County State's Attorney

Running against the golden girl of the News-Gazette is no easy task.  But Janie Miller Jones is giving it a try.  She's got a website up now that gives voters some background on her as well as some of her ideas for the office.

Today would probably be a good day to not be in the Courthouse.   The County's new courts technology  program is launching and it will be remarkable if it goes smoothly. 

In 1998, when the 1/4 cent sales tax for public safety passed, $250,000 per year was allocated to improve the technology in the criminal justice system.  After reviewing a number of options, the County went with New World Systems with a so called "box" solution that would need to tailored to the needs of Champaign County.  Getting this product out of the box and installed and running in Champaign County has taken about 7 or 8 years. 

The system should incorporate the Sheriff's office, Circuit Clerk, Probation, State's Attorney, Public Defender, and Circuit Judges into one system. This will eliminate needing to reenter court records at each stage in the process.  In addition, the system envisions scanning court documents in order to eliminate transferring files to Courtrooms. 

But whenever you involve this many offices in such a large project there are likely to be problems.  While each of the offices works together, each also has it's own way of doing things.  Because so many of these people are elected officials in their own right, they also don't necessarily have to go along with the program.  For example, if a judge still wants the entire paper court record brought to his courtroom, that's what's going to happen. 

I have little doubt that in the end, hopefully within weeks, the system will be running smoothly.  But the transition could give some  heartburn to more than a few people.  From a public perception, Circuit Clerk Linda Frank stands front and center on this project.  It is her staff that is going to have to inform legal secretaries that  their filing which would have sufficed last week may be lacking this week.  Or that someone with a traffic ticket has had their case postponed because the data didn't make it into the new system.  I give a lot of credit to Linda for pushing forward on this in an election year.  It would have been easy to put off this launch for six months to place it outside the political debate.

One positive for the public is that Linda fought for continued free access to the docket sheets as she has been providing for years.  Some enterprising officials apparently would have liked to go to a pay system.  That free system also is in transition, so don't be surprised if your access this week is sporadic.

No doubt some readers will be at the Courthouse this week.  I'd like to hear comments.

WICD reported during their 10 O'Clock newscast that Champaign County will consider a settlement with the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. The County originally faced a fine of $50,000 due to a County Co-administrator's failure to properly comply with various regulations during the delayed construction of the new Champaign County Nursing Home. The settlement calls for the County to provide $19,000 in free services to area senior citizens - health screenings, diabetes testing, etc. Sounds like a great deal, doesn't it? $19,000 is a whole lot better than $50,000, right?

Well, as is always the case with anything involving CCNH, and specifically the County Board Facilities Committee, chaired by Steve Beckett, you have to read the fine print. We have $19,000 in taxpayer dollars spent on senior services to comply with the settlement, then you add the $26,000 in attorney fees through February, and all the sudden this settlement isn't looking all rosey, is it? Just wait until we get the bill for March, April and May!

I'd also point out that the settlement and legal fees for this issue alone will be greater than the salary of three full time employees (at $9.62/hr) who are about to be laid off at CCNH. 

Somehow though, Denny Inman still has his ($100,000+/yr) job. Sad.

That's what one expert told me when I told this expert how much we had paid to Duane Morris.  Never in 20 years had this person seen a fee that high.  And the person I was talking to does big projects.  I mean big projects.  I've got links to a number of State Agency Reports below on projects (no this person didn't do all these projects, but this person works on projects like these) in just the last 6 months that are over $250 million below.  This person told me that you wouldn't see fees as high as $400,000 on any of these, and some of these actually had opposition. 

Our project was a layup in the open court.  There is no way to justify the fee we paid.  And no, I still haven't heard back from Julia Rietz about all those State's Attorneys that highly recommended this firm or with a list of their previous work that would justify hiring them.

Central Dupage, $256 Mill

Rush Hospital, $617 Mill

Children's Memorial Hospital, 1 Billion!!

Elmhurst Memorial, $475 Mill

Edward Plainfield Hospital, $249 Mill

Advocate Hospital, $251 Mill

University of Chicago, $785 Mill

Silver Cross Hospital, $397 Mill

Yesterday I wrote about the case of the Rock Island nursing home where they did their Certificate of Need work in house.  As I said then, it was perfectly reasonable to seek outside help for our project, the question is why should we have paid so much for it.  Well, today's subject is Charles Foley.

Foley is not an attorney, but is an expert on the Certificate of Need process.  Foley charges a flat fee, based on the complexity of the project.  He quotes you the fee up front.  DeKalb paid him about $30,000 for their CON about ten years ago.  Monroe County is paying him about $35,000 for their current project.  From what I've heard, his fees range from $25,000 to $50,000.  We have paid $400,000, and the work has been bad, although Ms. Rietz insists that these attorneys are not "out to get us" and come "highly recocmmended".

