Not so Funnyview Anymore huh?

Connect the dots Jimmy. WS don't want that smoke.....

From Our Email Box

 

Title: Please listen and do not vote for Tom Heller

To the residents of the Village of Forest View,

We write this letter to all of you with the upmost respect and sincerity. We would like to encourage all of you to vote for Nancy Miller and not for Tom Heller.

Tom Heller becoming Village President would in our opinion be disastrous. He is currently the Fire Chief for the Village of Forest View. This is a position that he is extremely unqualified for and should have never been placed in. And let’s not forget how this happened. He was already the Village President and in a shady deal stepped down making Larry Powell, his neighbor and close friend the Village President. In return Larry quickly made Tom Heller the Fire Chief at a high salary. 

In his time as Fire Chief he has done nothing to better the department or make the residents safer. He constantly lets the ambulance be left out of service with insufficient staffing. One would think he would come in as the only full time department member and ensure the safety of the residents. However he does not. He complains his wife will be made at him if he works weekends or holidays.

On those days that he has allowed the ambulance to be taken out of service and not protect the residents, he has responded outside of town to calls in Stickney. Whose residents is he more concerned about? If as chief of the Fire Department he places Stickney residents first, why would you want him to be Village President? He obviously is not concerned about you the residents, your family or homes.

So why has Tom Heller decided to run for Village President again? A position he previously held and chose to step away from? Well, he has been doing a horrible job as Fire Chief. He makes poor decisions, has consistently endangered the safety and lives of the members of the fire department as well as the residents, and the trustees are realizing that he is absolutely the wrong person to lead the department. Tom Heller has openly stated he has heard once his friend Larry Powell is no longer Village President he will be replaced by a qualified candidate. So all Tom can do is run for Village President in order to save his job.

He has no interest in helping the Village or its residents, once again Tom is taking care of the only resident he is and has ever been concerned about.... Himself. All of his decisions are based on what suits him best.

As the Forest View Firefighters Association we are asking you to cast your ballot for Nancy Miller. She actual cares about the Village, it’s residents and the employees of the Village. We know first hand how unqualified Tom Heller is to be Fire Chief. His lack of leadership, decision making and honesty. 

The members of the Forest View Firefighters Association endorse Nancy Miller for Village President. Tom Heller would be a bigger mistake for Village President than he is as Fire Chief.

Please right this wrong and help us get Forest View moving in the right direction.

Respectfully,

The Members of the Forest View Fire Department

Vote to Keep the Boat Afloat

Tom Heller is up to his old games again. Why lie to the residents about how he was appointed fire chief? A first year rookie firefighter has more experience than the tugboat. With his home in foreclosure and the fire department in shambles, Heller wants us to trust him with running the village.  We wouldn't trust him to give us our change back from a food run. Heller is so desperate, he has his followers stealing political signs off of front lawns.

Larry on Defense

Larry claims to be embarrassed about being part of village government in Forest View. How quickly he has forgotten his past like not showing up for meetings and shouting at speakers when they didn't agree with him.  Face it Larry, you are a joke. You could never win an election before and much less now with all the corruption flowing through your veins.  The really sad part of your legacy is that you involved your own kids in your political game.  Some day they will grow up and see the nasty side of your "because I said so" persona. Many in this village are glad you will be gone, especially those who you snitched on with your petty overnight parking fetish.

We feel sorry for Tommy and his financial troubles but this is an important job. Giving Tommy a second chance comes with a risk of not being able to remove him if he tanks our village. It is only a matter of time before the village is sued for a mistake he makes.

Choose wisely folks.

Sinking Tug Boat

If things couldn't get worse for Chief Heller.  A village board meeting was canceled due to the discovery of a letter that was allegedly sent to the Stickney village president. The three kings dropped off a nice stocking stuffer for us:

This isn't the first time we hear that the fire department isn't adequately staffed.  We know that it is mainly because no one, and we mean NO ONE wants to work with an incompetent Chief calling the shots.

The Big Swap 2.0

With the April election just a few months away, the fire chief Tom Heller is set to lose his job if a new village president is elected.  This could be why Heller is collecting signatures to run for office once again. But why would Heller want to run for village president again?  Maybe so history can repeat itself.  The last time Heller was voted in as village president, he pushed the fire chief out, stepped down and had Powell give him a job as a well paid fire chief. That was the original Forest View "Big Swap".  In order for Heller's new plan to work, the board would need to appoint an interim village president favorable to Heller when he steps down a second time.  Who will it be this time?  Who will Heller appoint as police chief? Will he keep the current chief or appoint Sticky Fingers Salvador Rodriguez?  Yes, Sgt Sticky Fingers was allowed to keep his job after stealing from the village.  Rodriguez and Heller have been seen eating lunch together which puts Rodriguez on the list of Heller cronies.

Why would we want more of the same garbage?

Deny Deny Deny!

This blog was started almost three years ago as a comical storyboard of comical things that really happen within the walls of Forest View village hall. Stories that are submitted are verified through our sources from around the village.  When Thomas Heller and friends took over, the village was turned upside down and we wrote about it.  Larry Powell can write fancy letters with what he and his friends want you to believe but he can’t hide from the truth. Larry can accuse this blog of “Cyber Bullying” but is it really bullying when we speak the truth?  It took Larry several months to address this blog because Larry knows the events that are mentioned are not “half truths” and “false views”. Larry had no idea how to lie to you and make you believe these things did not happen.

