FEN questions new blog's purpose

In today's edition of First Electric Newspaper, the publisher mentions a new blog that is being published that contains internal investigations of deputies who have been "behaving badly off-duty." Such behaviors include intoxication, DUI and getting arrested in Wisconsin for disorderly conduct.

That new blog is http://www.realmcsoexposed.blogspot.com/, and FEN reports, "Absent exegesis it's not clear what  the reports are supposed to prove."

 First, I had to look up "exegesis"; according to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, the defintion is "an explanation or critical interpretation of a text."

Let me offer an answer. What are the reports supposed to prove? They are supposed to show that the dirt being circulated about some deputies at the McHenry County Sheriff's Department may be true and that it gets swept under the rug far too often.

The Sheriff can handle the "dirt" administratively, as long as he doesn't impose a discipline that is greater than 30 days. If the discipline is longer than 30 days, he must go to the Sheriff's Department Merit Commission, where the five-member, hand-picked crowd can approve what he wants to do. But he has to go there. And once there, it becomes public record, because the Merit Commission is a "public body" and subject to FOIA and the Open Meetings Act.

By being able to handle disciplines of 30 days or less "quietly", the public never learns about them. Until someone leaks information. And that person does so at great risk.

That's why the public didn't hear about the drunken deputies leaving the Red Mill Inn (under its former ownership) and driving while DUI. Or about the deputy who pushed another deputy down, causing an injury. Or the deputies who prevented that injured deputy from calling Woodstock P.D. to report it (that's a felony right there - interfering with a person who wants to call for help). Or whoever at the sheriff's department lied to the Woodstock Police detective who inquired about the DUIs and the battery.

I was told that at least three deputies got 30-day administrative leaves.

McHenry County needs and deserves a squeaky-clean sheriff's department. Voters missed an opportunity last November to push Keith Nygren into retirement. By now many are probably wishing they had. Why? The sheriff sold his Hebron home two days after taking office and then refused to yield the residence to the purchaser for four months; revelations by Deputy Scott Milliman about involvement in alleged criminal activity; loss in lawsuits but continued appeals, which run up legal expenses; the sheriff's extended vacation immediately after yielding the house and moving to a small condo in Crystal Lake.

When a long-time deputy and someone who was close to the sheriff for years gives a sworn statement that Nygren is not squeaky clean, it doesn't sound like sour grapes to me. Where is the thorough, independent investigation and the "unpaid administrative leave" for the sheriff?