We know from our recent examination of the doctrine of incompatible offices that compromising the loyalty of an elected officer is prohibited. A person holding elected office cannot hold any other role — as employee, appointee, or a second elected office — that could reasonably be expected to conflict, or even appear to conflict, with…
Category: City Watch
Account 8306, Special Events
City of DeKalb has an account in its General Fund called “Special Events,” 8306 in the budget. I always thought special events were public events, such as the open house that was held for visitors to tour the new police station. Then I came across an expenditure of $5,400 for Target gift cards for employees…
City of DeKalb and Its Incompatible Offices
DeKalb isn’t particularly good at observing boundaries. One example is that DeKalb’s contracted attorney is allowed to sit with the city council during planning sessions as an assistant in setting strategic priorities. In other words, a contractor gets to step out of his assigned role to provide unfettered input into public policy that the public…
College Town Partners is All About TIF
Yes, “is.” Emails obtained by Michael and Misty Haji-Sheikh of Preserve Our Neighborhoods show that even though collaborators ultimately rejected formal incorporation of College Town Partners in May 2014, the intention remained to suck sweet, sweet tax dollars out of City of DeKalb via Tax Increment Financing (not even getting into NIU and use of…
An Important Amendment to the Open Meetings Act
I knew the General Assembly was debating the bill last year, but missed the August passage of Public Act 099-0402, which amends an important provision of the Illinois Open Meetings Act (OMA). (5 ILCS 120/3.5) Sec. 3.5. Public Access Counselor; opinions. (a) A person who believes that a violation of this Act by a public…
One Step Closer to the Edge
Look at that nice, wide gap between General Fund revenues and expenditures during FY2011 and FY2012. [easychart type=”line” width=”430″ title=”GF Revenues and Expenditures Net of Transfers” groupnames=”Revenues in Millions, Expenditures in Millions” valuenames=”’11,’12, ’13, ’14, ’15, ’16” group1values=”29.2,29.1,28.9,30.7,32.7,33.3″ group2values=”27.2,27.3,27.9,29.1,31.5,32.9″ minaxis=”27.1″] (All figures are actual as reported in annual city budgets, except FY2015 numbers are the…
Weird and Not-So-Wonderful Things about the Unlawful Assemblies Ordinances
Here are four reasons to be suspicious of the “unlawful assemblies” ordinances coming up for a vote on Monday. 1. The “unlawful assemblies” and counterpart “unlawful weapons” ordinances came out of nowhere on the January 11. Council did not ask for them. There have been no discussions of why the PD needs another tool. The…
City Still Losing Water Customers
These are the numbers of City of DeKalb water billing accounts for the past 10 years, as reported in DeKalb’s FY2015 Comprehensive Annual Financial report released last month. [table id=93 /]
Another Example of DeKalb’s Bad Judgment
Tomorrow, City of DeKalb is sponsoring a business development presentation featuring a local businessman who has already made a lot of money doing business with DeKalb. I understand that this is the second such presentation. Reasonable people could make at least three objections to this series. 1. This is not a core function of city…
Why I’ve Challenged the DeKalb City Manager’s Residency
During the regular city council meeting last night, I challenged DeKalb city manager Anne Marie Gaura’s claim that she lives in DeKalb. The DeKalb Municipal Code does not explicitly require that the city manager live in DeKalb, but the city’s contract with Gaura does. She was obligated to establish residency in the city within one…