Removing a Filing Cabinet on Sunday Morning?

Tutty recently made it back to his beloved Freeport after spending some months of near rest and relaxation.  Tutty had planned to stay away from the Blumdoggle  until the first of June, but sometimes the events of the current day will cut a vacation short.  Such is the case.

Cat fishing in the Pecatonica River this morning with little luck, Tutty took his leave from the river about quarter-after-nine this morning.  Heading west, crossing the railroad tracks and walking up East Exchange Street, Tutty noticed a pick up truck backed up to the new Freeport Township building in downtown Freeport and two men were loading what a appeared to be a filing cabinet.  Tutty thought this was rather odd so Tutty snapped a picture.

Tutty is really curious as to why things are being removed from a public building  prior to 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning and what in the heck is in the filing cabinet anyway?

Tutty's glad to be back and hopes to keep using this blog to ask the questions that every thinking citizen deserves to have an answer to...in some cases the powers that be might even provide an appropriate response.

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker, tutty.baker@gmail.com

Freeport's 2013 Race for Mayor and Township Too

Tutty gets asked all the time what Tutty's thoughts are on Freeport's 2013 mayoral election.

In a nutshell, Tutty thinks it is basically a wide open race.  Former Freeport Mayor Jim Gitz, after defeating incumbent George Gaulrapp in the Citizens Party primary, is thought by many to be the front runner.

Tutty thinks this viewpoint is premature for several reasons.  Jim Gitz beat George Gaulrapp by less than 200 votes.  Furthermore, of those that did vote for Jim Gitz many may have only been voting for change.  In the coming election the same issue which may have helped Jim Gitz win the primary could be his nemesis in the consolidated election.

Let's also not forget those 441 voters that pulled ballots in the Peoples Party primary.  All of these voters here were obviously voting for something new.  The two mayoral candidates in the Peoples Party were newcomers to Freeport politics, John Staben and Bettye Corbin.  Staben moves on to face Gitz and independent candidate Kathy Knodle on April 9th after winning with 58.5% of the Peoples Party vote.

Tutty thinks it's also impossible to say where the 1000+ George Gaulrapp voters will fall, Tutty suspects most will vote but few will fall in behind Jim Gitz.  Tutty just doesn't see it.  Alderman-at-large, Andrew Crutchfield as well as Marianne Garvens are running as write in candidates too,  Tutty thinks this is a waste of their time, collectively these two will not get five-percent of the the vote.  The big three are Jim Gitz, Jon Staben and Kathy Knodle.

At this point, Tutty is not willing to predict this race or make an endorsement.  Tutty will predict that 40% of the vote may very well win.  Tutty can see these three candidates splitting the vote fairly evenly.

In the race for FreeportTownship Supervisor, long time Supervisor Sheila Hooper will face independent candidate Patrick Sellers in the April 9th consolidated election.  Tutty thinks Sheila Hooper is in real trouble after 36 years of basically running Freeport Township unchecked.

Hooper barely made it out of a three-way Citizens Party primary, and while winning the primary, she did not make it out unscathed.  Hooper defeated John Cook by 42 votes to capture just more than 41% of the Citizens Party vote.  Tutty is amazed that Cook, never one to be too preoccupied with political popularity, made it so close and would have likely won had Ed Mulligan not got his name on the ballot.  With no campaigning, just his name on the ballot, Mulligan was able to garner almost 20% of the vote, obviously there were many that didn't want to vote for Hooper or Cook.

All in all, in the Citizens Party primary more people voted against Sheila Hooper as voted for Jim Gitz.   This does not look good for Hooper, she will probably have a hard time picking up any more voters than the almost 900 people that voted for her in the primary. 

Tutty is endorsing Patrick Sellers for Township Supervisor for numerous and obvious reasons but one of the most glaring in Tutty's opinion--36 years is too long already to hold a single elected position.

What are your thoughts Freeport?

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker tutty.baker@gmail.com

Vote a New Direction For Freeport Township This Tuesday

On Tuesday Freeport Township voters have the opportunity to send Freeport Township in a new direction.  Tutty believes that Freeport Township needs a new direction and has previously written that voters will be wise to make the most of this opportunity.