Let us explore the world of President Powell:

Deputy Chief No More

The Deputy Chief of Police was recently forced to step down from his position for admittedly working a second job while on duty for a period of two years or more.  This theft of time and money was first reported here but we only tell “half-truths”.  If our story was a “half truth”, why was the Deputy Chief Salvador Rodriguez asked to step down?

Don’t take our word for it, request a FOIA for the former Deputy Chief’s disciplinary record and you can read all about it there.  Or maybe not, Larry made a closed-door deal to keep that information from being in the Deputy Chief’s permanent employment record while allowing him to quietly step down.

Maybe you can go knock on Larry’s door and ask him why there is not a Deputy Chief any longer.  Larry will DENY that there was ever any investigation.  Larry will hide behind the “this is a personnel matter” forgetting that public officials are open to scrutiny by the public. Any official complaint or investigation against a public official should be public record and disclosed to the public. But Larry doesn’t play by the rules because he "says so”. Ask a few trustees (preferably more than two), you might get an honest one.

If this were any other employer, the Deputy Chief would have been fired for theft and official misconduct.  That smells like a cover-up or shall we say corruption, but Larry sees an Employee of the Year. In case you didn’t know Larry, corruption is defined as dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power.

No Background Checks

The former Deputy Chief of Police hired a few officers without conducting a proper background check.  The reason given was there was no time to complete the background checks required.  We broke that story here but Larry wants you to believe its false.  Anyone, and we mean anyone can investigate this as our sources did using FOIA requests.  Larry will DENY this also, but we guarantee that the officers will not.  Stop them and ask them before Larry orders them gagged.

Inappropriate Conduct

How Larry ended up as our president is borderline inappropriate.  Larry was not voted into office in any public election.  After losing his job and finding himself in some financial trouble, the president who we did vote in Thomas Heller stepped down leaving a vacant seat.  Why would he do that?  Heller needed a job so the plan was to take the Fire Chief position but Heller couldn't appoint himself.  Enter Larry Powell.  Powell always wanted to be president.  Larry was voted into the vacant seat by his friends when his other friend Thomas Heller who was voted in by the people stepped down.  Then Larry turned around and gave his friend Thomas Heller a full-time job as the Fire Chief that he wasn't qualified for. The fire department fell apart soon after.

Larry wants you to believe that he served us on the village board proudly for 24+ years.  But serving requires actually showing up to board meetings. A FOIA requesting the attendance sheets for the past 24 years will show you how much Larry actually served us.  When he did show up, Larry would “Bully” those who didn’t give him the answers he wanted.

While we are on the subject of bullying, during the recent flood scare a constituent contacted the village and made a request. That request ended with Larry yelling expletives at the constituent before ending the phone call. Very appropriate Larry.

Larry wants you to believe that it is only one or two trustees that are against all his actions. If that were the case, why is it that Larry can’t get anything passed?  Now THAT is a “half-truth” Larry.  The “Full-Truth” is the majority of the trustees on the board have voted Larry and his friends down. For the past few months, police chief Garry Wiseman has attempted to "promote" a part-time police officer to full time status.  The majority of the board has turned that request down multiple times.  Why would they do that?  The officer Wiseman wants to promote is a friend of the disgraced former deputy chief Salvador Rodriguez.  The police department is still plagued with staffing problems created by the former Deputy Chief. Rodriguez. Rodriguez hired a bunch of his friends who now can't work for the village or refuse to work for the village after finding out Rodriguez was demoted.  Don't believe us? Ask for the overtime numbers at the next board meeting.  The police chief can provide a list of part time officers and the last date the officers on that list worked a shift in Forest View.

The fires department struggles with staffing for much of the same reasons. No one wants to work for/with an incompetent fire chief.  Find a fire department member and ask them what it's like to work in the Forest View department.  Your off the record conversation may surprise you.

Larry has lost control and is now throwing everyone around him under the bus for his terrible mismanagement of this village.  Many of the accomplishments he is taking credit for were not really his for the taking. But it’s Larry and he can say he was responsible for them because he "says so".

Good luck Larry, we hear you have a difficult opponent in the next election.

Virtual Board Meeting

Since the village has a hard time posting meeting information on the website, we will do it here for them.

Virtual board meeting Tonight, Tuesday 5/26/2020 7PM

To join using your computer:

Log onto: https://zoom.us/j/84161742610

To call in and join by telephone call 312-626-6799 and use Meeting ID 841 6174 2610


REMINDER:

You are not required to identify yourself to enter the meeting or once you are in the meeting.  If you are removed from the meeting, you may be able to take legal action against the village for your unlawful removal.

You may be asked to identify yourself if you make a public statement during the public statement segment of the meeting.

Political COVID-19 Cuts

It was an eventful Tuesday in our small village of Forest View.  Fox 32’s Dane Placko paid the police department barber shop a visit to inquire about the $30 Gary Wiseman haircut special.

When this story first broke, the village trustees were assured that the hair cut services were never rendered.  In a phone interview with Fox news, Powell continued to deny that any of this took place.

Through some brilliant investigative reporting, Dane Placko discovered that Gary Wiseman and others did get their hair trimmed by Wiseman’s personal stylist in the police chief’s office.

So who lied? Did Gary lie to Larry, or did Larry lie to his trustees?

During an on-location interview, Powell said the police chief Gary Wiseman apologized to him several times, but no apology was ever sent to the entire department that received his scathing “cowardice” big bully email.

