Mount Carroll City Hall Crowded As Aldermen and Mayor Square Off

By Mick Parsons For The Prairie Advocate News

MOUNT CARROLL – The showdown started early in the meeting when Doris Bork made a motion to pay the bills – for the exception of payroll, she said, “until the hours can be confirmed.”

The crowd, which was more appropriate for a fight night in Vegas than a Mount Carroll City Council meeting, filled the chairs, lined the walls, and filled the lobby. And once Mrs. Bork threw down the gauntlet, everyone knew they were in for a long one. The motion failed on their first vote, with only Cooper and Bork voting in favor of not paying city employees. Then a motion was made to pay the bills and it passed.

The fight that everyone came out to see has been three years in the making. While this particular rematch came as the result of an article published in the Prairie Advocate (3/16/11), the fact is that the story here is an old one; and no one in the audience was surprised – except maybe the local Girl Scout Troop 5084 that came out to see the wonders of the democratic process in action and earn their Model Citizen badges. As reported by the Prairie Advocate, Aldermen Bork and Cooper have claimed that disparities exist in the way some city employees keep track of their work hours. Three years ago, similar accusations were made and the city council responded by installing a time clock at the Public Works Building on Mill Street.

That should have solved the problem. But an informed citizenry takes its local politics even more seriously than it does its state and national politics; and in a town like Mount Carroll, in a county like Carroll County, everything is political. It’s all political and for the most personal of reasons: in a community with a declining population – if the census is correct, that is – where everybody knows everything and most everyone has known their neighbors their entire lives . . . or long enough that it seems like it . . . there is no escape. In a bigger place with more population, it might actually be possible to not see the mayor driving down the street or to run into your alderman in the canned vegetable aisle at the grocery store. But here, where people tend to know the particulars of your private life even before you do, there is no escape.

And that is really one of the things that people like about living here; it’s small. It’s personable. But that makes everything that goes on that much more personal than it would in, say, Chicago or even Madison or the Quad Cities.

And so, nothing was solved. All the time clock did was create another problem. Alderman Bork has reported that she is able, from her home, to see the comings and goings at the Public Works Building. She and Nina Cooper have said they have made repeated requests to Mayor Carl Bates to look into the issue and that those requests have either been ignored, made light of, or buried over in procedural bunk. For his part, the Mayor insists that when there has been a problem, he has looked into it. And while he claims not to make light of the accusations levied by Bork and Cooper, there were points during last Tuesday night’s meeting where he was alternately laughing and rolling his eyes.

“You have to keep a sense of humor,” he said by way of justifying his behavior. “Otherwise you get upset.”

No one was surprised by this response, not even those who support the mayor; but if the lines were visible in the sand before, they are clearly demarcated and highlighted now. The mayor read a prepared statement into the record in which he called Aldermen Bork and Cooper’s accusations “unfounded rubbish.” He also said that he’s known the employees in question on a professional and personal level for more than 35 years and that he finds it hard to believe that anyone on the city council would accuse any city workers of fraud without basis or proof.

He went on say that the city workers saved more than $180,000 completing projects that either would have gone undone or would have had to wait for grant monies to become available. He added that, as mayor, he was “appalled and embarrassed for our constituents” over what he called an “undocumented accusation.” He claimed that the last complaint of this nature he’s heard was in March or April of 2008 – which is the reason that the time clock was installed in the Public Works Building.

Both Cooper and Bork insisted that their concerns fell on deaf ears. Cooper herself has referred several times to the “Good Ol’ Boy” network that runs things in town; this is not a new idea, nor a new accusation in small towns anywhere. Nor is it entirely unfounded. In corporate America, more business happens on the golf course and over three martini lunches than in board rooms. It’s not much different in politics. And in a town where everyone has known almost everyone their entire lives, and has known their families even longer, it’s not much of stretch of imagination.

Now, requirements of the Open Meetings Act aside, the fact is that people in a town like this do more than work together. They play ball together. They go to church together. If they’re of a mind, they drink together. Sometimes the children date one another; sometimes they get married and the families become inexorably tied together. And while no one wants to admit it, it all ends up being dragged into the political realm. All of it. There is no doubt that there are people – who are well within their right – who base their votes on whether they see someone in church on Sunday or coming out of a bar on Saturday night. Small towns are like that; that’s one of the things people like about small towns, whether they have lived in one their entire lives, or whether they move into one.

