Deedrich Settlement

This appointment was a costly mistake for which the taxpayers, as always, are going to pick up the bill.  Please, Champaign County Board Members, learn to be less concerned about party affiliation and more concerned about qualifications of appointees.

The big question should be why the County is coughing up a year and a half's salary when he only had a year left in his term.  Hmmm.  Inquriring minds want to know.

My question remains, would this settlement fall under County Board Rule 15, Item F :

"Transfers from one appropriation of any one fund to another of the same fund not affecting the total amount appropriated, and appropriations in excess of those authorized by the budget in order to meet an immediate emergency may be made at any meeting of the Board by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of ALL the members constituting such Board (i.e. 18); the vote to be taken by ayes and nays and entered on the record of the meeting, as required by 55 ILCS 5/6-1003."

Settling a lawsuit with Curt Deedrich is certainly not in the County Budget. To meet this requirement at least 3 Republicans would have to join all 15 Democrats in approving a settlement. I just don't see that happening. As I said earlier, most R's on the County Board feel paying Deedrich even a token amount is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

I also look forward to the FOIA requests for all of the Deedrich documents after this is all said and done - that is if the Gazette wants to continue its sudden crusade for open information from our local governments.

I believe IP was attempting to link to this.

"they were the one's who placed this guy into office out of party loyalty instead of qualifications"

For the umpteenth time, that's a lie.  Those of us who supported Deedrich's appointment at the time genuinely believed that he was qualified.  That means the decision was based on both party loyalty and qualifications.  You can certainly question our judgement, but it is an outright lie to claim that the Democrats deliberately appointed someone they knew was unqualified.

"If $100,000 of my tax dollars are going to pay attorneys and Deedrich because our state's attorney didn't know how to go about firing a county employee, I am going to be pissed."

Well, you can relax, because as I pointed out earlier, the settlement has nothing to do with Loudermill.  It has everything to do with cutting off the endless stream of lawsuits Deedrich would inevitably have filed, whether they were legitimate or not.  In addition, Loudermill would have never required that Deedrich be permanently reinstated, or even that he necessarily be paid anything.

"If this amount ($100,000) is true, the county would have a lot more than that in legal fees to fight all the different lawsuits that Deedrich has filed"

On that, at least, we should all be able to agree.  What people seem to be unaware of is the fact that Deedrich was going to fight to the bitter end whether he had any legitimate claims or not.  This is entirely consistent with the behavior he has exhibited since taking office.  We are much better off paying him his remaining salary (which satisfies his property interest in employment) and being done with it.  It's a bargain compared to what it could have cost, or what damage Deedrich could have done to the county tax cycle had he been left in office.

Some want to pay him so that he'll go away quietly - not to pro(t)ect the County from embarassment, but to protect themselves.

Does this sound like the same justification for all the efforts being employed to keep our former governor out of jail?

I want a job like that - where I would be rewarded so well for screwing everything up so badly.

Might I suggest U.S. president or Illinois governor?

I second you on that John, we desperately need some real representation here in County Board District 5.  Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter, we just need somebody who actually has a basic understanding of County Government.

"Come on Kevin, you can argue that you thought he "was qualified" but you, of all people, CAN NOT argue that you believed he was the MOST qualified."

I don't remember ever having said that I believed he was the most qualified.  If I did, please point me to it, so that I can review it in context.  What I did say was that there were some Democrats who believed that.  And I objected to the implication that anyone acted to appoint someone they knew to be unqualified.

"You thought he "was qualified" so your support for him wasn't political?"

Again, I don't think I've ever said that my support for him wasn't political.  In fact, I think I have said exactly the opposite more than once.  I'll say it again, if you'd like:  Politics was clearly part of the equation at the time.

"Now he's too much of an embarrassment to keep around and you and the Dems are willing to spend any amount of MY tax dollars to make the problem (you helped to create) just GO AWAY."

I'm not willing to spend a dime on him.  Unfortunately, it's not up to me.

" Now you want to fire him for political reasons"

Nothing could be further from the truth.  I've wanted him fired for two years now because he treats his employees like crap.  No county employee deserves that, but I feel it especially keenly when the employees are union members.  It is obviously all the more painful when one of those employees is my wife.

"Laura's hiring was also a political favor and that was fine with them.  Then when things didn't work out they changed their tune."

The "tune" changed because the knowledge base expanded.  Laura had an up close and personal look at how Curt works, something that no one involved had prior to his appointment.  As a result, after enduring a year of hell, she took a significant cut in pay to get out of an openly hostile environment.  I'm not at all sure that I fully understand what it is exactly that you are implying.