 

Absent from the news report was the manager of the barber shop Gary Wiseman. Sources say he locked himself in his office, cut the lights and never came out. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Political motives Larry?  How about accountability?  You rat out your own residents when they block sidewalks with their cars but you are the biggest offender. Your fire chief has proven to be incompetent not only in his current position but also in his past places of employment. Your deputy chief of police commits FELONY theft of government funds and lies to your face, but you let him continue to do what he pleases. COVID or not, any other town would have had him removed immediately. And now your chief, potentially exposes himself and others to COVID-19 by allowing a stylist to be up close and personal.  What we want to know is who vacuumed the hair off the chief’s carpet?

You are all ego Mr. Larry “Because I said so” Powell.

We are just calling it like it is, the media always wins but the fat lady hasn't started singing just yet.

Feel the Burn

New toys often come with instructions for their use or a quick start setup guide.  You may want to follow those instructions very carefully when they involve hazardous chemicals.  The fire chief Tom Heller who we would imagine is certified in hazardous material awareness, filled a disinfecting fog machine with the wrong ratio of hazardous chemicals.  The fire chief fired up the machine and the village public safety building was filled with noxious fumes.  Firefighters and police officers who were in the building reported a burning sensation in their eyes and respiratory issues most likely caused by the gallon of ammonia Heller dumped into the machine.  

We would bet that the instructions did not call for an entire gallon of ammonia.  This method of disinfecting fire apparatus is known to cause serious and preventable health effects.  It is recommended that if an illness or injury due to exposure to ammonia is suspected, those involved should be immediately referred to a physician.  Instead several fire department members were sent home for the day following the building fumigation.

If you send everyone home, who responds in the event of a fire?

Larry Powell’s picks are the gifts that just keep giving.

Chain of Quarantine Hair Cuts

Village of Forest View police officers were given a stern reminder of who’s boss ‘round here. In an email sent to the entire police department, Chief Gary Wiseman referred to the individual officers who went above him to report his department violations as “cowards”. Wiseman reminded officers that a chain of command exists which still includes the Deputy Chief of Police Salvador Rodriguez even though he is currently under investigation.

Wiseman’s email was triggered by recent events which included an officer reporting that the Chief invited his personal hair stylist to use the Forest View police station as a temporary place of business.  With the current COVID-19 pandemic and an executive order issued by the Governor of Illinois barring salons and barbers from operating, Wiseman was going to allow his personal hair stylist to operate on village property and provide haircuts for him and other officers. We would assume his stylist wasn’t going to be doing this for free.

If this beauty fair would have taken place, we would bet it would be in violation of some department policies; using the village email system to promote or drive clients to a business in his official capacity as Chief of Police?  Allowing unauthorized persons into the police station? Wiseman’s defense will be that he is the boss and can authorize such a person to violate the governor’s stay at home order and come into the station to violate the order some more and turn a profit. So instead of procuring the correct laptops for the patrol vehicles, Wiseman spent his time setting appointments for some quarantine hair cuts.

Wiseman’s Buzz Kutz event was abruptly canceled.

Four Problems

Gary Wiseman’s email tantrum went on to point out that four village trustees have made it difficult to hire additional manpower.  Why would anyone trust anything Wiseman and his side kick bring before the board.  Gary must have experienced some short-term memory loss. Let us refresh his memory:

• Gary’s Deputy Chief fired or pushed all the reliable part-timers out and brought in his own friends
• No formal background checks were conducted on any of the Deputy Chief’s friends when they were hired
• Gary’s Deputy Chief is currently under investigation for theft of government funds

It is a fact that this manpower crisis was caused by mis-management of the part-time officer roster. Firing or pushing out long time loyal part-time police officers to replace them with hand-picked friends came back to bite Gary and his Deputy Chief.  Most of the current handpicked part-time roster hold full-time positions in other jurisdictions. During the May 12th board meeting, Wiseman informed the board that the officers primary departments may have restricted them from working secondary employment due to the COVID situation. That leaves the Fire Chief of Riverside and another officer who retired from Lyons, but they have been MIA since the Rodriguez investigation started.  Overtime has been through the roof which would indicate that none of Salavdor's friends have been available to work.

The board may be reluctant to allow a new hire under the Larry, Gary & Sal administration since it is very likely that the Deputy Chief Salvador Rodriguez may or may have not conducted a formal background investigation on the candidate.  Even if Rodriguez did complete a background check, after being accused of falsifying records and theft, we don’t think his background check reports are very credible at the moment.

One thing we are curious about is how many Village of Forest View police badges and IDs are out there with these part-time officers that can’t or won’t work?

Broken Chains

In a department meeting, Larry Powell informed officers they would be able to contact him if they needed to discuss any department issues.  Gary and Salvador did not like that idea, but Larry insisted.

A police chief is expected to make sound decisions pertaining to his daily operations as well as his picks for second in command. When Gary isn’t doing his job, you go to Larry. Gary says if you go to Larry about Gary, you are a COWARD.  Second in the “chain of command” is Salvador Rodriguez who under Gary Wiseman’s direct supervision managed to land himself in hot water. When Salvador isn’t doing his Job, you go to Gary. When you go to Gary about Salvador, Gary shows you his collection of police badges on the corner of his desk.  Open door policy only works when you are awake to welcome visitors crossing the threshold.

