August Township meeting was exciting

Dorr Township residents are invited to take part in your local government. A few residents are pushing for increased transparency in government and by paying attention to what is going on.

One resident, Jane Collins, a Woodstock attorney, asked a really great question at last night's monthly meeting. Jane asked about the agenda item for Approval of Claims. Each month Jane looks through the Township's expenditures. The question? Are the trustees being asked to approve claims for payment, or have the bills already been approved and paid and they are just being asked to ratify payment?

Which way do you think it should be? (see below)

Jane and I pointed out numerous errors in the draft Minutes for the July 13, 2010, trustees' meeting. Each month there are spelling (this month: attorny, ordance, conection, sherriff (where have I seen that before?)), grammatical, punctuation and sentence structure errors. I raised the issue that, unless the trustees' make a request for correction, the Town Clerk doesn't make corrections. Did the trustees ask for any corrections to be made? No, although Supervisor Bob Pierce alluded to the Clerk's role in making the corrections. Caryl Lemanski addressed the elected officials and urged their close attention to the monthly Minutes. Caryl added that the trustees' "professionalism is not reflected in the Minutes." Thanks for putting it so nicely, Caryl.

It's really the trustees who ought to be noting all the corrections needed, not us nitpickers in the audience. If we knew they would, then we wouldn't.

Jane wanted the response of the Illinois Attorney General's Public Access Counselor (PAC) to her appeal attached to this month's Minutes, so that the record would exist that the PAC denied the Township's decision to withhold records about soil borings testing. The beginnings of a heated discussion took place, when Township Attorney Mark Saladin answered for the Supervisor that the PAC's response would be in Township records (only). When the August 10th Minutes are available next month, I guess we'll find out if the PAC letter is attached.

Later I commented that I felt the Township improperly redacted certain information when it provided Town Clerk Quinn Keefe's application/resume to me. The Township had withheld the name of Quinn former employer, the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce, and had also withheld the name of the organization that named Quinn its 2009 Citizen of the Year. After it withheld the information from me, it subsequently released the name of the Woodstock Moose Club to Jane Collins when responding to her FOIA request.

Was it Winston Churchill who said, when criticized for ending a sentence with a preposition, "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I shall not put"?

I also requested at last night's meeting that the monthly meetings include a report by the elected Town Clerk. The Clerk's duties are prescribed in the Illinois Compiled Statutes, and it would be interesting to hear a report each month about his duties and activities.

Assessor Kelli Myers and her staff are working to complete the assessments, so that they can meet the County's deadline. You might want to get out the torch and solder your mailbox door shut. It's almost time for your property tax assessments. Kelli is using a book, Who You Are (When No One Is Looking), with her staff. Sounds like a great book!

A new look for the Township website is coming our way. Keep an eye on www.dorrtownship.com

Township Highway Commissioner Tom Thurman reported that a break-in had occurred at the Town Garage and $3,400 worth of equipment had been stolen. If you see suspicious activity after hours at any Township property, call the police or sheriff's department. Don't wait.

Oh, about the bills? The bills are paid before the trustees ever get a chance to approve them. Just pass the rubber stamp, please...