Judge Jones has scheduled a hearing tomorrow on my FOIA case at 10:30. The State's Attorney's office has indicated that they would not oppose my petition for court fees. This is a switch from my conversation with Julia Rietz two weeks ago when she said that would never happen. But hey, people sometimes grow in office, and I'll be glad if indeed she has on this particular case.
I'll post afterward if anything interesting happens. Where do I get a free wireless connection in downtown Urbana?
UPDATE : Yes, the County agreed to give me the fees that I originally gave them. Unfortunately, of course, this could easily have been avoided by acceding to my original request, or to my appeal. Also unfortunate is that we don't have a judge's ruling that clearly outlines what is and isn't a public document. Without that, we can expect to see more disputes since the State's Attorney seems determined to construe the law in favor of the government instead of the public.
Is Julia Rietz, Barbara Wysocki, or Steve Beckett going to pay out of their own pocket, or is Rietz just agreeable to having the County taxapers pay this cost (along with wasted attorney fees by the County), as your message seems to imply.
I guess if it's not coming out of her pocket, why should she care about wasting County tax payer's money?
Strawberry Fields has wireless.
Mark;
How about afterwards, you do some of the business that you were elected to do!
One does wonder just how much county money, not to mention the time and cost of an elected county official, has been spent in bringing suits against the county in which the official 'works.'
Maybe I should do a FOI.
Hey, it isn't the first time an elected official has sued the County, Laurel Prussing did it when she was Auditor.
and won.
"One does wonder just how much county money, not to mention the time and cost of an elected county official, has been spent in bringing suits against the county in which the official ”Ëœworks.'"
Well, considering the county illegally withheld the documents I think its pretty clear where the blame lies on this for any waste.
I agree with anonymous....Mark please get off your "horse"...darn near beating it to death, and concentrate on the work you were elected to do. I do remember a pretty heated CB9 race where Kirchner/Bell were asking the hard questions about the CCNH.... way back in Jan...and the lack of disclosure on many fronts...mold, and a non existent pre qualified vendors list to name a few...and were touted as antagonists looking for answers only for political gain..their requests were met with Becketts .."its none of your business" attitude. If you were really concerned and weren't using this for political purposes... where were you months ago? The Mark Shelden good citizen show is over. Curious here....as I look around I see you posting on this site pretty regularly during business hours....is this within your job description? Seems like a real waste of county money!!
I'm sitting at the new O'Brien Auto...they have wireless!!