The department is in shambles, but we are not surprised.  As reported here on the “coward” blog, the village trustees who approved Gary Wiseman’s initial appointment were not informed of Wisemans checkered employment history as a Stickney police officer.  Gary was handed the golden ticket to a free paycheck for sleeping in a manager’s chair watching the park from his window while his deputy chief worked on school district business on the Forest View clock.  How much more of this Wiseman and Rodriguez circus will Larry tolerate?

Once again, steer clear and hide those garbage cans.

The Village of Larry View

The COVID-19 crisis has led municipalities to use technology more than ever before.  Our village is no exception, well to a certain extent.  The May 12th, 2020 board meeting was held using video conferencing technology with the information to join being posted at the closed village hall door.  That is right, the village hall is closed due to COVID-19.  This would lead a resident to reasonably believe that access to the meeting information would not be available.

If you attempted to join the meeting right from the start at 7PM, you would have had to wait until the host approved or allowed you to participate in the meeting:

Once you were allowed into the meeting by the host (Joy Conklin), you were asked to identify yourself via private message by one of the trustees and the meeting host:

If you did not respond, you were kicked out of the meeting and again asked to identify yourself:

The fact that meeting host Joy Conklin can cherry pick who is allowed into a public village board meeting or remove attendees when they refuse to identify themselves is a direct violation of the Illinois Open Meetings Act.  Ironically, a meeting participant may have alerted her to her blatant violations by using a screen handle of “OpenMeetingsActViolation” when joining the meeting.

Village Communication

A discussion was started revealing how village residents are not being tended to in a timely manner under Mark Masciola.  The trustees heard excuse after excuse from Masciola on how the office is not fully staffed and how Masciola took a day off for the first time ever.  Masciola has demonstrated that he has a hard time picking up a phone to communicate with village residents.  Why do we pay this clown?  Our better half works remotely, answers and makes calls in pajamas without even leaving home.

It was truly refreshing to hear Larry show his true colors and say that passing out notices to resident houses was a “waste of time”.  This folks, this is how the village keeps you in the dark. Meeting notices posted on a door of a building presumed to be closed sure gets a lot of views. Newsletters, yeah no more of those. The website? Still not done.  Call the village? No one is available to take your call.  Need a permit? Here is an ordinance violation fine instead.  The village has the money to give Thomas Heller for a hand me down fire truck but they can’t pay someone a couple hundred dollars to update the website with IMPORTANT RESIDENT INFORMATION?

Why a waste of time Larry? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Tommy Heller drove a bus….

…. right over his men.  A highly respected trustee informed Fire Chief Tom Heller that he witnessed an ambulance go in the wrong direction when responding to a medical emergency.  The trustee requested that Heller makes sure that newly hired firemen are well trained on village streets (geography).  Heller goes on record and rats his own men out saying he himself has witnessed his most senior firemen drive the wrong way for calls.  So the firemen who have been working for the village the longest don’t know the village streets? We would think that in a medical emergency, seconds, hell, milliseconds count.  Looks like someone needs to FOIA those fire call records and analyze the response times (hint hint). Excellent lawsuit material.

Miles of Valor Award

The BP fuel stop on 47th and Central is known as one of the busiest in the state.  A robbery, well not just a robbery, an ARMED ROBBERY was reported at the gas station just as a cop left to fulfil the most important duty of the watch…. RECORD 50 MILES driven with your patrol car to keep your job.

A trustee challenged the Chief of Police Gary Wiseman on the new mileage policy.  Wiseman confirmed that he uses mileage recorded at the end of each watch to evaluate if an officer effectively patrolled the village.  Wiseman first denied he required 50 miles but did say that he was able to drive 24 miles in one hour. Wiseman also said he sent an email to his subordinates telling them they were required to do double that amount.  Which is close to 50 as pointed out by a trustee.

If you drive the ENTIRE village, you can easily log just over 14 miles:

The question is how long would it take you during the day versus night when you have to turn a patrol vehicle around at 9 dead ends (Including end of village limits at 47th/Laramie and 51St/Rutherford), stop at 13 traffic lights and over 30 stop signs? We counted. You also must factor in citizen contacts, business checks, traffic stops or responding to calls and traffic.  If Gary logged 24 miles in an hour during HIS work hours, he must have been using the same method as that one day shift officer by driving in circles around the Dunkin Donuts for that entire hour.

Oh Gary, thirty years of experience and you are still clueless on how police work is done.  You measure effectiveness by looking at your crime statistics and volume of citizen complaints. Armed Robberies in Forest View? At night when you only have three cash handling businesses open? You should just hang it up Gary.  You are useless just like your three stooges on the day shift.

Oh yes.... still no cameras in the police cars and the chief issued bazooka light bars to "fix" the unlit keyboard issue.  Now police officers have a really bright blinding light on their computers. When Wiseman was asked about the grants he passed on for the cameras, he played dumb. No surprise there.

The Untouchable

Still running around doing as he pleases and playing Deputy Chief, Salvador Rodriguez is currently under investigation for possible Official Misconduct and it did happen Theft of Government funds.

Another one of Gary’s awesome picks is still hanging on to hope that COVID-19 delays makes this all go away.  A trustee respectfully requested for the release of notes from an executive session in which Larry Powell has denied.  The trustee was looking to review exactly what the internal investigation was to cover since it has dragged on way too long.  It was said that the investigating party, the village’s municipal attorney is awaiting a response to a Freedom of Information Act request.  Larry Powell then offered to review the document himself and inform the rest if everything is being done as indicated. Okay Larry, you cannot be trusted to do anything right. You allowed this village to self-implode and you want the trustees to trust you with reviewing a document?

