I have lived in Crest Hill for 3 years now and am still unable to figure out why everyone seems to be so defensive of their city and so opposed to any other city. Every political entity that covers multiple cities seems to have their oppinions divided by those municipal boundries. This is not something I have really seen as much elsewhere.
District 205 (Lockport Township HS) seems forever divided by Lockport vs. Homer Glen. People in Lockport do not feel that a school in their district is theirs if it is in Homer Glen. And Homer Glen residents seem to have a chip on their shoulder that the district and the current schools bear the Lockport name.
The Des Plaines Valley Library District serves 70,000 people, but feels it needs 3 libraries to do so. Or more accurately feels that it needs to build a library in each city served if they are going to be able to get a building referendum passed. One library could serve the entire district, as long as the State sees fit to leave the bridges open and to even possibly build an addtional one someday. That would of course mean the library would be in one city and not the other two. The residents of the other two cities could not stand for that. They would scream that they were paying for another city's library. Of course they ignore the fact that they would still use it regardless of city boundries.
I can imagine if we all functioned the way that residents of this area do. We would insist that if the federal government wants to build an office building, they had better build one in every city becuase we will not support Washington DC's buildings with our tax dollars. And we should stop building highways that are driven on by people from other parts of the country. Sure we are all one country, but why should Arizona get a new "elite" highway that we have to pay for? They should break off and form a new nation and build their own highway!
I do not know why this attitude is so strong here. Why are we so protective of our cities and so opposed to our neighbors? Especially since so many of our local governments cross city borders. Our school districts, park districts, fire protection districts, library districts and townships cross municipal boundries. These entities provide us far more services than our cities do and should tie us together. And then we must ask the question of why can we go just a little west and see a different attitude? The four high schools with Plainfield in their names serve kids from a number of surrounding communities and there has been no outcry about their names and no one complains that Plainfield taxpayers built a school that is attended by kids from Joliet.
Showing posts with label plainfield. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plainfield. Show all posts
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Joliet Herald-News hides the news
Besides offering limited coverage of what is going on in our local governments, the Herald-News refuses to provide honest, unbiased coverage. In addition, they reward reporters for hiding the news, by promoting them.
In January of 2006, I read a series of articles in a different Illinois newspaper about how schools were issuing more in bonds than had been authorized by the voters. I then contacted the Plainfield School District with regards to their $252 million referendum at that time, the structure of the bonds they were issuing, and if they were considering utilizing the loophole to issue more than what they were asking for in the referendum. I then e-mailed Andrea Hein at the Herald-News with copies of the original articles and the information that I was able to get from the Plainfield School District.
Andrea, thanked me, said she was already working on a similar story, and would get back to me shortly. She never wrote the "similar" story she was working on and never got back to me. I guess she and Herald-News did not think the potential of millions of taxpayer dollars being spent beyond what the public had voted on was not a big deal. It is more important to keep the politicians happy. The Herald-News rewarded her lack of concern for her job by promoting her from covering Lockport & Crest Hill to covering Joliet.
In January of 2006, I read a series of articles in a different Illinois newspaper about how schools were issuing more in bonds than had been authorized by the voters. I then contacted the Plainfield School District with regards to their $252 million referendum at that time, the structure of the bonds they were issuing, and if they were considering utilizing the loophole to issue more than what they were asking for in the referendum. I then e-mailed Andrea Hein at the Herald-News with copies of the original articles and the information that I was able to get from the Plainfield School District.
Andrea, thanked me, said she was already working on a similar story, and would get back to me shortly. She never wrote the "similar" story she was working on and never got back to me. I guess she and Herald-News did not think the potential of millions of taxpayer dollars being spent beyond what the public had voted on was not a big deal. It is more important to keep the politicians happy. The Herald-News rewarded her lack of concern for her job by promoting her from covering Lockport & Crest Hill to covering Joliet.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
City and County Finances
Have you ever seen the budget for your city, school district, or Will county? I am willing to guess that you have not, even if you have tried. I have tried and found local governments want to hide their financial documents and to deter anyone from seeing them. They want to keep collecting more and more in taxes, but never want to tell us how they actually spend OUR money.