Freeport Township Board consists of five voting members, the Supervisor and four Trustees, all elected at large every four years.  The current Supervisor, Sheila Hooper, has had this position for 36 years and will turn 74 later this year.  The Trustees are, Nickee Bender, Corrine Bruce, Mickey Martin and Alan Turner.  Nickee Bender is the only incumbent not running in the Citizens Party primary this Tuesday.

Sheila Hooper is opposed on the Citizens Party ballot (this is the same ticket that features Jim Gitz and George Gaulrapp in the race for Freeport Mayor) by John Cook and Ed Mulligan.  Sheila Hooper has not seemed too concerned, the last Tutty knew she had less than ten signs out around Freeport and even those were remakes of the ones she used for her campaign for county board last fall.  Sheila Hooper is just smug enough to think she's got it in the bag.  Tutty hopes Freeporters have a different idea. Ed Mulligan has done nothing but get on the ballot.  Tutty recommends voting for John Cook he's at least stated the specifics of what he'll try to do if elected.

In the race for the four trustee positions there are a total of six names on the Citizens Party ballot, they are the three incumbents named above. The three challengers are Mary Ann Eirhart, Joy Sellers and Kathleen Altensey.  While the voting instructions say, "vote for not more than four" Tutty is advising that voters only vote for the three challengers, in this way the Freeport Township Board is more likely to get a the desperately needed new majority board.  Here is a picture of a political ad which appeared in today's Journal-Standard which supports the three newcomers for Township Trustees.

 

 

Tutty has several reasons for being adamant on changing Freeport Township government.  There are so many legitimate reasons Tutty could write for a week straight and not begin to scratch the surface.  In political ads and public appearances John Cook has talked about the problem of nepotism.  Apparently, Supervisor Hooper and her majority board don't see a problem with Ms. Hooper's daughter working for Freeport Township.  Tutty thinks the public should view this as a red flag.

 

Several other reasons to vote out the incumbents can be found by reading the "control deficiencies report" given to the Freeport Township Board by their auditors in May of 2011.  Here is picture of page three from that report.

 

 

 

Several problems jump out at Tutty right away.  Such as Township employees being paid for overtime in conflict with policy.  Time sheets not being reviewed in a timely manner...what's that all about and last but not least, the fact that Sheila Hooper overpaid herself by almost $2,500 in fiscal year 2010 and the only Township Trustee to seek answers on this abuse of power and management was Trustee Nickee Bender.  Other Township employees were also advanced pay as a matter of routine.  This led to Illinois Senator Tim Bivins and Representative Jim Sacia sponsoring a law to prevent Illinois townships from paying employees in advance of actual hours worked.

 

Page four of this report also flags (if someone wants a picture Tutty can put one up) problems with Freeport Township payroll, the auditors write: "Currently, one employee prepares payroll, has check signing capabilities, has access to the general ledger and can make changes to the payroll master file.  To help strengthen the controls in this area we recommend that the timesheets and payroll journal be reviewed by a second authorized individual, prior to the actual processing for the payroll checks, reviewing for accuracy, timesheet approvals and appropriateness.

 

Folks, the hard evidence tells Tutty that the current Freeport Township leadership is lacking when it comes to appropriateness.

 

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker tutty.baker@gmail.com 



Freeport Township and Honesty

If you seen the hard copy of today's Journal-Standard you already know that candidate for Township Supervisor, John Cook, has filed an Open Meeting's Act Complaint against the Township regarding the regularly scheduled meeting of the Freeport Township Board of Trustees on January 7, 2013.

Township Supervisor Sheila Hooper is quoted as saying that she wishes John Cook would "follow up with the facts before he wastes everyone's time and energy."

Well, Sheila Hooper got her wish and this morning the Facebook page of "John Cook for Freeport Township Supervisor, https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/John-Cook-For-Freeport-Township-Supervisor/119983681498219 put up a picture of a letter Supervisor Hooper sent to Township Trustees on January 8th, a day after the meeting in question.  Here is a picture of that letter, it is courtesy of John Cook's Facebook page.

As John Cook wrote on his Facebook page, this does not appear to be a "Notice of Cancellation" regarding the meeting of the day before.

Because there are three newcomers running for Freeport Township Trustees, Tutty wants to ask the current Trustees, Alan Turner, Mickey Martin, Corrine Bruce and Nickee Bender when they received the "Notice of Cancellation" regarding the January 7, 2013 regular Freeport Township Board meeting?