Give us a break.

The Chewbacca Defense

The new theft of government funds scandal has grown legs. The village is surprisingly taking action however Sal Rodriguez feels he’s untouchable.  We witnessed the embattled deputy chief driving around town in a regular cop uniform instead of his usual white one.  We inquired about the uniform change and were told that Mr. Rodriguez has done this in protest.  But what exactly is he protesting? It’s like Bernard Madoff walking around naked in protest of getting caught. The village started to realize that Rodriguez is a great storyteller when he dropped that Chewbacca defense for his timecard mishaps.  Rodriguez has lost his credibility with all but two officers. The only two that benefit from Rodriguez’ existence.  We don’t even need to mention who they are, they stick out like a sore thumb.  We still can’t understand how an officer who is under investigation is still riding around enforcing any kind of laws in our village. Especially one being accused of theft and submitting false timecards.  And if you support him, you are part of the problem.  Gary should take notes from our neighbors to the north.  Ask them how to do a proper employee theft of government funds investigation.

From the comments:

To the unposted commenter: You can distance yourself all you want from this “political witch hunt”, but if someone stole money out of your wallet, we are sure you would be calling your “friends” at the FBI.  Retire already, you are just as useless as the dunkin’ donuts cop.

Board Meeting Time

On the agenda for tonight:

- Deputy Chief payroll "discrepancies"
- The hitch on the police chief's school bus and why it has a yellow hitch
- Other items that the village board will just say yes to.

Business as usual.

The Forest View Double Dip

We have been quiet for a while and most thought that we were done.  We were working hard on a tip received to our blog email.  Since 2015, the Deputy Chief Salvador Rodriguez had been working as a Residency Investigations officer for the Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202.  Records from the school were only available for 2018 forward.  What we found was disturbing but not surprising.  Time cards submitted to the school district by Salvador Rodriguez show that Mr. Rodriguez was conducting school district business while on duty as a police officer and as a deputy chief for our village.  In our union world this is called “double-dipping”. But when you double dip with two taxpayer funded employers, it is a crime. Theft of government funds in Illinois is a FELONY when the theft is over $500.  We tallied up all the hours and Mr. Rodriguez was paid an extra $1,900.00 for working on school district business while on duty.  The village of Forest View paid out over $3,000 for the time Rodriguez used to work on district business.

We can see someone making an honest mistake on a submitted time card but this was not just one or two mistakes.  Oh no, in 2018 we found over 29 time submissions where Rodriguez was supposed to be in Forest View patrolling the village.  Could this explain why Salvador had no time to conduct background checks on his friends he hired?

Only two explanations for this are possible.  Rodriguez either submitted falsified time cards to the school district or Rodriguez was working for the district while on the clock in Forest View.

We think it is a little of both.  On February 20th and again on March 9th of 2018, Rodriguez submitted a time card to the school district with completely different information for the same pay period:

 

What we find interesting is that Rodriguez was scheduled to be in Forest View for a double overtime shift (16HRS) on February 13th, 2018. However according to the time sheets submitted by Rodriguez, he was working on school district casework and in the "field" on that day for 7 hours each. So Salvador put in for 14 hours for the same day when he was already on the BIG clock in Forest View. Furthermore, on February 16th, Rodriguez was scheduled to be on “investigations” in Forest View.  We would love to see if he checked out a vehicle that day to conduct his “investigations”.  Maybe someone should check the police blotter log, just don't snap pictures or make copies of them, people get fired for that kind of stuff.

At the time of this theft, Rodriguez was in the process of purchasing a new home on a single income household. The same home where he invited his closest friends, the police chief, Larry and select trustees for a housewarming party at the house they help him buy with his high dollar cash outs of overtime pay he was not entitled to. And of course some extra cash from the school district.

Usually an officer is immediately stripped of his police powers pending an investigation when accused of criminal wrongdoing such as FELONY THEFT.  However, Rodriguez remains on the job and is being protected by Larry Powell, Gary Wiseman and Mark Masciola.  Plenty of time and access to everything at the village police station to falsify more documents.  This is a case that can’t be investigated by the Forest View police since the investigator is the one being investigated. Not to mention, the other investigators are Salvador's friends.

Larry should contact the state’s attorney’s office so they can conduct an official criminal investigation.  No one at that department is qualified to do such a thing and it would also be a conflict of interest…. But we already know Larry and the gang don’t care about that. It will be handled the Forest View way.

We only know about 2018, we don’t doubt for one minute that this was going on since 2015. We are still working on that time period.

Ironic how the very person who wants to hold the rest of his officers accountable for their actions is now in the hot seat for his carefree money grabbing scheme. This is the same guy who gets warrants and locks people up for stealing a 12 pack of beer from the gas station worth $10. But it's okay for him to steal thousands from our village.

Don't worry Mr. Rodriguez, even though you would fire an officer for much less, Larry won't hold you accountable for your crimes. One would hope you do the right thing just like Jeff Tobolski. But we know you won't.

We should ask Larry what Metra does to employees who pad the time clock. This blog is all lies! Right Larry?

Looks like Sal's future records clerk should start filling out job applications, Mariano's needs some stock boys.

Integrity at it's finest. Only in Forest View.

