Wayne County board has problems: doesn’t understand Open Meetings Act; picking at sheriff AGAIN
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Published: February 27, 2010
WAYNE CO.—We’ve gone round and round with the Wayne County board on certain issues that they just can’t seem to wrap their collective little heads around. And now, their stubbornness and apparent inability to follow the law is once again making headlines.
Wayne Co. Sheriff Jim Hinkle
Earlier this week (Monday 02.22.10) the board, having the previous Thursday called a full meeting, demanded that lame duck sheriff Jim Hinkle appear, along with his deputies that night. Hinkle, having no idea what it was all about, told his deputies to stay home, and he attended the Monday meeting. The board immediately went into executive session and began grilling Hinkle about usage of the police vehicles.
HInkle defended his department against their gripes, which amounted to the fact that he and his chief deputy, Jeff Grieve, were driving their police vehicles for personal use. Hinkle responded that yes indeed they were—exactly as he had laid it out the first year of his term, 2006, that he was going to do. Hinkle explained at that time that he and Grieve were on-call 24/7, and that in order to be able to respond properly and quickly, they needed to have those vehicles AS their personal vehicles: they were outfitted with the safetly features, lights and fast engines that law enforcement officers needed in crime-response or other situations.
The board begrudgingly allowed this at the beginning of his term. After all, predecessor Sonny McCulley had allowed ALL his dufus deputies to drive their department vehicles—for any reason. Coon hunting (complete with dawgs in the back). Trash-hauling (complete with leaky, smelly garbage bags in the back.) Trips to the casino boat (complete with sweet young thangs in the back). Letting the wife or kids take the cruiser to/from work or shopping (with who knows what kind of stuff in the back). Just wherever the hell. On county taxpayers’ gas, and on county taxpayer-supplied insurance.
Hinkle and his wife, Tammy (who is privately insured to ride in Hinkle's police vehicle)
Hinkle even offset that last issue by taking out an insurance rider policy so that if he were transporting his wife anywhere in the government-supplied vehicle, should something happen to her, the taxpayer wouldn’t be burdened with the bill.
But that wasn’t enough for the board. They had to pick pick pick. What with attempting to devour his public safety tax funds (for which board chairman Darrell Stephenson, who happens to be boinking Hinkle’s secretary, Linda, campaigned so strenuously four years ago, lying to the voters about, among other things, how the funds were going to be used), take over commissary and phone card usage funds (a la Lawrence County/former sheriff Dennis Bridwell, also four years ago) and other bullshit maneuvers, the board has stifled Hinkle at every opportunity…all when he’s trying to get the department modernized and make the county safer, along with undoing all the damage the McCulley administration did to the place.
Chief Deputy Jeff Grieve
Hinkle said he couldn’t understand what the board was having a problem with. His and Grieve’s usage of their vehicles was approved; it wasn’t against the law; it wasn’t an egregious way of using tax dollars; and deputies were no longer allowed to use their cruisers to coon hunt, haul garbage, or make out with their favorite sweet thang on the side if the desire so hit them.
Then it occurred to him: the previous week, he had gone to the county clerk’s office and questioned some of the vote tallies from the Feb. 2 Primary, where he lost almost three-to-one against Fairfield police officer Mike Everett. Hinkle said that it seemed bizarre that in one precinct where he knew he had adamant, strong supporters, it appeared as though his and Everett’s totals were reversed. Hinkle wondered if it were possible that with the new optical scan voting machines, which can be ‘programmed’ to ‘view’ ballots a certain way, perhaps his optical ‘identifier’ had gotten switched with Everett’s identifier. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing intentional, just a misprogram where identification codes were concerned.
The county clerk, Donna Endsley, is related to a county board rep, Gordon Endsley…who is a strong opponent of Hinkle’s and always has been. Not a stretch to think that the county clerk’s office immediately contacted someone on the county board…and suddenly there was a meeting being called. A meeting in which Hinkle told the board “If you want a witch hunt, you go right on ahead and have a witch hunt.”
But it gets worse.
There is no exemption under Illinois’ Open Meetings Act (OMA) that allows the board to call an executive session for what they did on that night. We have heard that they’re trying to say it fell under “personnel”…but that’s not what vehicles and the usage thereof are. That’s POLICY. And a board can’t call a closed meeting to discuss policy.
So the Wayne County board did it again: a colossal screw up regarding procedure. We spent seven months last year ragging former state’s attorney (and the board’s legal counsel) Kevin Kakac about all kinds of dimbulb moves like that, including producing an adequate agenda. Just when they’d fix one thing, they’d screw up another. We have no reason to believe current state’s attorney David Williams cares any more about the matter than Kakac ever did.
