WHAT DOES REVENGE LOOK LIKE IN SAUK VILLAGE? Concealing the TRUTH, and failing residents, while racking up over $238,000 in Legal Fees in 2019 alone, and causing lawsuits against the Village and its Taxpaying residents.
By: Joachim Mahommes
In October, 2019 when Christopher Williams, the Fanatical Five’s court-appointed Village Administrator assumed his duty of FOIA Clerk. This Wrecking Crew, newly elected Trustees Gary Bell, Sherry Jasinski and Ringleader Debbie Williams, aligned themselves with Trustees Linda Todd and Bernice Brewer began systematically dismantling the professional and highly competent team Mayor Burgess had assembled after his election in 2017. Mayor Burgess and his administration had already begun making significant strides in improving the operations of the Village. The Wrecking Crew led by Ringleader Debbie Williams decided that in order to return the Village to the “good ole days”, they needed to strip the Elected Mayor of his powers and instead hire their handpicked Village Administrator to run Sauk Village. In comes, Christopher Williams, with only 5 months of Municipal experience in that position in Hazel Crest, backed by the full faith and recommendation of Village Counsel and given a “reduced” salary of $90,000 a year full time. Well, with this great pick, the Wrecking Crew included FOIA Clerk as one of his duties.
Ringleader Trustee Debbie ‘Wanna Be Mayor’ Williams didn’t even bother to transfer existing FOIA requests emails to her newly hired Village Administrator. As a result, several FOIA requests went unanswered. This immediately resulted in the filing of costly lawsuits to the Village. One FOIA, in particular, requested "Legal bills for the month of October, 2019".
Not only was that FOIA request never responded to which resulted in the filing of a lawsuit for a default denial, but once the Fanatical 5 discovered they never followed through with the email transfers, it was too late. The Illinois FOIA Statutes were simply denied which resulted in numerous lawsuits being filed.
Once that suit was filed, the Fanatical 5 Wrecking Crew through the Taxpayers’ legal counsel, attempted to cover up their own miscues by over-redaction of the legal bills so that the requester could not see what services were being paid for. Much like going to the grocery store, and having most every line of your receipt blackened out so you don't know if you paid $3.99 for a gallon of milk, or a roll of toilet paper! It made absolutely no sense. But once the bill was unredacted, it shows that Trustees and the Village Administrator were relying on Counsel at an additional price tag of $165 an hour to hide their dubious schemes and perform the Village Administrator’s duties.
What WAS CLEAR was that the Fanatical 5 Wrecking Crew knowingly and willingly conspired to conceal how they were using Village Counsel and what for, while carelessly racking up a legal bill totaling over $20,000 for just the month of October, 2019 ALONE!
What a difference a LAWSUIT MAKES!
Under FOIA, a Public Body MAY REDACT certain information such as personal information, named subjects in a legal action or pending litigation, or any person being called to testify as a witness. The Village's Counsel attempted to explain that this was attorney / client private communication describe on a BILL FOR LEGAL SERVICES RENDERED. So they quickly provided the allowable versions of redactions before going to trial to avoid from going in front of a Judge and this being seen by a circuit court Judge.
What is completely clear, is that the Fanatical 5 Wrecking Crew Trustees instructed Taxpayers’ Counsel to conceal as much of the legal bills possible, to avoid being discovered in their planned scheme to undermine Mayor Burgess and undoing what was being accomplished by his administration. They used the Taxpayers’ Counsel to systematically remove employees, cater to their whims to exact revenge against the Mayor, his administration and the Village residents that elected him.
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