WATSEKA, IL. (ECWd) –
In complaints that originated in Iroquois County Circuit Court on March 29, 2013, Kraft v FIPHD, and Allen v FIPHD, the Ford-Iroquois Public Health Department (FIPHD) has acknowledged that they did in fact violate the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) by not responding within the mandated time-frame for FOIA responses.
The FIPHD, instead of producing all of the requested public records, Mr. Corbett, Mrs. Hagen, and Mrs. Clark decided to fight releasing the paperwork. Instead of collecting around $400 for all of the paper records (due to the quantity of paper used), they ended up costing the FIPHD a little over $1000 in court costs and fees, had to produce the paperwork (without charge), legal bills from their FORMER private attorney, took valuable time from the State’s Attorney, and gained nothing from it all.
Simple compliance with the FOI Act’s guidelines and mandates would have avoided all of it. People complained and said we were costing the health department money, failing to realize the FIPHD employees were the real reason the health department lost money in this deal.
Get ready Arcola Township – you are next – settlement or court order, I predict that I will get the requested public records and my expenses paid. You could have followed the law and provided the records when requested.
Previous article on this suit:
https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/2013/03/fiphd-facing-foia-law-suit-in-edgar-county/
https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/2013/03/fiphd-facing-2nd-foia-suit/
The Paxton Record Newspaper put together a detailed time-line of the events leading up to the forensic audit. You can read it here…too bad our local paper won’t report on things of this nature in Edgar County…
Iroquois County court documents are below (or here: 1)
[gview file=”https://edgarcountywatchdogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/fiphd-settlement-order.pdf”]
