Monday, June 4, 2012

Open letter to McHenry County Board

Ladies and Gentlemen of the McHenry County Board:

My name is Gus Philpott, and I am a resident of District 5.

In January 2010 Zane Seipler filed a Petition in McHenry County Circuit Court, seeking a Special Prosecutor to investigate Sheriff Keith Nygren for numerous criminal improprieties.

On April 25 of this year Judge Thomas Meyer declined to approve a special prosecutor and ruled that the State's Attorney should investigate.

Had Judge Meyer ever believed that this case was frivolous, he would have ended the case far short of its 27-month duration. The involvement of Attorney William Caldwell should have ended on that date, except for reporting and billing.

However, a month later, on Thursday, May 25, Attorney Caldwell filed a Petition for Sanctions against Zane Seipler, a private citizen and resident of McHenry County, and his lawyer, Blake Horwitz.

Late on Friday afternoon, May 26, the start of a holiday week-end, the Northwest Herald reported this filing and referred to “the County” as having filed it which, indeed, it had. The problem was that “the County” wasn't identified. No name of anyone associated with the County could be found within the article.

On May 30, FirstElectricNewspaper.com published this statement, “County Board Chairman Ken Koehler told FEN (First Electric Newspaper) Tuesday he ordered the request without consulting other Board members.”

If this statement is accurate, and I have no doubt that it is, how can one Board member, even the Chairman, order a civil legal action by the County against a County resident without consideration, decision and authorization by the County Board? This action will incur legal expense by the County and could open it to very substantial, new, legal expense.

This is an outrageous, retaliative action and must be halted by this Board. I ask this Board to refuse to pay any bill for legal fees for this Petition for Sanctions and to direct the law firm of Caldwell, Berner & Caldwell to cease its work until such time as legal authorization is given, if ever.

Gus Philpott
 
 
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Note to McHenry County Residents: If you want to be sure that your County Board representative sees this, along with your comments, use the small white envelope below to forward this to him or her. You can find their email addresses on the McHenry County website at co.mchenry.il.us)

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