Shelby Co. (ECWd) –
The Shelby County Board held its April regular board meeting, which can be viewed below.
The Chairman, Tad Mayhall, remained silent when questioned about the endorsement letter that was used during the primary in support of a specific candidate. He refused to confirm or deny that he was, in fact, the one who created the endorsement letter. We covered that issue in articles here and here.
One notable event was the attempt by Board member Christine Matlock to imply the Treasurer was somehow responsible for coding issues for ARPA funds that the county board obligated and, in some cases, paid, that were never obligated. That discussion clearly exposed at least several board members had no clue what to do, and even the Chairman confirmed he could not understand what needed to be done. Those admissions and the comments make it pretty clear that the very people who approve claims with direction as to what line item and code is to apply to the accounting of those funds have no clue how the system is supposed to work.
The Treasurer, Erica Firnhaber, stood her ground and insisted on reading a letter into the record that was sent to the entire board regarding the claims process and how things are supposed to work. The Chairman attempted to stop her, but she was having nothing to do with his attempt to silence her. The letter read was sent by the State’s Attorney, and it sounded as if it were an education 101 for the county board members.
One of the agenda items was to appoint 2 people to the ethics commission. It was Matlock who was named on that agenda item, but it became evident very quickly that she failed to read the obligations regarding the makeup of the ethics commission and had not verified through the affidavit obligation the political party designation for the people to be appointed. How ironic that the very board member attempting to imply the Treasurer was somehow responsible for coding issues on claims couldn’t even get a simple ethics appointment process done properly. Board member Julie Edwards came to the rescue and tabled the appointments as it was evident they were not properly prepared to appoint anyone. Had they gone through with the appointment, they would have done so in direct violation of their very own ethics ordinance.
While the ethics commission appointments were tabled, this board clearly has not read or is not taking seriously its own ordinance that establishes specific timelines in the process of an ethics complaint, which are well past due. Maybe its time an ethics complaint be filed with the state against those responsible for failing to follow the ethics ordinance with their disregard for the statutory timeframe obligations?
Section 5-5(b):
“…..The Commission shall issue notice to the complainant and the respondent of the Commission’s ruling on the sufficiency of the complaint and, if necessary, on probable cause to proceed within 7 business days after receiving the complaint.“
Mayhall has clearly failed to set up the ethics commission as outlined. It was his duty to appoint, with the advice and consent of the board, qualified members in order to address the ethics complaints that had been filed. That failure is a neglect of duty in our opinion.
Maybe it’s time for the law for county boards’ neglect of duty to be invoked?
(55 ILCS 5/5-1013) (from Ch. 34, par. 5-1013)
Sec. 5-1013. Neglect of duty. If any member of the county board of any county in this State shall wilfully neglect to perform any of the duties which are or shall be required of him by law, as a member of the county board, he shall, for every such offense, forfeit the sum of $200, to be recovered in a civil action.
(Source: P.A. 86-962.)
Any citizen in Shelby County has standing to bring this action to the court.
Considering there are now 5 ethics complaints filed against Chairman Tad Mayhall, and this board has yet to properly set up the ethics commission, a duty they are clearly tasked to perform, maybe a criminal investigation is in order for Official Misconduct.
(720 ILCS 5/33-3) (from Ch. 38, par. 33-3)
Sec. 33-3. Official misconduct.
(a) A public officer or employee or special government agent commits misconduct when, in his official capacity or capacity as a special government agent, he or she commits any of the following acts:
(1) Intentionally or recklessly fails to perform any mandatory duty as required by law;
Considering the first complaint was filed on March 18th, and there is yet to even be an ethics commission set up, it is crystal clear that the failure to follow the law is either intentional or a reckless failure to perform their mandatory duty as required by law. If we are not going to use the Official Misconduct when such failures take place, what good is having the law on the books?
We digress. This is Shelby County, Illinois.
We encourage everyone to watch the video and listen to the attempted smear of the treasurer and ignorance of the actual claims and ARPA funding reporting process.
A laughable moment was when Tim Morse suggested there be a forensic audit of the ARPA funds. The treasurer welcomed such an audit, but we doubt this board will ever go down the path of a forensic audit on the Treasurer’s office because it would prove them all wrong. Board member Tim Brown, as well as the Treasurer, had asked for such audits in the past as a mechanism to flush out truth versus unfounded allegations that continue to be thrown at the Treasurer. The board ignored those requests then, and even if this were to get on the agenda for a vote, we do not believe it would pass because I think most know the issues regarding the county finances have nothing to do with the treasurer.
As a reminder, the last forensic audit performed was on the Sheriff’s department payroll, which identified over $700,000 in malfeasance, of which not one thing has been done to correct those findings to date.