It pisses us off, as taxpayers of Wayne County who don’t get to vote, that this bullshit would continue. It is further disturbing that the board intends to call another executive session at the full board regularly scheduled meeting the second Thursday in March to discuss this matter with Hinkle. Because they CAN’T. And if they think they’re going to make us leave the meeting room for a non-exemption purpose, they need to think again. What are they going to do—have the sheriff throw us out? He’s already told us HE’S going to tell them it’s not an OMA exemption, too, and they’d better bring it all out in the open.
More on this after the full board meeting, and in the March 17 print version. In the meantime, if you’re a Wayne County board member reading this, look below to see what you can call a closed session for…and don’t try to couch what you did Monday as falling under those exemptions just because WE, ONCE AGAIN, have done your job for you by looking up the law.
________________________________________________________________
A public body can’t just call a closed meeting or executive session willy-nilly. And yet that is what some in southern Illinois are doing on a regular basis.
So we thought it would be helpful to post the 24 exemptions to having an open meeting, the 24 ONLY reasons why a council or board can excuse themselves from the public and go behind closed doors and make decisions affecting taxpayers.
(1) The appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees of the public body or legal counsel for the public body, including hearing testimony on a complaint lodged against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity.
(2) Collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives, or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees.
(3) The selection of a person to fill a public office, as defined in this Act, including a vacancy in a public office, when the public body is given power to appoint under law or ordinance, or the discipline, performance or removal of the occupant of a public office, when the public body is given power to remove the occupant under law or ordinance.
(4) Evidence or testimony presented in open hearing, or in closed hearing where specifically authorized by law, to a quasi-adjudicative body, as defined in this Act, provided that the body prepares and makes available for public inspection a written decision setting forth its determinative reasoning.
(5) The purchase or lease of real property for the use of the public body, including meetings held for the purpose of discussing whether a particular parcel should be acquired.
(6) The setting of a price for sale or lease of property owned by the public body.
(7) The sale or purchase of securities, investments, or investment contracts.
(8) Security procedures and the use of personnel and equipment to respond to an actual, a threatened, or a reasonably potential danger to the safety of employees, students, staff, the public, or public property.
(9) Student disciplinary cases.
(10) The placement of individual students in special education programs and other matters relating to individual students.
(11) Litigation, when an action against, affecting or on behalf of the particular public body has been filed and is pending before a court or administrative tribunal, or when the public body finds that an action is probable or imminent, in which case the basis for the finding shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the closed meeting.
(12) The establishment of reserves or settlement of claims as provided in the Local Governmental and Governmental Employees Tort Immunity Act, if otherwise the disposition of a claim or potential claim might be prejudiced, or the review or discussion of claims, loss or risk management information, records, data, advice or communications from or with respect to any insurer of the public body or any intergovernmental risk management association or self insurance pool of which the public body is a member.
(13) Conciliation of complaints of discrimination in the sale or rental of housing, when closed meetings are authorized by the law or ordinance prescribing fair housing practices and creating a commission or administrative agency for their enforcement.
(14) Informant sources, the hiring or assignment of undercover personnel or equipment, or ongoing, prior or future criminal investigations, when discussed by a public body with criminal investigatory responsibilities.
(15) Professional ethics or performance when considered by an advisory body appointed to advise a licensing or regulatory agency on matters germane to the advisory body’s field of competence.
(16) Self evaluation, practices and procedures or professional ethics, when meeting with a representative of a statewide association of which the public body is a member.
(17) The recruitment, credentialing, discipline or formal peer review of physicians or other health care professionals for a hospital, or other institution providing medical care, that is operated by the public body.
(18) Deliberations for decisions of the Prisoner Review Board.
(19) Review or discussion of applications received under the Experimental Organ Transplantation Procedures Act.
(20) The classification and discussion of matters classified as confidential or continued confidential by the State Employees Suggestion Award Board.
(21) Discussion of minutes of meetings lawfully closed under this Act, whether for purposes of approval by the body of the minutes or semi-annual review of the minutes as mandated by Section 2.06.
(22) Deliberations for decisions of the State Emergency Medical Services Disciplinary Review Board.
(23) The operation by a municipality of a municipal utility or the operation of a municipal power agency or municipal natural gas agency when the discussion involves (i) contracts relating to the purchase, sale, or delivery of electricity or natural gas or (ii) the results or conclusions of load forecast studies.
(24) Meetings of a residential health care facility resident sexual assault and death review team or the Residential Health Care Facility Resident Sexual Assault and Death Review Teams Executive Council under the Residential Health Care Facility Resident Sexual Assault and Death Review Team Act.
Tagged with: county board, Darrell Stephenson, David Williams, Dennis Bridwell, Disclosure, Donna Endsley, Fairfield, Gordon Endsley, insurance, Jeff Grieve, Jim Hinkle, Kevin Kakac, Lawrence, Mike Everett, OMA, Open Meetings Act, policy, print version, Public officials, sheriff, Sonny McCulley, Wayne
Not necessarily meant to be a published comment but a question: I also abhor closed meetings, but is it possible that the meeting in question was allowed to be closed because it was purportedly to discuss Hinkle’s performance? (section of act listed below) It also makes me question if Hinkle, an elected official, can be considered an employee? The problem with the Illinois OMA has always been that it has no teeth. The penalties are not severe enough, even if a criminal or civil violation is proven in court.
