Smoking Guns Disclosed by Accountability Committee Members

This morning we received the following comment from community member Yvonne Mayer. We are publishing it now, while we finish up a post we began working on yesterday regarding the shocking smoking guns that were disclosed in Board Member Patel's and Board Member Burns' submissions to the Accountability Committee. We have bolded and changed the font to red on the key information and questions raised in the comment.

Stay tuned for our full post that will be published before midnight tonight.  In the meantime, thanks to Ms. Mayer for laying out the critical issues.

Yvonne Mayer said...

ALERT!!!!! D181 Accountability Committee Update --

Below is a FB post I published yesterday. I spent the morning reading Board Docs on the 9/11 accountability committee. It was quite eye opening and more importantly establishes quite clearly that the entire HMS Referendum/Notice/Lawsuit debacle could have been avoided. It is time for some real accountability and I am hoping that this committee and then the full board will take all necessary steps.

I am posting the link to a submission by Board Member Patel in which she flags some very serious issues and questions:

Board Member Patel's submission to the Accountability Committee

Read the entire document but focus on Section 4 called "Legal Notice and Related Procedures" in which Member Patel states:
"1. Please include the communications and FOIA requests by community members Mayer and Schmidt.

2. On August 19, 2016, a letter from the Board of Education legal firm, Hauser Izzo, was sent to the Office of Superintendent, Dr. White, stating that the district must follow multi-step election procedures.
Please see language below from item number three which states:
"Notice of the proposition to be submitted at the election is to be published by
the DuPage election commission and the cook county clerk. The notice must be published not earlier than Saturday, October 8, 2016 and not after Friday, October 28, 2016 in the Hinsdalean, which is the newspaper having general circulation in the district designated in the resolution. We strongly suggest that you make certain that the publication of the notice is made in an accurate and a timely manner."

3. On August 23, 2016, a letter from the Office of the Superintendent was sent to legal firm Hauser Izzo in response to the August 19th letter stating that they will follow election procedures.
Please see language below from item number three which states:
“Our office will ensure that notice of the proposition to be submitted at the election is to be published by the DuPage Election Commission and the Cook County Clerk. The notice must be published not earlier than Saturday, October 8, 2016 and not after Friday, October 28, 2016 in the Hinsdalean, which is the newspaper having general circulation in the district designated in the resolution.”

4. Upon receipt of the letter from the DuPage Election Commission on October 3, 2016, stating that the notices would be published the week of October 3rd, why didn’t Dr. White immediately flag the publication error as advised by lawyers on August 19th and that he confirmed that he would do on August 23rd? The Hinsdalean is a weekly publication distributed on Thursday. Based on this letter, notifications received by the district that the publication would happen on Thursday, October 6th, 2016, which was 2 days before the earliest date of Saturday, October 8th, 2016.

5. After bond counsel flagged the publication error in December and refused to sell bonds and after the lawsuit was filed, why didn’t BOE legal counsel Hauser Izzo inform the BOE of letter to Office of Superintendent dated August 19th clearly stating publication dates and response letter from Office of Superintendent confirming that they will ensure that notice properly published within publication dates?

6. At the July 26, 2017, Accountability Committee meeting why didn’t Dr White disclose the August 19, 2016 letter directing him to follow election procedures that was sent to him by the BOE legal firm when asked if there was a checklist available to the district to ensure that proper procedures are followed when he received a list of election procedures to follow on August 19, 2016? Why did he say that the district did not have a check list?

7. On August 15, 2016, District 181 wrote in the Hinsdalean into the Resolution language.
Please see language below from Section 7 of Resolution Language:
“That is hereby found and determined that the Hinsdalean is a local, community newspaper having general circulation in the District as required by Section 12-5 of the Election Code of the State of Illinois, as amended (the “Election Code”).

8. Why was the Hinsdalean chosen as the newspaper having general circulation in District 181 in the Resolution dated August 15, 2016?

9. Moving forward, a publication should be chosen that is distributed throughout the entire district 181 area including Hinsdale, Clarendon Hills, Oak Brook, Burr Ridge."

Member Patel raises some very serious questions about the inaction by Dr. White, action which, in my opinion, if taken could clearly have caught the Dupage Election publication error BEFORE it was too late to fix. But for this inaction, it is my opinion that the last 10 months of utter chaos the district has gone through would not have happened and construction on the new HMS would have started months ago.

More importantly, Ms. Patel asks good questions about why the BOE was NEVER told about these documents!

I plan to attend Monday's Accountability Committee meeting and urge all D181 residents to do the same. It is time for some answers and accountability!