Prevent Your Own Fires

In 1958, the Village established the Bureau of Fire Prevention which enforces the policies of the Fire Prevention Code.  In September of 2017, the Village parted ways with the Fire Inspector Rick Musil.  The village president at the time, Thomas Heller and Mark Masciola agreed to hire a replacement.  Heller wanted to have someone currently on staff to take on that role. The problem was no one on staff held the qualifications.  Even though several members of the fire department were interested in getting trained for the role, Heller and Masciola refused to invest in these individuals.

So to save the village $3, 000, Tom Heller and Mark Masciola let the Village go more than a year without a Certified Fire Inspector.

Now as we all know, Thomas Heller moved himself from that Village President seat to Chief of the Fire Department.  Looks like he fixed that fire inspector problem since he is a fire inspector. But the question is, how good of an inspector is he? Our friends over in Stickney didn’t have many nice things to say about Heller’s abilities and knowledge of Fire Prevention. 

If the hearsay isn’t convincing enough, go see for yourself and ask any firefighter who works for Thomas Heller. No one wants to work for Heller.  It has gotten so bad that the firefighters have recently requested a meeting with the village trustees to discuss Heller’s incompetence and his inability to fill shifts.  That meeting has not taken place yet, but we are very interested to see what the village will do… probably nothing. The village board still hired Heller as a fire chief even though they were well aware of his poor employment history.  Just like they hired Gary Wiseman with his checkered employment past. Who can forget that Public Works guy they hired without a background check?

Powell and Friends continue to flush the community down the toilet.

Theft of Government Funds

When the bank accidentally credits your bank account more than you are entitled to, they take it back.  When a village employee buys more than their share of a uniform allowance or an unapproved expensive watch, the village takes it back.  The village will take every penny of their money back unless you are the deputy chief.  The village ordinance explicitly prohibited the deputy chief from collecting overtime. An ordinance that according to Mark Masciola has since changed, or has it?  Larry Powell and his side kick Mark allowed the deputy chief to continue accruing compensatory time at the overtime rate after being crowned with his new position on Gary’s lap.  The deputy chief logged compensatory time for “overtime” he worked covering department absences. Rodriguez even logged compensatory time at time and a half for Voluntary overtime, Holiday pay and Administrative duties. 

Wait what? Wait a minute here!  We paid him overtime to do the administrative job he is paid a salary to do???  Holiday overtime pay??

It only gets better.  With Rodriguez’ new promotion, he got himself a huge raise. Rodriguez began to cash out his compensatory time at his deputy chief pay rate in what is called a “comp time buy back”. Compensatory time that was mostly earned when he was at the sergeant rank and new compensatory time that he should have never been allowed to accrue.

So what happened? The board defended Rodriguez but then abruptly put a stop to his overtime. Could this be because the ordinance never changed, and Larry lied again?  A step in the right direction but what about the money Rodriguez was paid out that he wasn’t entitled to?  Maybe the village should give back the watch money and forgive the indebtedness of those who went over the uniform allowance.

There should be an audit of Rodriguez’ overtime and payouts since he became the deputy chief.  But with the accidental village president Larry Powell at the wheel, that will never happen. The village moves mountains for Rodriguez and Wiseman.  Makes us wonder why.

Unbelievable.

New Superintendent of Public Works

Larry Powell has apparently appointed himself as the new Superintendent of Public Works.  Powell must have lost confidence in his appointee for the role.  Overstepping his authority, Powell wrote a public works employee a reprimand for an accident during work hours.  Powell’s “letter of formal reprimand” threatens further disciplinary action “up to and including dismissal” for “further violations of basic safety practices”.

Oh Lawrence, lets review the village ordinance on the duties of the Village President:

(A) The President shall preside at all meetings of the Board of Trustees but shall not vote except in case of a tie vote of the members of the Board of Trustees, and except concerning matters which, by statute, require the vote of the corporate authorities.

(B) He shall appoint all officers with the advice and consent of the Board of Trustees with the exception of those taking office by election. He shall have power to remove any officer appointed by him as provided by law.

(C) He may exercise within the Village limits, the powers conferred upon sheriffs to suppress disorder and keep the peace; he may release persons imprisoned for violation of any Village ordinance, reporting such release and the cause therefor at the next Board meeting.

(D) He may annually and from time to time, give the Board information relative to the Village affairs and recommend measures he deems expedient for their consideration.

(E) He shall have the power to suppress riot and other disorderly conduct and to enforce Village ordinances by calling on all inhabitants of the Village eighteen (18) years of age or more for assistance.

(F) He shall have power at all times to examine the books, records and papers of any agent, officer or employee of the Village.

You are basically a powerless meeting coordinator who has access to records in order to give the Board information relative to the village affairs and make recommendations to the board.  Unless you and Mark Masciola changed the ordinance and didn’t tell anyone much like the overtime ordinance for your deputy chief. If your Superintendent refused to write up his subordinate, then you should be replacing your superintendent for not granting his master’s wishes.

This is not Metra where you can do what you want because you said so.

Incompetence at it’s best.

Rest in Peace Officer

Sad news this morning from our neighbors to the north.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the fallen officer.

Prayers

The blog has been quiet but the information is brewing.  Our every year vacation to the household's other half''s motherland was wonderful. Unfortunately as we returned home from there the news has dealt a devastating blow to our vacation ending.  Please keep Puerto Rico in your prayers.

Closed post.