"Now they're fighting to remove Deedrich so Laura can have the job."

Laura only even became eligible for that position in the last few months.  We've been calling for his removal for two years, long before it was ever even possible for Laura to qualify for such an appointment.  Our reasons for the past two years have been all about Curt and the well-being of his remaining employees.

If the county board decides that they want to hire Laura for any other position, including S of A, she would probably be foolish to turn it down.  But no matter what Laura does for employment in the future, Curt needs to go away.  Very far away.

"All of their postings on this site make it clear to anyone how desperately the Sandefurs wanted Deedrich gone.  That's more than political......it's personal."

Of course it is, but not for the reasons you suggest.  She used to work for him, and he went out of his way to terrorize and harass her.  This behavior continued even when she left to take a position on the Board of Review.  Why wouldn't it be personal?

"Party loyalty first, and forever."

You obviously don't know us at all.  I would have thought, however, that you might have guessed how difficult this past year has been for us.  We have been seriously alienated from a large segment of party regulars for the crime of telling the embarassing truth about Curt Deedrich.

As difficult as this has been, and as grotesque as the attacks on us here have become, we would not do it any differently.  We can't.  When any party's leadership is so clearly wrong, as much of the party has been for the past two years in this case, then the party be damned.

Our first duty as Democrats is to hold our party to the ideals it claims to stand for.  Sometimes that means saying that the emperor is naked.  But we would be sorry Democrats indeed, if we didn't ever put ourselves on the line to try to make our party better.

"Truth is that Laura only became eligible in the last few months because she has had to take the test several times to pass it."

This is just about the only true sentence in that entire comment.  The test is apparently a bear.  Ask anyone who's taken it.  A lot of people don't pass it on their first, or even second, try.  That doesn't, however, change the fact that this all started because of the way Curt treated his employees long before Laura's first attempt.

"Laura didn't leave the SA's office.  She was given the opportunity to move to another job or be fired. (again I hear this from the SA staff so I assume it's true)"

That is a flat out lie.  And you did not hear that from any of the SA rank and file, because they don't lie.  Curt actually did fire Laura at one point, but reconsidered it an hour later when she pointed out to him that this would leave him open to a wrongful termination suit, since this was after she had already begun to let county board members know about the problems in the office.  He called it blackmail.  We thought of it as whistleblower protection.  That was the last time she ever heard anything about firing.

Curt originally had told Laura that she should move to the Board of Review because she would "be happier there."   When Laura pointed out that the pending appointment was the swing seat on the board, and thereforeprobably only a "two year and out" gig, Curt told her that he would arrange for her to get Dan Stebbin's seat.

Dan is a fellow Democrat who Curt had been at loggerheads with from the day he stepped into the office.   Dan's appointment didn't come up for another year, but Curt told Laura that he would arrange for Dan not to be reappointed, and that she should take the pending appointment as an interim step.

Laura had served with Dan in her previous tenure on the board.  We also had worked with Dan on both the Faraci and Rietz campaigns, and we were and still are all pretty good friends.  Of course, Laura told Curt that she didn't want a job at the expense of a friend and fellow Democrat.  Curt set up a meeting for her with CB chair Barb Wysocki to discuss it anyway.

Laura went to the meeting even though Curt had scheduled it without her knowledge, and she told Barb the same thing that she had told Curt: that she didn't want to move to the Board of Review at the ultimate expense of a fellow Democrat, and that she wasn't really interested in an appointment that would probably only last two years.

When Curt found out what Laura had told Barb, he went ballistic.  That was when he fired her, as I described above.  After she braced him and he backed down on firing her, his harassment increased exponentially until, after a few weeks of hell, she went back to Barb and asked to be put on the Board of Review just to get out from under Curt.

"word is that Kevin and Laura have frequented this site and buttered up the Republicans because Laura wants to switch parties and stay on the Board of Review."

The "word" is wrong.  There is simply no way that either Laura or I could ever switch parties, at least with a straight face.  This is not because we believe Republicans to be evil or stupid.  They obviously are not.  (At least, not any more than Democrats.)  Some of them, in fact, are notably intelligent, and occasionally as noble as you could ever ask for.  Rather, we can not switch parties because there are legitimate differences of opinion on a handful of issues that are non-negotiable for us.  We are, and will always be, Democrats.  Anyone who knows us would laugh in your face for suggesting any different.  (That is, if you had a face.)

Obviously, Laura would prefer to remain employed.  If that can't happen, so be it.  She knew when she took the appointment that it would probably end after two years.  That's how it works.

