SAUK VILLAGE | A third Freedom of Information Act request to Sauk Village is under review by the Illinois Attorney General's office because the Village has denied yet another requests.
A request was denied as "burdensome" by the Village for criminal statistics. The denial did not follow State law under 5 ILCS 140 et seq so this reporter filed a request for review to the Illinois Attorney General's office.
Now the "burdensome" work begins for the Village who must now provide a response to the Illinois Attorney General's office. In what was clearly not a "form letter" issued by the Attorney General's office as Village Attorney Michael McGrath said last week, the village has 7 days to provide answers and material to their office.
The Attorney General's office responded back to the village's denial requesting many answers to many things, particularly how the Village keeps such information and what software is used and if they have a computer to pull the information together. Further the Attorney General wanted to know why the village felt that providing such information was "burdensome" and to provide any previoius requests showing that these were duplicate and not new requests.
The Illinois Attorney General will issue a decision on this third separate denial and determine if the village has violated the Freedom of Information Act for failing to provide information that is not exempt under the law (5 ILCS 140 et seq).
The Village has denied a request into the "Travelgate" matter where Village Clerk Debbie Williams and her daughter, Village Trustee Rosie Williams solicited money from vendors for what they called a "personal trip" to Washington D.C. A final 6 page response was sent in to the Attorney's General office this week in response to the Village's letter where the Village Attorney stated that they have information that was requested but failed to provide it. This reporter is asking in the response to find the village violated the Act based on the Village's response and other facts.
The Village denied requests for information on an account opened at US Bank by the Village's Public Relations Committee. The account is reportedly for the Committee's activities and Village Trustee Rosie Williams is the signer on the account. The village failed to provide information about the account and this was also sent to the Illinois Attorney General for review under the Freedom of Information Act. To date the Village has not responded on this matter and the Illinois Attorney General will be asked to find the village in violation of the Act.
EDITORIAL NOTE: The Village has been trying to put a "hit list" or report who is requesting information and how much it cost the village to answer such requests. A little known fact is that people can request information anonymously under 5 ILCS 140 et seq. and that many have begun doing so in Lisle Illinois because of the "hit list" that they put out.
If the Village would simply not worry about who is getting what and what they need it for and gave the public information then there would be no drama! People have a right to know what is going on in their community. When Community leaders hide behind lawyers in an attempt to block information they are not serving the PUBLIC interest but thei SELF INTEREST!
Now the village is going to complain because they have to spend MORE TIME answering to the Illinios Attorney General when they simply could have answered the "burdensome" requests. Now they are going to be burdened with requests and timelines by the Illinois Attorney General who is the enforcer of the Freedom of Information Act.
NOTE TO SAUK VILLAGE why do you want to play with the Attorney General's office, they will ALWAYS be for FULL DISCLOSURE as being OPEN, HONEST and TRANSPARENT which is what government should always be!
Stop playing the STUPID card and start being responsible with the taxpayers' money!
It seems "Dysfunction Junction" is alive and well at Village Hall!
 |
| Debbie Williams, Village Clerk custodian of all village records |
No comments:
Post a Comment