Forest View Debt Assistance

A management position requires experience and a proven track record of some kind.  We already know that our village president appointed a fire chief with no experience. As for his track record?  It looks like he can’t even manage his own finances.  With his home in the beginning stages of foreclosure for defaulting with an $80,000 SBA lien on top, what does the fire chief do?  He goes on a Disney vacation.  He will soon be renting a home in town like our one trustee who lost her home in foreclosure.

Firemen get to sleep in the fire station when they are on duty.  Soon the fire chief will be living in the fire station.

Great pick there Larry! This dude can’t even manage his own finances and you have him managing the fire department.  Maybe that is why he needed the high paying chief job so bad.  Did you know about this Larry?  Was this all part of the plan to get him back on his feet?  I guess it didn’t work out the way you all planned.

Allowing the deputy chief to steal from the village with his specially crafted super secret overtime deal and now this.  Free village money for all! Where do we sign up?

Rubber Stamp for Sale

When village code is changed it needs to be approved by the elected officials.  A topic we know has come up is what we have been preaching for the past couple months.  The deputy chief has been getting paid overtime and collecting compensatory time.  A deputy chief is an exempt position which should not be entitled to comp time.  Our published village code says the same thing, the deputy chief is not allowed to get overtime.  Another closed door deal by the village people.  This type of deal should have been approved by the village board but when you ask them, they have no recollection of making such a deal or approving the change of the village code.  What is so special about this deputy chief that everyone lays out the red carpet wherever he steps?

Mr. Wellington is Mad

To the angry commentator:

Yes we get you are mad that blog readers have put you on blast about your past. We almost want to ask Google to comply with the court order identifying comment IP addresses they received but we don't want you to cause those who witnessed your actions to have to testify. We are told that they are more than willing to come forward.  Google has rejected the order and will continue to do so until they find that this blog has violated any laws or use policies.

We may not know exactly what was voted on or why but what we do know is that we don't want someone who has foreclosed on a home and doesn't own a home in our village making any kind of financial decisions on our behalf. We don't know much about you Mr. Wellington.  You don't know much about us either although you think you do.  We do know that like the deputy chief, you too have burned many people in your cop career, so many that we have an inbox full of stories from people who don't even work for our village. We also know that you don't live in our village to care about what we care about.  We do have a job and unlike you, we sometimes work the first shift.  We hide behind a blog because we live here and we don't want to be another target for Larry Powell who has a history of targeting residents who violate his rules even when they don't.   We barked and we bit, bit so hard that you take time out of your day to write to us and spend money on lawyers to find a way to silence the truth.

Moral of the story: Don't do things you aren't supposed to when at work. Be honest and don't always look out just for only you. People may begin to like you again.

FunnyView

Taxes for You, Not for Me!

The right thing to do would be to exclude yourself from a vote that will raise taxes when you don’t even pay taxes. But one of the members on our village board could care less if you pay higher taxes. She voted YES on a tax hike that wouldn’t affect her since she doesn’t even own property within our village.  In fact, she lost her job and foreclosed on her home.  Even after we made mention of the non-tax paying member of the village board, she went ahead and voted in favor of a tax hike for all of us.  A tax hike needed to pay for the over-inflated salary paid to the unqualified fire chief and the deputy chief that this village does not need.  With the addition of Federal Express to the tax revenue stream, we should not need any additional taxes.  Maybe Larry should call Bedford Park and ask them how to run a village.

We need to hold those town hall meetings that we use to have under Grenvich. But Larry won’t do it because he can’t answer questions under pressure.

Days of Our Lives

While Chicago has their own drama series with the stuper-intendent losing his job over a hot date, Forest View doesn’t fall short of hot date drama either.  We hear that there is video in someone‘s possession of a former dispatcher getting up close and personal with Forest View’s deputy chief while at the cop station.  This dispatcher was known for collecting what cops call belt keepers which hold their utility belts in place one they reached home plate.  The dispatcher would visit the Forest View police department after her shift in a nearby town. That dispatcher was later hired by the deputy chief to work part-time in the Forest View cop station.  After a work related disagreement, she abruptly quit but was heard commenting that the deputy chief was an asshole.

Wonder if he ran out of belt keepers.

Forest View is Hiring!

Hey Eddie, you fit right in here in Forest View!  Where our board allows the police chief and his appointee to lie all the time!  Put in an application, NO BACKGROUND CHECK REQUIRED! Just ask for Salvador Gomez Rodriguez when you apply.  Be sure to use Salvador’s friends as references so your application makes the "people we know" cut.

Another Chance...

To confront the Village Board.

Trustee starts with the word "trust". Trust doesn’t come with a refill. Once it’s gone, you probably won’t get it back.

Some members of our board have betrayed our trust and they feel no shame.  From the former village president finding his way to a high paying job he and his group cleared the way for, to the police department leadership that fabricates lie after lie.  Larry Powell has refused to answer questions and will continue to do so knowing he can’t face the truth without embarrassment.  It is time that we demand change.  Larry Powell and his cronies should step down and Larry can take his loyal ladies with him on the way out.  One of them doesn’t even pay taxes in our village but sits on our board making decisions on what WE pay taxes on???

The stonewalling may continue tonight.  But we shall see if Kirchgatterer finds her lost integrity and starts doing her job for the people instead of her own personal interests.

The same questions remain, and the Powell clan is still silent.

From the comments:

It is rumored that the firehouse was empty for a shift or two? We do know that there have been many times the fire department was unable to serve the citizens of this village due to manpower shortages or the new ambulance being out of service. But a completely empty fire house??? Add that to the list.

