Steve Balich Editors Note: This is an article in the Daily Southtown from columnist Ted Slowik on a couple local matters. It seems like the Township may be playing a shell game. Not objecting to video taping of the monthly meetings, while present at the Annual Town Meeting, gave the impression of the Township Board was in favor of Video taping the meetings and putting them on the Township Website. The next day the Board indicated the TWP. may not be listening to the people, saying that vote was only advisory. I sure hope they video tape the meetings starting May like the people voted for. We need transparency.
The Daily Southtown Ted Slowik
Several residents in Homer Township said the township board should resume video recording its monthly meetings and publishing them online for citizens to view.
Amid the brewing controversy comes word that township Clerk Linsey Sowa has resigned. There is no indication that the two developments are related.
Some believe Homer Township Supervisor Pamela Meyers is resisting calls for greater transparency.
“If the people voted for it, they should do it,” resident Tony Drabik said Tuesday. “If they’re fighting it, they don’t want to do it.”
Drabik said he was among 47 electors who gathered last week for the township’s annual town meeting. State law requires townships to allow citizens to petition officials during an annual meeting on the second Tuesday in April.
“All questions upon motions made at township meetings shall be determined by a majority of the electors present and voting, and the moderator shall ascertain and declare the result of the vote upon each question,” according to the Township Code, a state law.
The Homer Township Board received one request for consideration this year, according to minutes of the board’s Feb. 11 meeting.
“Supervisor Meyers stated the request was from John Flemming/Steve Balich requesting the following: ‘We the residents of Homer Township, at the annual 2019 town meeting demand the Homer Township board hire out or make arrangements to video the monthly township meetings as well as any special meetings.
“We demand these meetings to be easy (to) access from the township website. People that cannot make it to the meetings deserve the transparency a video will provide. This will be in effect for the May 2019 Homer Township meeting,’” the February minutes stated.
Drabik and Balich said that township residents who were present at the town meeting last week unanimously voted to support the question.
“There are a lot of issues going on at the township that no one is aware of … We need to know what they’re doing,” said Balich, a Republican Will County board member from Homer Glen.
Homer Township spends about $6 million a year in property taxes collected from local residents, according to an annual financial statement published April 1 on the township’s website.
Salaries and benefits account for the majority of expenses, according to the township’s most recent budget, also available online. Personnel expenses for elected officials are $250,000 this year.
The town fund lists $744,000 in personnel costs for township administrators. Personnel costs of $1.1 million for road district workers, $746,000 for road fund administrators and $392,000 for assessor’s office workers are detailed in the budget.
With Homer Township about to adopt a new budget for its upcoming fiscal year, Balich thinks it’s more important than ever that the board make video of its deliberations available to the public.
“I can watch village of Homer Glen meetings on YouTube,” Balich said. “New Lenox, Lockport — they’re all doing it in the interest of being transparent.”
The city of Lockport provides video recordings of city council meetings on its website. New Lenox provides its meetings and other content on a YouTube channel, NLCTV6. The Will County Board, the village of Tinley Park, the city of Blue Island and many other government entities provide meetings on YouTube channels.
It’s a good service for citizens, who can browse archives of proceedings. Viewers can often hear every word said by their local elected representatives. Cameras record facial expressions and body language that can capture nuances of a debate.
“Minutes are not always 100% inclusive of all the discussion,” Balich said.
Balich previously served as Homer Township clerk and also served eight years as a Homer Township trustee. Balich and Drabik said two men formerly recorded videos of township meetings and provided them online at no cost to the township. One of the men has since died, and the other stopped because he wasn’t getting paid, they said.
Back in February, township attorney Gerald Sramek told Meyers and trustees that the board was not legally obligated to video record meetings even if citizens called for it to be done.
“Attorney Sramek stated that under the statute there are certain things that the electors can demand be done and that the township is obliged to do that,” according to minutes. “The request here is not something that the township is obliged to follow but that the township can consider it.”
Balich and Drabik believe even if the township is not legally obliged to act upon the vote by electors at the annual town meeting, officials should still record videos of meetings because the public wants it done.
“I don’t see any reason on earth why (Meyers) wouldn’t want to do it unless she doesn’t want people to know what’s going on,” Balich said.
Township employee Mary Pat DeGrassi said Tuesday that Meyers was out sick and unavailable for comment. DeGrassi provided a copy of the township board’s April 8 agenda that referenced Sowa’s resignation.
“Clerk Sowa has submitted an email with an unsigned copy of a letter of resignation on 4/5/19,” according to minutes.
Sowa had not attended a township board meeting since December, according to minutes. She was first elected clerk when she ran uncontested in 2013, then won with 60% of the vote in 2017. She could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
Sowa had received twice monthly paychecks of $1,241 through March, according to a check register published on the township’s website. That works out to an annual salary of about $29,800.
Balich said that since he previously served as Homer Township clerk, he sees no reason why the position should be full-time.
“The pay should be cut by $15,000 and it should be part-time,” Balich said. “They’re getting full-time pay for part-time work.”
Minutes showed that in January, the board voted to “appoint Mary Pat DeGrassi with authority to do all acts on behalf of the township clerk.” Then in February, the township board voted to appoint Kathy Kruczek to serve as deputy clerk in Sowa’s absence.
Kathy Kruczek is the wife of township Trustee John Kruczek, but her deputy clerk position is unpaid.
It was not immediately clear whether the township board would appoint someone to serve as clerk for the remainder of Sowa’s term, which ends in 2021. The board is scheduled to meet next on May 13.
tslowik@tribpub.com
