Yale, Illinois – Fallen Short?

Jasper Co., Ill. (ECWd) –

We were contacted over a laundry list of concerns for the small community of Yale, Illinois, located in Jasper County. As we normally do, a Freedom of Information Act request was submitted.

1. A copy of meeting minutes and agendas for the last 12 months.
2. A copy of the Open Meetings Act training certificates for the mayor and the trustees/alderman/council members.
3. A copy of the minutes that reflect the board appointed a Freedom of Information Act Officer.
4. A copy of the email address for all office holders.
5. A copy of all payments for mowing services paid to the Mayor or any other elected/appointed officeholder.

The initial email response validated one of the complaints we were informed of.

“Hello we have received your request and in process of gathering the info your are requesting.   We would like a possible extension simply because it may take a while to get all the payments together for what village has paid to mayor  past and present.  I have lived here in town for 28 yrs and the acting mayor has always been person that has mowed for village.  And we have nothing electronic everything you have requested will be sent via certified mail in paper form.  Thank you. ” (emphasis added)

A Mayor is not permitted to have any interest in services provided to the community.  As can be seen in the “minutes“, the Mayor is getting compensated to mow.

(50 ILCS 105/3) (from Ch. 102, par. 3)
    Sec. 3. Prohibited interest in contracts.
    (a) No person holding any office, either by election or appointment under the laws or Constitution of this State, may be in any manner financially interested directly in his own name or indirectly in the name of any other person, association, trust, or corporation, in any contract or the performance of any work in the making or letting of which such officer may be called upon to act or vote……

A violation of the above statute is a Class 4 felony under the Officers Prohibited Activities Act, section 4.

We received an envelope containing some of the requested information, however, the closing paragraph of their response letter may point to the real problem for this small community.

“Our little village has suffered two big losses this year. The two men who have shown us the ropes are no longer with us. While we are doing the best that we know how to do we clearly have fallen short in a couple of the above areas.” (emphasis added)

While their response letter indicates they have fallen short in a couple of the above areas, the response information points to “falling short” being an understatement.  The claim that meeting minutes and agendas were included was not true as no agendas were included and anyone reading these minutes will quickly see major problems.

This appears to be one of those cases where people never learned how to properly perform their statutory duties and instead relied on those in office before them to point them in a direction, never mind the fact its clear that direction was wrong.

For example, the minutes appear to only record bills that were paid with no reference as to who voted to pay them nor any indication as to who was in attendance at the meetings.  A couple of the minutes indicate the meeting was canceled, yet clearly, action was taken as shown by the paying of bills.   There were also minutes documenting the use of public funds for private purposes rather than public purposes which violates our State Constitution.   While we all grieve the passing of community members, public funds are not permitted to be used for private funeral matters such as food trays and flowers.

The mayor was paid $12,975 for mowing between 6/15/2020 and 4/15/24 with one month generating a $900 payment as shown in these records. Paid from a different checking account number was $16,722.50 in mowing as found in this set of checks with a date range of 10/10/2016 – 11/21/2022. We had to redact all exempt information because what we received failed to redact account numbers, signatures, and other private information. Eight years of mowing (5-6 months a year) totaled $29,697.5.  That averages out to $3,712.18 a year.  That appears to be a whole lot of mowing for such a small village. We say that because of similar billing we have seen in communities of this size.

Within this list of payments was one that jumped out at us, not because it had a large purple X marked on the front and back but because of what the check was written in 2019 to Patchet Flying Service for $200.    We are following up to get a copy of the invoice to see what this was for as we can’t imagine why a small village in Jasper County would need flying services.  A bill for $900 for Patchet Flying Services is found in the minutes of 6/15/2024 and the notation indicates Mosquito Spraying.  If this were delivered by an airplane it would be the first we have seen of this in Illinois.

My FOIA request was sent on October 22, 2024.  Once again, a FOIA request was the trigger for compliance with the required training for the Open Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act.  The Mayor and other officials all took their training within a week of my FOIA request as can be seen in these records.

The Village did not provide any records indicating who the FOIA officer was.

We understand numerous appointments to vacancies have taken place recently which include family members, however, there are no records produced indicating any such appointments were on any agenda. It appears that the appointments were made without as much as a single vote.

We will do our best to get answers to a lot of questions and will update on those in a future article.