Tutty's betting that if there even is a Notice of Cancellation floating around it didn't come about until well after January 15th, the day John Cook filed his Open Meetings Act complaint with the Illinois Attorney General.

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker, tutty.baker@gmail.com

A Tax Increase Referendum For Freeport Township

Tutty wanted to get this post up sooner but other responsibilities prohibited its creation.

Over the weekend Tutty learned from the Facebook page "John Cook for Freeport Township Supervisor" that the Freeport Township Board of Trustees passed a resolution to place  a referendum on the April 9, 2013 consolidated election ballot asking for a tax increase to fund "senior citizen services."

Apparently, from what Tutty knows, Township Supervisor Sheila Hooper called a special meeting for last Friday night.  Here is a photo of the agenda.  Credit for the photo goes to John Cook and his Facebook page.

Note agenda items II and III.  What does this even mean?  Is it a permanent increase in the tax rate Freeport Township taxpayers pay or is it a temporary increase to fund a bond?  More importantly, and a question for Stephenson County State's Attorney John Vogt, how is this not a violation of the Illinois Open Meetings Act?

How did Township Supervisor Hooper obtain the authority to have Resolution TR-1-2013 drawn up if the Township Board had not previously, behind closed doors, discussed the possibility of a referendum.  Supervisor Sheila Hooper does not have the authority to have Resolutions drafted without the advice and consent of the full Township Board.

Why does Stephenson County States Attorney John Vogt prosecute all kinds of other criminal misdemeanors yet looks the other way when units of local government obviously violate Illinois' criminal laws.  Yes folks, violating the Illinois Open Meetings Act is a criminal offense, yet John Vogt, sworn to uphold the law in Stephenson County, sits on his hands.

And what about the referendum itself?  Tutty is as much a senior citizen as anyone as Tutty has plans to turn 220 in April but lets be realistic, the young people of today are going to be the ones that will have to clean up the mess created by Sheila Hooper and her band of easy spenders.

Who actually believes that 18-20 year-olds of today will be able to enjoy as good a life as the seniors of the present?  Your removed from reality if you think the younger generation will have it as good.  Look at the mess they are being left by the federal, state and local governments...everything is broken and in need of repair.  Yet the Freeport Township Board with Sheila Hooper as their leader obviously thinks they need more money for "senior services" and they even violated the Illinois Open Meetings act to secretly place the question on the ballot.

Has Tutty mentioned that on February 26, 2013 Freeport Township voters have the opportunity to replace Sheila Hooper and her three "yes" people, Alan Turner, Corrine Bruce and Mickey Martin?

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker tutty.baker@gmail.com 

Replace Freeport Township Supervisor Sheila Hooper and All Her "Yes" Trustees On February 26, 2013

On February 26, 2013, the Citizens Party primary will give Freeport Township voters an opportunity to replace nearly all of the governing body of Freeport Township.  As Tutty said in a previous post, Freeport Township voters would be wise to do just that...replace all of the incumbents running in the Citizens Party primary.

For those that don't know, this is currently the governing board of Freeport Township:

Supervisor-Sheila Hooper

Trustees- Corrine Bruce, Alan Turner, Mickey Martin and Nickee Bender

Sheila Hooper is opposed on the Citizens party ballot by John Cook and Ed Mulligan.  Sheila Hooper has been Supervisor for, as best as Tutty knows, around 30 years.  She will turn 74 years old this year and could currently retire and earn more in IMRF retirement benefits than most Freeporters earn working. Both Sheila Hooper and candidate Ed Mulligan are currently members of the Stephenson County Board while John Cook holds no elective office.

Sheila Hooper recently made the decision to purchase a downtown building for far more than it was worth, for what, Tutty is not exactly sure.  Freeport Township had, for decades, been given free space in the City Hall building, when that was abandoned Township officials moved to the Stephenson County Courthouse where they were paying $115 a month rent which included all utilities.  The Stephenson County Board did not ask Freeport Township to move.

Sheila Hooper's "yes" trustees, Corrine Bruce, Alan Turner, and Mickey Martin all voted for this purchase.  Nickee Bender being the only dissenting vote.  They voted the exact same way on pay raises.  Sheila Hooper, Corrine Bruce, Alan Turner and Mickey Martin voting for more pay for Township officials while Nickee Bender dissented.

In Illinois Township government the supervisor votes on all issues and does not have veto powers.