CLOSED MEETINGS – NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
When can a meeting be “closed”? Can a public body ever meet in private?
Section 2(c) of the Open Meetings Act provides that a public body can close a meeting to the public only when the following topics are to be considered:
the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or
dismissal of a specific employee or legal counsel for the public body;
Sorry Sarasota, you’ve already been approved for post comment privileges so your comment came up without moderation, but we can pull it if you want.
In answer: That was probably the initial “reason,” although it was not stated. It was originally supposed to be a meeting with Hinkle and ALL the deputies, including Grieve. If ‘performance’ was the case, it should have been addressed at either a committee meeting or a police commission (or whatever they call it in Wayne) meeting, as has been done in the past. And when they got in there, they weren’t discussing performance after all, they were discussing usage of the department’s police cars—all of them, not just Hinkle’s and Grieve’s, and Hinkle then explained to them that the rest of the department did not use the cars for personal use any more and hadn’t been since Sonny had been gone, which raised the question: Did the board not know that? Of course they did!! This was, as Hinkle put it, a “witch hunt” to try and find something wrong. And the ultimate gist, we believe, is that they’re REALLY putting the screws to him now because they want him to QUIT. They have never liked him. He bucks them at every turn. They just can’t wait to get Everett in there, who will roll over on everything the board asks and usher back in the Dark Ages.
We are so screwed in Wayne County, I’m telling you.
But no, it turned out to be strictly a POLICY thing; there was no discussion about and no way it could be attributed to performance. There were no complaints (except for the board bitching to high heaven about something that wasn’t happening—deputies driving squads as pv’s—and something that had already been established—that Hinkle and Grieve could do so). And that is NOT and exemptable reason.
They do this constantly. We got flat fuggin tired of fighting with them last year and stopped going. It’s like a gathering of yellowhammers. Bleh.
From what I have been able to observe, Jim Hinkle did a fine job as sheriff. Small time county boards and small town policemen seem to really have a problem with someone coming in that has worked with a large agency and has modern ideas of how departments should be operated. From what I hear, Hinkle was modernizing the sheriff’s department with funds he was raising instituting new policies that generate funds other than by gouging the taxpayers or with grants (which is still gouging the taxpayers but most officials think it is pennies from Heaven) I think these little communities want to stay backwards because they sure don’t want to progress into the 21st Century.
Or…there could be something going on in Wayne that Hinkle’s getting entirely too close to, something that may reflect back on the county board badly, and the board wants to shut him down before it comes out.
One example of the crap they pull: a couple of weeks ago, all of county engineer Art Loebach’s road people got these huge raises while in a road and bridge committee meeting. You have to understand first that just a couple months before, the courthouse workers were asking for a little raise to offset the fact that the county went with a more expensive/less comprehensive insurance company that was going to take more out of their paychecks. Of course, last year all the elected officials got massive raises to be issued over the next four years—all of that completely unnecessary—so apparently the board was in a giving mood. But the road and bridge committee were in a much more giving mood and issued these HUGE raises without running it past the full board.
When the full board got together at the next scheduled meeting, they rescinded the road workers’ raises. Period. Man were some people pissed, on both sides. Because this kind of shit goes on ALL THE TIME. Nobody watches them: that pussy ‘newspaper’ they have there, and the equally pussy radio station, give em a pass every damn time they pull stuff like that. And since there’s no ‘competition’ (they clam up when we show up, then act like we’re the world’s biggest pain in the ass when we issue a FOIA), they just keep on keepin on. But they make fun of us and say derogatory things when we show up to meetings to remind the board that they’re breaking the law every time they turn around. Assholes.
And you should see the roads in Wayne. Good God. We thought they were bad in Edwards and Richland (and I KNOW they’re bad in Lawrence, too). We’ve got some pics around here, we’ll put some up later. Those road people deserve wage DEDUCTION, not increase.
I saw in the news where some member or members of the Wayne county board had followed Hinkle around to get pictures to show that he has driven his county-owned vehicle around to different places. Hinkle said that he wished he had known they wanted those pictures, he would have taken them himself to save them the trouble. lol! Now if Hinkle was somewhere having dinner or visiting his relatives and recieved an emergency call of a situation in Wayne County that he needed to look into immediately, would the county board want him driving back 55mph in his privately-owned vehicle or would they want him getting back as quickly as possible in his squad car?
Some people simply cannot think straight, Hinkle and his staff are on-duty 24 hours a day so they need to have their emergency vehicles readily available. Are all county boards across this region this dumb?