Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Woodstock City Council - no action? Well, not yet...

At 5:22PM the Northwest Herald published an article about the result of last night's Executive (Closed) Session of the Woodstock City Council. Read it here.

Apparently the consensus at the City Council is that they can't do anything.

They're kidding; right?

If they think the residents were mad last night, wait until they start hearing from them tomorrow.

I posted this comment to the article:

"I guess the City Council really did NOT listen last night, if this is their response today. Mayor Sager, City Manager Stelford and Police Chief Lowen should pay a visit on State's Attorney Lou Bianchi. What the heck is going on around here? What's wrong with the police department and the Illinois State Police that they cannot present a case to Lou Bianchi that he'll buy? Violating the LEADS System is a felony. Period. Did they blow the investigation?

"Did the City Attorney tell the Mayor and City Council why they couldn't move forward? Or how they could?

"Why didn't Chief Lowen demote Amati for the LEADS violation? Why didn't he bust him back to chief window-washer at the P.D.? The public is not going to stand for inaction by the elected officials.

"Home-rule is not a trade-off here. It might feel good, but it'll bite the residents when the City extracts higher fees in order to pay for the "necessities" that we're getting along quite nicely now without.

"Was Lou Bianchi part of the State's Attorney Office decision, or did Mick Combs make it on his own? Violating the LEADS System and getting charged is a no-brainer. Exactly why did Combs blink, when the State Police wanted to charge Amati?

"And why didn't the Sheriff's Department accept the complaint and act like the law-enforcement agency that everybody pays so much to support? Who made the decision for the Sheriff's Dept.?"

You'll remember, of course, that Chief Lowen didn't even remove Amati from his post as LEADS Administrator. Initially, that is.

Remember the movie, Cool Hand Luke? "What we've got here is failure to communicate." Yes, we sure do...

1 comment:

Joseph Monack said...

By the way Gus, I only suggested home rule one of many possible alternatives. I don't know much about it, but my point was that we should have a system where Police don't have to rise to the level of crime to be fired. Nobody else has to rise to the level of crime to be fired. Simply goofing up at work gets most people fired, especially if it's a big goof up. Maybe that system isn't the right one, but obviously what we have isn't satisfying the safety concerns of the people of Woodstock. While home rule might not be the answer, it's certain that we need to make structural changes if there is truly nothing that can be done like the City claims.