By: Diane Benjamin
Ever heard of lawyers dragging on a case hoping you quit?
I dragged it on long enough for CIAM quit!
Brief recap:
I filed the lawsuit when it became obvious the City NEVER checked to see if concession revenue at the Coliseum was paid according to the contract. It was also apparent that Lisa Madigan’s Public Access Office wasn’t going to do anything about it – I waited at least 6 months for her office to act. They didn’t.
The actual court hearing was pretty uneventful. The judge still didn’t like what I filed, but she was willing to let me file again. I’m a lot closer to getting it right though, there could still be a hearing if what came next falls apart.
CIAM’s attorney called for a settlement discussion, so we all adjourned to a jury room to talk. They want this case over and are willing to give me the concession documents for the entire year of 2014. Victory, since they have said they aren’t going to hand them over for MANY months now. They do not want to give me payroll figures. I agreed to compromise on that.
In order to settle, both the City of Bloomington’s lawyer and CIAM’s lawyers want a signed statement claiming No Fault by either party. If it implies “No Fault” regardless of what I find in the documents I won’t sign it.
I wanted to think about what happened before writing this story, sorry if I left the impression last night things went bad. I could write a lot more about the discussion we had, but now is not the best time to tell you. When I have the documents it will be.
For now:
Non-lawyer Diane is winning against 3 real lawyers.
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Great job Diane and you are the voice of reason, right and sanity for many of us. Keep on them because if you back off one iota, they will never follow through on information that should be readily available upon request. I remember when the Pantagraph used to publish annually facts such as how much money Bloomington, Normal, and McLean county collected each year in taxes. There really did used to be transparency in the form of published information. It really is a shame that it takes such an all out war in order to obtain information that by law should be available upon request. Great job and we owe you a great deal for pursuing these matters on behalf of all concerned taxpayers.
Keep up the fight and hooray for your continued efforts. Wish we had more taxpayers like you willing to go the extra mile for all.
That’s awesome!
No fault of lying–claiming they didn’t have the documents? What else is being lied about? Good thing you do excellent investigating.
You are a freaking rockstar!!!!