By: Diane Benjamin
On January 23rd WGLT had an intriguing story. I was hoping some other media cared or WGLT would do a followup because it left too many questions unanswered.
See the story here: http://wglt.org/post/emails-prosecutors-declined-citys-request-closed-session-coliseum-case
According to the story, WGLT got their hands on some emails between Bloomington attorney Jeff Jurgens and the State’s Attorney office. Jurgens wanted a secret briefing for the City Council on the Coliseum prosecutions.
Jurgens is supposedly well versed in municipal law, so he would know that secret meeting would violate the Open Meetings Act. State’s Attorney Jason Chambers refused the meeting on those grounds.
Other than it looks like somebody told Jurgens to request the meeting, and maybe the $80,000 a month his firm gets from Bloomington every month possibly jaded his ethics, why did the City want the meeting?
Even weirder, the emails were sent last September.
Since the emails were between the City of Bloomington and the State’s Attorneys office, one of them leaked the information to WGLT.
The question is why was it leaked? Was it to justify the prosecutors asking to remove one of John Butler’s attorneys because he was also representing Tari Renner in his criminal case?
That story was in the paper on January 11th and had this statement: http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/state-seeks-lawyer-s-removal-from-butler-s-team/article_1e44e1f3-6b85-5089-81da-8bfddf5e9cde.html
Too many questions weren’t answered:
- What was Jeff Jurgens thinking when he asked for the meeting?
- Who at the City put Jurgens up to asking and why?
- Was somebody at the City scared they might get prosecuted for failing to oversee the Coliseum operations?
- Who leaked the information to WGLT and why?
WGLT has some of those answers, evidently they have dropped the issue. Were they just “useful idiots” by reporting the story in the first place?
Since the emails make the City look ridiculous, who do you think leaked the information and why to WGLT?
Those must be questions we aren’t supposed to ask!
.
.
.
.
Tari’s criminal case? What criminal case? Maybe I’m having a brain cramp, but I can’t remember…
He is under investigation for illegal use of a government credit card
Geesh, how long does it take to investigate credit cards when the law is pretty dang clear? Illinois is crooked and incompetent beyond hope!
I know more than I’m allowed to write. Stay tuned.
Yep brain cramp. I didn’t realize it was being handled as a criminal matter.
I have some relatives that owned a business living in another state. A manager was embezzling money and got caught. Which is a crime. The State’s Attorney (SA) I believe prosecuted and my relatives couldn’t do anything. The case was out of their hands.
It ended up that the person was convicted and had to repay the money. When the person was late on paying or wouldn’t pay there wasn’t a thing they could do. All they could do was contact the SA.
Even though my relatives were victims in a sense their hands were tied.
Quite possibly the city council wanted to know if they were going to get any restitution and if so how much.
Maybe, but it was a couple of days after the indictments. It would have been very difficult to determine at that point. Besides, I gave them plenty of waning and nobody cared then.
In that case it only leaves about only one other reason why they wanted the meeting. To ask if they could be held liable or be prosecuted. Wouldn’t that be a big surprise. They should be prosecuted as well as Hales for their lack of accountability and responsibility. .
Tari Renner is the leaker based his leaks about executive session before and after they occurred. WGLT is his station with all his buddies.
I was going to ask why would he choose to look stupid, but . . .
Illinois State University spent $160,000 in 2010 to buy new Citrix server hardware and software for the Virtual Desktop Initiative project. It has never worked, and it has not been used.
What department?
The dean of the College of Applied Science and Technology spent the money. Administrative Technologies was supposed to implement it. Eight years later, all of that software and hardware is now outdated junk.
Unfortunately that’s standard procedure when you aren’t spending your own money.