I tried to see Crest Hill's budget several months ago and was treated to quite an adventure. I went to City Hall and asked to see a copy of the most recent city budget. I was told that the person who would have that had left early for the weekend and to come back on Monday. I agreed to return on Monday and left written information as to who I was and what I wanted to view. I returned the next week and the information still was not available. The following day I came in once again and this time the information was ready. However, I was handed a set of printouts that appeared to be a report of year to date expenses and revenues compared to the current budget. This document lacked any explanation and was far from being clear. I asked if there were any additional financial documents available and was told that they were not.
At this point, I sent a written request to the City Treasurer asking to view copies of the current budget as passed by the City Council, the most recent audit of the city, and the most recent Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). I received no response. Two weeks later, I sent the same written request to the Mayor, City Clerk, and the alderpersons for the ward I live in. A week later, I got a call from the Mayor's office and was able to set up a time to view the CAFR.
This was an acceptable outcome for me because the CAFR was fairly recent and contained everything I wanted to see. However, it is amazing how much effort it took to see this document. I believe that the responsible thing to do would be to have copies of all reports, budgets, and other significant documents available at City Hall and the local library. I have yet to find a library that is not willing to add city documents to their reference collection. In fact, the Crest Hill library has planning documents from 40 years ago for Crest Hill, but very little from recent years.
I wish this was an isolated event that applied only to my request in Crest Hill. However, I have watched Alderman John Vershay ask the Crest Hill City Treasurer for a listing of the bills being paid at each council meeting. The treasurer however is behind by a number of weeks so he expects the council to approve paying the bills and not being told what they were for until a month or more later. And when confronted he has flatly refused to provide this information to an Alderman. No wonder he is so unresponsive to citizens. A year ago I had a similar experience with the Plainfield School District when I wanted information about their bond referendum to build additional schools. They only took 2 weeks and 3 written contacts to provide me the information I asked for.
One must really wonder why our local governments do not want to share financial information with the public. They have no problems taxing us, but they seem to have more difficulty telling us what they do with our money.
I tried to see Crest Hill's budget several months ago and was treated to quite an adventure. I went to City Hall and asked to see a copy of the most recent city budget. I was told that the person who would have that had left early for the weekend and to come back on Monday. I agreed to return on Monday and left written information as to who I was and what I wanted to view. I returned the next week and the information still was not available. The following day I came in once again and this time the information was ready. However, I was handed a set of printouts that appeared to be a report of year to date expenses and revenues compared to the current budget. This document lacked any explanation and was far from being clear. I asked if there were any additional financial documents available and was told that they were not.
At this point, I sent a written request to the City Treasurer asking to view copies of the current budget as passed by the City Council, the most recent audit of the city, and the most recent Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). I received no response. Two weeks later, I sent the same written request to the Mayor, City Clerk, and the alderpersons for the ward I live in. A week later, I got a call from the Mayor's office and was able to set up a time to view the CAFR.
This was an acceptable outcome for me because the CAFR was fairly recent and contained everything I wanted to see. However, it is amazing how much effort it took to see this document. I believe that the responsible thing to do would be to have copies of all reports, budgets, and other significant documents available at City Hall and the local library. I have yet to find a library that is not willing to add city documents to their reference collection. In fact, the Crest Hill library has planning documents from 40 years ago for Crest Hill, but very little from recent years.
I wish this was an isolated event that applied only to my request in Crest Hill. However, I have watched Alderman John Vershay ask the Crest Hill City Treasurer for a listing of the bills being paid at each council meeting. The treasurer however is behind by a number of weeks so he expects the council to approve paying the bills and not being told what they were for until a month or more later. And when confronted he has flatly refused to provide this information to an Alderman. No wonder he is so unresponsive to citizens. A year ago I had a similar experience with the Plainfield School District when I wanted information about their bond referendum to build additional schools. They only took 2 weeks and 3 written contacts to provide me the information I asked for.
One must really wonder why our local governments do not want to share financial information with the public. They have no problems taxing us, but they seem to have more difficulty telling us what they do with our money.
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