The clerk contacted me. They can’t find this FOIA Request. Multiple copies and they lost them, imagine my surprise.
By: Diane Benjamin
On Monday I spoke during public comment at the Bloomington City Council meeting. I posted the video yesterday. Below are details on one Freedom of Information Act request the City of Bloomington has ignored. They didn’t redact information – I was completely ignored. Emails from my blnnews@yahoo email address suddenly began bouncing months ago, so now I send them from a different account.
Here is the FOIA I filed in October:
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I gave the City Attorney, Rosalee Dodson, another copy at our November court hearing. By law, the City had 5 days to respond. They did not.
Here is why I filed the FOIA request:
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If the City had a legal reason for loaning money to an employee, wouldn’t they have answered the FOIA request?
The Illinois Constitution states that Public Funds can ONLY be Used for Public purposes.
More law:
(720 ILCS 5/33-3) (from Ch. 38, par. 33-3)
(Text of Section before amendment by P.A. 98-867)
Sec. 33-3. Official misconduct.) A public officer or employee or special government agent commits misconduct when, in his official capacity or capacity as a special government agent, he commits any of the following acts:
(a) Intentionally or recklessly fails to perform any mandatory duty as required by law; or
(b) Knowingly performs an act which he knows he is forbidden by law to perform; or
(c) With intent to obtain a personal advantage for himself or another, he performs an act in excess of his lawful authority; or
(d) Solicits or knowingly accepts for the performance of any act a fee or reward which he knows is not authorized by law.
A public officer or employee or special government agent convicted of violating any provision of this Section forfeits his office or employment or position as a special government agent. In addition, he commits a Class 3 felony.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=072000050K33-3
Do laws only matter for citizens?
Maybe I should visit the local Sheriff and State’s Attorney.
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Great job and sounds like a criminal matter to me and perhaps the State Police might be agency to go to since this city and county is nothing more than a good ol boy network. As for the FOIA request in your other email, why not contact the Public Integrity Unit of the ILAG’s office and file a compliant in addition to your civil lawsuit? A Continuing Criminal Enterprise existing right here in State Farm City!
Geez, what a mess. From a “work-ability” viewpoint, even the account numbers are so beastly in terms of the eyes alone! What is the functionality of have eleven leading zeros as placeholders? In what universe would a budget be so drilled down into that level of subaccount? I am picturing this behemoth piece of shit software that no one, not even the software company’s sales rep can explain anymore (It’s probably barely even supported anymore because no viable software company gets by w/this low-grade garbage anymore), because the City probably had so many useless “customizations” that they wanted done to “fit” their own unique situation. This kinda shitty software is very difficult to “lockdown” in terms of preventing unauthorized users from creating accounts because there’s so many backdoor ways of getting into it. Trust me, I’ve worked in local government and I’ve seen this in action. Departments being assigned one password to share, being able to make changes in the database and there would be no running history or record of the changes . . . it would just be “poof” different. Really makes culpability hard to determine . . .
The City Comptroller would have a better time of it if they put all this shit in Quickbooks. At least then, the Comptroller could unfailingly “lock it down.” Of course, that makes it harder for employees to steal . . . so those employees would not want a streamlined, locked down system, heck no . . . they want the big mess in which to hide their tracks.
Incidentally, now we have to wonder what the contra-account to this “loan” is. Wonder what it’s named and where it’s buried.
I’m thinking I will hear it was a mistake account and by the final statement it was no longer there.