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Everything they
discuss, everything they consider is to promote the general welfare
of the citizens they serve. Every once in a while there is a
landmark bit of legislation or local ordinance that actually
advances the cause of democracy to a new level, and all the citizens
are benefited in an impartial manner. Often freedom is diverted for
a while with well-meaning legislation that misses the mark.
This
coming Tuesday evening the Logan County Board will revisit and vote
on a county ordinance aimed at making agencies and any organizations
that provide services in the county using county funds more
responsible by making them operate in a manner more in line with the
Illinois Open Meetings Act. This means that the public should have
more information about how corporations like CIEDC and Rural Healthy
Community Partnerships, Oasis and numerous other entities are
operated.
This
local ordinance will require that all county-supported
nongovernmental agencies must provide public access and minutes of
their meetings, as well as a full accounting of how they spent their
county funding. On the surface this might seem like a good thing. Public funding of programs should come with responsible oversight. Public funding should mean that the public interest is being served.
The
Illinois Open Meetings Act is a piece of legislation that
was meant to regulate the activities of every governmental body in
Illinois. This includes the legislature and the governor's office,
all the way down to your local school boards. The intent was to
provide public access to the business of the state and bring the
public matters of government to the public. Last modified in July
2002, this act followed a nationwide landmark trend to make
government more responsible and more reliable. A guide to this
Illinois legislation can be found at
http://www.ag.state.il.us/pdf/openmeet02.pdf.
There are several exemptions in the Open Meetings Act to allow that
the sensitive business of government might happen. General
acquisitions and specific health issues are exempted from the public
forum because of their sensitive nature. The act allows that
governmental bodies might responsibly deal with these issues by
calling a special or executive session. There is a continuing
tension that the act brings to the business of government as
lawmakers and even the media participate in the process of making
sure that business discussed behind closed doors shouldn't instead
be discussed in the open.
The entire intent of the Open Meetings Act is
that our government shouldn't be a clandestine, secretive
organization working against the public welfare. The mechanisms of
government should hold up to public scrutiny.
The
Illinois Open Meetings Act doesn't cover the affairs of 501(c)
corporations and other private agencies that deliver services to
the public. The act covers only governmental bodies. This has been
tested in courts across Illinois (and other states as well). This
is why the Logan County Board is voting on this new county
ordinance. They seem to feel the need to have more control over
service providers.
The way services are funded at this level is that the government
anticipates a service need, and the 501(c) organization applies for
granting to provide those public services, with a specific set of
outcomes that it must meet. The 501(c) organization must provide
proof that the money it received did in fact provide for the
services it was contracted to provide. At the end of the process,
the governmental body can decide if the granting mandate was
fulfilled or not. If so, they can renew the granting, or if not,
even pursue the provider in court for the return of the funds.
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this commentary]
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 It is almost unknown as to what the
county board's motives are in
this vote. Often good ordinances come about for bad reasons (almost
everything is reactionary, isn't it?). The granting mechanism is an
adequate control for providing services to the public, but they feel
it necessary to put a further choke on service providers by making
sure that the public and specifically the county board are notified
of all their business, including who they talk to about what and how
they spend their money. It is widely suspected that this ordinance
is proposed to specifically control the efforts of Jeff Mayfield and
the chamber's Economic Development Council, which has recently come
under fire by the county board.
It is well
known that the county board is not happy with the Economic
Development Council. Perhaps the rift came about when the city of
Lincoln failed to support the county's efforts in the sales tax
referendum, and then later the lines were drawn when the city allied with the EDC to develop the industrial park on the
city's north end.
It seems
that the county board fails to understand and appreciate the role
that the EDC plays here in the county. They are here to encourage
public and private parties to work together for the common good. They are the cheerleader for the growth of the private sector and
the behind-the-scenes ombudsman to bring about future benefits for
the taxpayers of Logan County. They don't have any power or
authority. They merely seek to attract business to Logan County and
get the responsible parties talking.
The county
board seems to be insinuating that the EDC is running a clandestine
ops group which is running counter to the public welfare. There are
certainly things concerning the acquisition of properties and the
startup of businesses in Logan County that the EDC is privy to which
it does not release to the public for obvious reasons. But the EDC
is not clandestine -- it releases information when (not if) it is
appropriate to the parties involved and makes sure that its
partners, the city of Lincoln and Logan County are on board for
whatever anyone is proposing. Since Mayfield joined the EDC, some
things have started happening around here for a change. But, there are
always some who resist change.
Recently
the county board has dropped a number of bombs on the EDC to stifle
their efforts, the latest of which was the formation of a six- member
county committee for economic development. They were clearly
pushing away from the common table and electing to do their own
thing. They have also recently withheld $25,000 farm fund
monies from the EDC.
Whatever their motives, it is clear that at
this point there is bad blood between the EDC and the county board!
This bad
blood may result in a bad ordinance for Logan County. While it
might be meant to control the activities of the EDC in the short run
(the county board could certainly cut off the EDC's county funding
at the end of this fiscal year and put an end to that relationship),
it will have long-lasting effects on all private service providers
because it does not have the same protections for the public in the
ordinance that the state act provides. There are no exemptions in
this act. The public must be apprised of all the activities of
these service providers.
Since there are no exemptions, this means that when Rural Healthy
Partnerships provides services for AIDS and STD victims, their
identities must be disclosed to the public. This means that
services provided for the elderly by CIEDC must be disclosed to the
county board and be available to the public, including their names
and addresses. It means that the Oasis is subject to opening their
books, and on and on.
I believe
this is a bad ordinance crafted for bad reasons, and it will have a
bad effect on every private service provider in Logan County. If
the county board has lost faith in the EDC, they should work to
resolve the issues and restore the relationship with the EDC and the
city of Lincoln on behalf of the public. If their trust cannot be
restored, then they should cut funding to the EDC at the end of the
grant.
This proposed ordinance should make every
service provider and every local governmental official cringe
because it is a bad ordinance.
On behalf of the citizenry of Logan
County, we humbly ask, ladies and gentlemen, that you
vote it down on Tuesday night. Please, vote it down.
[Jim
Youngquist] |