Foley's name stood out because of his work on some public projects.  But there is one other notable item when it comes to Foley.  Our attorney's apparently relied on Foley's expertise in moving our own CON through the process.  Here is a link to a portion of a memo from Neville Bilimoria to the County written just prior to our February 2004 hearing on our Certificate of Need.  Here is a portion of what it says.

I spoke with Chuck about logistics also. He is going to be at the IHFPB meeting on some of his own projects outside of Champaign County's. We agreed that he would sit directly behind us and not be sworn in for the IHFPB meeting. He will be available if we need him to answer questions during the testimonial phase.

That's right.  Champaign County paid $400,000 to "experts" who have to have a guy who makes $35,000 sitting behind them.  That would be like paying me $5 million to coach the Illinois basketball team, but Bruce Weber sits behind me.  Perhaps nothing else better demonstrates just how clueless this firm we hired was.

Oh, and the memo was given to me by a County Board member.

That was the response of more than one expert I talked to in the last week about the costs of obtaining our Certificate of Need and subsequent work.  That's even after some of the complicating issues.  Of the $600,000 that we have paid Duane Morris, approximately $400,000 was related to our Certificate of Need, alterations to the same, and then followup work on our final cost report and compliance.

So what's the going rate for doing this work from people who actually do this work?  How about $25,000-$50,000.  That's right.  And some of these experts actually work for, can you believe it, a FLAT fee.  For example, DeKalb County, a county which we are looking to as a model for our own, paid about $30,000 to their consultant for their Certificate of Need 9 years ago.

As one person put it to me,  it appears that we paid for the education of Duane Morris.  This becomes painfully obvious when you consider that they weren't even aware of the impact of the new rules on our project. 

I have no idea why we have this firm representing us.  And after hiring them, I have no idea why we kept them after their deficiencies became painfully obvious.  Earlier this week I gave Julia Rietz a letter asking her for examples of other work that Duane Morris has done along the lines of what we were asking them to do.  I also asked for some names of the State's Attorneys who so highly recommended their services.  I'll let you know if and when she responds.  The audio below is Ms. Rietz with another empassioned attorney defense.

I wrote yesterday about Julia Rietz and the attorneys she supports.  I’ll add a little more perspective later on the outrageous fees they’ve charged us overall.  But today I want to focus just on the costs associated with the fine from the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

If you recall, last year the County Board learned that they would be subject to fines for failing to inform the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board about changes they made in the Nursing Home project after it was approved.  I predicted that it would happen a year earlier and even suggested on more than one occasion that our legal counsel was not doing a good job for us.  In my mind, they were the primary cause for our fine for their failure to properly inform us of our obligations under the new rules as well as to give us sound advice about the old rules.

For a year and half it’s been clear to me that this firm was in over their head.  They claimed to be experts but weren’t.  Even hiring someone away from the HFPB didn’t seem to help us.  So the idea that somehow their incompetence would result in us paying $50,000 seemed ridiculous.

At the County Facilities meeting on Tuesday, we were tol that we have apparently reached a deal on the fine with the HFPB.  It will be discussed at the full County Board meeting next week.

But perhaps the most outrageous part of this whole thing is what we are going to pay to try to get out of this fine.  In the months of November, December, January and February, Duane Morris had already charged us $26,529.42 to try to fight the fine.  That figure doesn’t include probably another thousand or so dollars in the October billing that appears to be related to our compliance problems.  And it doesn't include the amount they are going to bill us in March, April and May for the completion of this whole mess.

So we're likely to have legal fees in excess of $30,000, perhaps even $40,00.  Plus, we’re likely to still have to pay a fine.  It is very likely that the total package will exceed the original fine.

But no one should be outraged, no should ask questions, and certainly no one should think they’re out to get us.

RSW mentioned this in a previous post and some of you might have  heard some of these comments on WDWS.  I've put a media file link below that hopefully you can listen to, although I'm hardly a pro in such things.  The gist of it is that Julia Rietz at last week's County Facilities meeting tore into those who would dare to question how much our attorneys are charging us.  There's a lot to get into here, and I'm going to try to do it over the next couple days.  Suffice it to say in this post that we've now paid Duane Morris over $600,000 to represent us on various issues related to the nursing home.  Not only should County Board members be questioning that, they'd be remiss if they didn't.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on the outsourcing of legal work by Attorneys General that is interesting in light of Julia Rietz's interesting relationship with Joe Phebus.  Phebus has been working for the County for a year and a half and has not yet submitted a bill (that's nice) but also has not told the County Board how many billable hours he's put in on the cases he is pursuing on our behalf (that's bad).  Also recall that the Phebus contract has a big loophole in it that leaves open the final cost to the County of his legal work.

