board chairman, expressed his displeasure in having to follow the Open Meetings and Freedom of Information Acts.
Later, I submitted a FOIA request to the Sheriff Dept seeking any records of whatever cause the deputy to arrive at the airport, and I received an audio recording of the telephone call that Heltsley had made to the Sheriff Dept.
In the audio, you can clearly hear Heltsley asking for a deputy to show up, which in itself is not really an issue other than wasting public resources. The issue, is that he lied to the Sheriff’s Department in the phone call in an attempt at receiving favorable reaction to his request they attend the meeting.
The lie, was that Heltsley stated “…Rob Bogue’s looking kind of wild-eyed…“.
Isn’t that nice…Heltsley knows what Rob’s eyes look like and how he will act 27 minutes before the meeting even starts, and by his own admission prior to even arriving at the airport. Heltsley later states that he remembers Bouge was at the meeting at 9:30 that morning, and remembers hearing him talk about what he was going to do at the airport meeting, so that is what he based his statement on. I will call his bluff on that one also.
The other lie was that they were called to protect me.
The problem here, is that nothing strange happened at the morning study session, and there would have been no reason to consider someone “wild-eyed”…unless you have a guilty conscience about something and feel you need to assert some form of intimidation on the public by having a deputy present.
Additionally, I believe Heltsley is attempting to create a record that he can use in a future Order of Protection since the one he tried last year failed miserably, not to mention a news reporter knew about the emergency hearing and was present in the courtroom, but Rob was never informed a petition was ever filed against him. The judge quickly dismissed the request, explaining that there was no evidence Rob posed any threat to Heltsey (paraphrased).
Anything to keep the public (that don’t agree with you) from attending meetings.