But that doesn’t mean that the system doesn’t need to be examined from time to time. And while Cooper may be the one calling attention to the “Good Ol’ Boy” network, one could argue that Mrs. Bork is as tied into that as she is her church.

Bates went on to say that Bork and Cooper couldn’t “hide behind the Freedom of Information Act after the fact” when they “rifled through” city documents – specifically, city employee payroll records. He also criticized Cooper’s characterization of city employees’ health insurance and benefits, citing not only that there is a $20 co-pay and prescription drug card with co-pay, but that employees also pay a percentage into IMRF. He also said that both Bork and Cooper owe a public apology and a rebuttal to local press regarding their statements. The second letter, from March 7th highlighted a need for a “more enlightened procedure” within the city council in dealing with these concerns.

Citing City Code 1-8-2 Section F, Cooper called for an independent audit of the city’s payroll in order to determine if any fraud or miscalculation has occurred. The code calls for the Treasurer to examine and report to the council on all bills “before they are acted upon.”

“As it stands at the moment,” she said, “we are not doing that.” Bates responded that the item was not on the agenda and could not be discussed unless it was on the agenda.

Some in the audience murmured agreement, some shook their heads. It seems that everyone has concerns about how the city spends it’s money, but there are also some misconceptions as well. One example: The Kraft Building. One member of the audience complained that the city of Mount Carroll gave The Kraft Building $90,000. Both the mayor and Alderman Doug Bergren declared this to be patently false; the $90,000 was a Revolving Loan Grant, which, as it is paid back to the city through TIF funds, will enable the city to use that money for other projects.

The basis of Bork and Cooper’s argument is, essentially, that they have the right to look through records because of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Bates’ argument, supported by the city attorney, is that they didn’t follow proper procedure, which includes a written request. Procedure and process seem like the vestige of a cover-up, but both are as engrained in our Democratic process as the right to vote. According to Bates, Bork and Cooper looking at original copies of payroll records, calls into question the sanctity of those records. Bork and Cooper, on the other hand, state that their intentions are honest and that they would never, in any way, alter the records. They approached this journalist in good faith, they say, and maybe they feel as if that faith has been broken. Who knows? Mrs. Bork claimed that she only said that “some” city employees were behaving badly. She must’ve meant that, when she named names and claimed they were “worse than some,” that she was only talking about them.

As to the issue of the time cards – several members of the audience, all of whom work for the city, pointed out that the time clock only keeps track of when employees clock in and clock out; but for many projects that the city crew works on, it’s necessary to keep track of specific hours related to specific projects. What this means is that sometimes, it appears as if the time cards don’t match. But the city, just like the county, went through an audit, using the same company as the county. One of the things that is audited is the payroll. And the auditors found nothing out of order.

That being said, the mayor is going to call for an independent audit of the payroll, which he hopes will illuminate the issue. The next move, it seems, belongs to Cooper and Bork and whether they will decide to make a FOIA request in writing.

Police Chief Fred Cass also spoke and pointed out that many of the police officers donate time to the city. It’s not, he said, that they’re not concerned about money, but that they understand that job is an important one and things need to be done sometimes when there is no one on schedule and when there may not be money to pay them. At one point, Cooper said that the city should get rid of Scout, the drug dog. While he’s been here, he’s only had two arrests, and one of those died from a drug overdose. Cooper originally voted to get Scout, but said she “changed her mind.”

And there it is again . . . that small town everybody knows everybody thing. In this match, it becomes a matter of who you trust. Nearly everyone in the audience who spoke during the meeting came out on the side of the employees . . . residents whose homes and streets were buried under this past winter’s snow, or who had problems with the water lines and had their problems addressed.

Some members were more balanced, perhaps, in their views, and simply called for more transparency. Government – whether it’s federal, state, or local, is never as transparent as people want it to be, and we have almost come to assume that, by the nature of government, that it can never be truly transparent. People have personal stakes in particular issues, and those things begin to take the shape of larger philosophical arguments, calls for reform, calls for shaking up of what it is perceived as the establishment.

The only thing that was solved in last week’s city council meeting was that nothing was solved, and all the lines are drawn. Round 3 is coming. Stay tuned.

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