Today, Judge Ford ruled (07-L-109) that the County's contract for the Farnsworth group called for binding arbitration and threw out the County's attempt to move this battle into the court system.  I talked with State's Attorney Julia Rietz and she dismissed the importance of the ruling.  But there is little doubt that the County has invested substantial resources and time into the effort to push this into the courts. 

To review:  In August 2006, Julia Rietz hired one of her campaign contributors, Joe Phebus, to handle the County's litigation against PKD, Farnsworth, and Otto Baum for defects in the construction of the Nursing Home.  There is little doubt that Phebus is one of the premier litigators in Champaign County so while I had my qualms about the hire, I generally felt that it was sound.  Unfortunately, my confidence dwindled over time. 

First, Phebus came up with a settlement about $100,000 for PKD in December 2006.  As PKD had the responsibility to oversee the project and notify the County of problems, the settlement seemed generous.  The County Board approved the settlement.

Then Phebus filed a lawsuit in May 2007 asking for $5 million in damages from Farnsworth.  Virtually no one believed that the contract called for anything other than binding arbitration, but if Phebus read it different, so be it.

Following that lawsuit filing, I learned about a big loophole in the Phebus legal contract that would allow Julia Rietz to adjust his fee based on certain arbitrary criteria.

And throughout all of this, we still don't know how much Phebus has billed us for this work.  We presume, since he is supposedly working on an hourly fee, that he's tracking his hours.  But he has still not provided the County Board with any accounting of those hours.  18 months after beginning the work on this, we have no idea if we currently owe Phebus, $10,000, $100,000 or $1,000,000.  And even today, Julia Rietz dismissed the importance of knowing that.  

Now, we have lost a court case that probably never should have been filed at substantial expense to the County.  Plus, we've lost valuable time.   Three years after the discovery of mold and two years after the discovery of HVAC problems, the County has recovered less than 5% of their costs for these problems. 

Without the help of a single attorney, the County probably could have recovered $1 million between these two cases.  Instead, three years later, we have no settlement, no settlement on the horizon, and hundreds of thousands in known legal expenses, and probably hundreds of thousands in anticipated legal expenses. Now the County is going to be faced with bringing their case before a construction arbitrator; exactly what they were hoping to avoid. 

Champaign City Council has declined to take up a cell phone driving ban ordinance. Mayor Schweighart passed the study session request form to his colleagues but members were not anxious to take up the issue.

As I posted a few months ago, there are countless types of distracted driving and we cannot ban them all. We cannot ban children from fighting with each other in the back seat, from drivers reaching for a coke, from changing radio stations. I can appreciate the tragedy of the Wilhelms. Many years ago, I lost my high school-aged brother because of a distracted semi-truck driver. It's understandable to want to do something after the needless and tragic loss of Matt Wilhelm. But a ban on cell phone usage is a reactive and incomplete response.

Rep. Bill Black of Danville is advocating a task force to address the whole “distracted driver” problem with possible tougher legislation in the vehicle code. Working with law enforcement officials and other legislators will produce a more comprehensive approach.

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.

It's been plastered all over the news, but Republican gubernatorial candidate Andy Martin supposedly has a warrant for his arrest in Champaign County. Per a report on WDWS today, Martin filed a $10 million dollar lawsuit against the county. He called it a "political smear" by some people in higher office. He has mentioned presiding judge Tom DiFanis quite often. He's scheduled to be at a debate this Friday at WILL TV . One would think that Sheriff Walsh would execute the warrant then. Comments?

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Marcus Mason is leaving the Illinois football team.  They also are reporting that Julia Rietz is essentially going to let him off charges of burglary (just like Luther Head and Richard McBride) AND charges of forgery and unauthorized use of a credit card.  Mason will merely have to go through adult diversion.

It will be interesting to see the level of outrage leveled at Rietz for this virtually non-existent punishment by both the News-Gazette and the Champaign County bar, especially in light of the fact that the charges are more serious than the ones against Head and McBride.

Update:

Matthew correctly points out that I failed to mention the most important point of the post.  John Piland (whipping boy of the News-Gazette) was the State's Attorney who let McBride and Head off.  Now Julia Rietz (darling of the News-Gazette) is doing the same thing...but one anticipates with less criticism from the NG.  So far, the NG online version hasn't even covered the story.