Sheila Hooper's "yes" trustees, Corrine Bruce, Alan Turner, and Mickey Martin could all three be voted out at the February 26th Citizens party primary.  There are six names on the ballot, besides Sheila Hooper's three "yes" trustees, there is Kathleen Altensey, Mary Ann Eirhart, and Joy Sellers.

Nickee Bender has filed to run for trustee as an independent along with two other individuals who filed to run as independents for supervisor and trustee.

First thing first though and that would be the February 26th Citizens party primary.  Independent candidates won't be on the ballot until April.  In Tutty's opinion, Freeport Township voters would be wise to remove Sheila Hooper and her yes trustees prior to April.

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker tutty.baker@gmail.com

The Make Believe World of George Gaulrapp, As Presented By Local Radio

Almost every week local radio, WFRL, AM 1570, produces a program called the Mayor's Report,  currently the program airs at 12:30 pm on Thursdays.

Usually the show is not worth the time to listen.  Typical Freeport media giving local leaders a public soap box free from dissenting opinion, regardless of how deserving the dissent.

Recently there was a version of the Mayor's Report that Tutty calls the Holiday Show, this show aired twice, once on December 20th and again the following Thursday, the 27th.

Tutty calls it the Holiday Show because Big Radio and their owner in Wisconsin, Monroe lawyer Scott Thompson, gave George Gaulrapp a very notable political present.  Basically they let George Gaulrapp present his make believe world of Freeport finances while at the same time trashing (without foundation) his opponent in the upcoming Freeport Citizens Party primary election, Jim Gitz.

When talking about City of Freeport finances Mayor Gaulrapp made the following statement:

"As the Mayor of the City of Freeport we've always done that, we've always looked at cutting the budget first before we go out and ask people for more money.  I think that's the prudent thing to do, I think it's the proper way to do it, you know past administrations they would increase four, five or six different taxes."

In the first place, George Gaulrapp, as Mayor of the City of Freeport, has never presented an Appropriation's Ordinance smaller than the one the year before, but he has raised (and created) plenty of taxes and the ones he didn't raise he removed the "sunset" clause provisions.  As Mayor, George Gaulrapp created the "Capital Improvement Surcharge" on your water bill.

Mayor George Gaulrapp also seems to have forgotten all about 2007.  In case he forgot, that was the first home rule sales tax George Gaulrapp asked for--and broke a City Council tie--to put through.  This was on March 19th, prior to the drafting of the Appropriation's Ordinance.  This tax was passed and the Gaulrapp administration wrote the 2007-08 budget around the increased revenue.

This is the exact opposite of the way George Gaulrapp described it on WFRL, AM 1570.

And what George Gaulrapp meant by "past administrations" needs to be followed up on.  The mayor needs to remember too that he's been at Freeport City Hall for sixteen years.  He was there, as an alderman, for the full eight years of the Gitz adminstration and to Tutty's recollection only disagreed with Mayor Jim Gitz once.  Back in 2003 George Gaulrapp was an alderman that voted to over-ride a mayoral veto,  Mayor Jim Gitz vetoed the budget brought forth by the the Finance Committee (which George Gaulrapp was a member of)because it included a home rule sales tax, among other reasons.  George Gaulrapp has always love the home rule sales tax, history proves it.

Tutty hopes that those who own and collect a paycheck from any Freeport media would be aware of the tendency of local officials to use your soap boxes for political gain while falsifying the historic record.  Local media, whether print, radio, or Rockford TV seem to let this sort of thing happen way too often.  Tutty is still waiting for all of them to follow up on the Mill Race Crossing groundbreaking...Tutty's thinking that was in 2007 too.

Because Tutty is sure George Gaulrapp would claim that he never said what Tutty quoted, Tutty took the liberty of having the Holiday Show recorded...both of them.  Tutty turned the audio recording into a YouTube video, the snippet is less than 30 seconds long and can be found at the link below.  Fair use copyright is claimed here, as well as the YouTube upload, for the purpose of public education.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYXtj2vBENg&feature=youtu.be

Tutty is very happy to be back haunting Freeport, Tutty loves you all very much and wouldn't go to this type of work if Tutty didn't want you to be more aware of what's occurring in this community.  Hopefully Tutty will haunt Freeport for centuries to come but as Tutty approaches a 220th birthday knowledge says that Tutty's word is never the last word. Peace to thee.

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker tutty.baker@gmail.com