I don't hang out here to butter anyone up.  If you think I have, you haven't been paying very close attention.  Go back through the archives, and what you will discover is that the reason I originally started posting on Pundit was the exact same reason I am writing this now: to counter the unbelievable slanders that Curt insists on throwing up here anonymously.

"The harrassment charges were found to have no merit and there were no subsequent complaints."

Once more, just not true at all.  First of all, the derogatory comment was only one, and possibly the least, of a long laundry list of transgressions alleged in the three complaints.  If you could read the transcripts of the investigation (and I really hope that someday everyone can), what you would find is that the charges were corraborated by a number of witnesses.  What the county board discovered was that the charges in the complaints, even though they were found to be true, were insufficient for removal, which is the only meaningful discipline that is allowed for the S of A.

And there have been further complaints.  AFSCME has filed a number of grievances, both before and after the investigation.  There has also since then been either a lawsuit or civil rights complaint of some sort against Deedrich and the county as the result of his treatment of a fourth employee who I believe was let go at the end of her probationary period.  The details are sketchy on this, possibly because of a sealed settlement.

"Again this is rumor, but since that's what this site is based on"

Your true colors are showing.  I'm sure Gordy loves hearing this sort of thing.

We could probably produce witnesses to corroborate just about every single thing we've ever said on here.  Witnesses who would be willing to identify themselves, unlike Curt and his one or two puppets who turn up here anonymously from time to time.  To be fair, if I were Curt, I probably wouldn't identify myself on here either.  I still don't fully understand how he can ever show his face in public after some of the whoppers he's told.

I have a simple rule for online discourse: never say anything I wouldn't say in person, looking you straight in the eye, and never present anything as absolute fact that I can't confirm.  Whenever I'm guessing, I say so.  Whenever my information is too far removed to be absolutely trustworthy, I say so.  That's why I'm confortable posting under my own name: because I can stand by what I write...

Son of a barrelmaker: Your argument seems internally contradictory to me.  If Health Care Consumers is the Dems' pet cause, then the Dems would not be upset by the hospitals' loss of tax exempt status; instead, they would welcome it, as the Health Care Consumers do, as both right and proper.

Illinois state statute and subsequent case law clearly stipulate that in order to be exempt from property taxes, a non-profit entity such as a hospital must have charity as its primary use.  Obviously, neither Carle nor Provena qualify by that standard of "primary use."  Because this has only rarely been enforced in the past, a lot of people are unaware of the true nature of the law.

You should also be aware of a couple of other things, including the fact that the Board of Review does not make the decisions regarding exempt status.  They collect the information, and then pass it, along with a non-binding recommendation, on to the state Department of Revenue (IDOR), which makes the actual determination.

Also, in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I served as the Adminstrative Director of the Health Care Consumers from 1986 until 1993, and Laura served as their part-time bookkeepper for a year in 1997-1998 under a contractual arrangement with her fujl-time employer at the time, Illinois Center for Citizen Involvement.  My current employer, Community Shares of Illinois, shares an office suite with Health Care Consumers.  So did a previous employer of mine (Illlinois Public Action, now Citizen Action), so I have been in the same office with Health Care Consumers continuously since 1984.

Finally, your suggestion that this single issue is the most important factor in Curt's dismissal ignores an enormous body of history, and lacks all perspective.  The reason the issue is even mentioned in the five counts is not because of the issue itself, but rather because of the letter which Curt sent to the state's top officials calling for an investigation of IDOR.  As the state agency directly responsible for all property tax matters, the relationship between it and our Supervisor of Assessments is vital to the healthy functioning of the tax cycle.

wondervogel: You raise a very valid point.  Quite frankly, given the number of Democrats we have alienated over the last two years, it's somewhat doubtful at this point that Laura could survive the nomination process for dog catcher, let alone Supervisor of Assessments.

The current County Board chair has stated publicly more than once that the search for a new S of A will be state wide.  As he has put it, one needn't know anyone in the county to successfully oversee the technical adminstration of property taxes.  Property tax law is not written in a partisan fashion, and is therefore not a Democratic or Republican province.  I fully trust Pius Wiebel to do the right thing.  We can only hope that the rest of the county board has learned enough from the Deedrich affair to follow his lead.  I know we have.

"I think I would want to talk to Barb Wysocki before I would believe any of his above story."

By all means, please do.  Unlike Curt, I enthusiastically welcome independent verification of anything I have to say.

Also, I just noticed that I misspelled Pius' last name above, but I can't seem to get the edit function to work this morning.  It should be "Weibel."  Please consider this my apologetic correction.