Village board room at Village Hall!
Tuesday November 26th, 2019 7PM
Home and 46th Street

Forest View Security LLC

Usually when you call the cops you expect them to come running to help you.  Our sources in Stickney have tipped us off to another story about the cop who fears his own shadow.  A call came into the Forest View cop station by a citizen reporting that there was a person who may have an arrest warrant present at a local Forest View bar.  It’s about a 30 second drive from the Forest View cop station to the bar. Instead of going to the bar to investigate, someone at the cop station called the Stickney cops and asked them to investigate.  What?

Stickney cops arrived at the Forest View bar to look for the bad guy.  One Forest View cop entered the bar with a Stickney cop and investigated the call. The Forest View village employee that dresses up as a cop that had arrived at the exact same time parked in his favorite Dunkin Donuts lot next door.  The Stickney cop and the one brave Forest View cop completed their investigation and even took time to chat with the caller for a few before exiting the bar.  Like always, the Forest View village employee that dresses up as a cop is walking over from the Dunkin Donuts parking lot when everything was already over.  It's okay, he may have needed to go do his pre-call ritual of going to the bathroom until the scene was secure.

Someone should start paying us out on our bets because we will bet our entire years worth of a salary that no one will investigate the cowardly actions of this cop. Salvador doesn't like disciplining his friend and it was once noticed by Gary Wiseman.  Wiseman reminded Salvador Rodriguez that discipline should be the same for all cops.  Since Salvador Rodriguez likes looking for clues on the cop station's security cameras, maybe he should check them and see how long it took for the cops to respond after they got the call. Video time stamps and those popular blotter logs that people take pictures of should also have times recorded. Salvador should be able to calculate the minutes it took to arrive at the bar from the cop station. How is it that this person got away with the Forest View cops only being 30 seconds away?  A little birdie told us the cops made a pit stop before arriving at the bar.  We're a little curious as to who's idea it was to call another village and ask them to do the job of the Forest View cops.

We pay this clown to serve as a cop, instead another village is called to do his job. Forest View's very own observe and report security officer.

The Village of Stickney can send the invoice for their cop services to:

Village of Forest View
C/O Salvador Gomez Rodriguez
7000 46th Street
Forest View IL 60402

Larry should demand some answers on why this cop is still employed with the village.  Oh Larry, we know that "people change" but you can't teach bravery. 

Connecting the Dots

Following that lengthy conversation with the former village president the other day, we put on our detective caps to see how out of all people we ended up with the parking monitor Larry Powell as our village president.

Understanding politics is essential to understand the world around you. Learn about all types of government, how laws are decided upon and applied to countries Villages, find out how the election process works, and who gets to decide who rules a country village like Forest View.

After being elected, Former Village President Thomas Heller resigned his position with the Village of Stickney and took his post as Village President in Forest View.  What Thomas really wanted was to be the Forest View Fire Chief but he didn’t know how to make that happen since he can’t really appoint himself. In the end, Heller found a way.  We thought it was a friendship between Heller and Powell but we have learned that this was not likely.

So how did he do it?  A big clue that was right under our nose and we missed it.  If Thomas Heller were to step down, a new village president would need to be appointed by the village board.  After Heller did step down, the board was all in favor of appointing Brigitte Kirchgatterer aka “Bee” aka “the Bookiest Book Lady”. In the eleventh hour Kirchgatterer backed out and suddenly supported Larry Powell to be appointed.

Warning – Larry Powell Disclaimer: Speculation

Why would Kirchgatterer do that? One possibility is if she takes the position of Village President in Forest View, she may need to resign as secretary of the Forest View Park District due to a… wait for it… conflict of interest.  Kirchgatterer is raking in $9K a year as a secretary for the park district and the Village President in Forest View makes less.

Okay not so bad right? Well as we looked further, we saw the dots shining bright in our eyes and we went on a connecting spree.

The Forest View Park District website lists the following people on the board of commissioners:

• Chad McDade
• Nadine Heller
• Heidi Garza
• Irma Navarez
• John Herman

Kirchgatterer met a guy who went by Motorcycle Chad on a blind date and they fell in love, married and together ran a vintage motorcycle repair business.  They don’t share the same last name, so it was a bit hard to notice at first glance.  Below Chad McDade is Nadine Heller, Thomas Heller’s wife.  Not listed but collecting a salary in 2017 as the Forest View Park District’s Treasurer is Joy Conklin, Barb Trainor’s replacement.

Damn confusing!  We doodled it out:

A kindergartner can put this puzzle together. Thomas Heller loses his primary employment and must act fast. A plan was needed to put Heller in the highly paid Fire Chief spot.  The only way he could do it was by removing the current qualified Fire Chief, stepping down and having a person on the village board he is most connected to take over as village president. We may need to send another FOIA for phone records.

The money probably wasn’t right for Kirchgatterer so now what?  Enter the Larry Powell.  Larry always wanted to be the village president and here was his big opportunity!  The board goes on to appoint Larry Powell as Village president with Kirchgatterer bowing out at the last minute.  Larry wasn’t really a fan of Thomas Heller and with that high-level executive management job with Metra, we would think Larry would have done his due diligence and cleaned up the mess Thomas Heller left behind.  Instead Larry unethically goes along with the program and appoints the unqualified Heller to the Fire Chief position without question. Larry falls short on votes to make this happen.  Larry then goes out of his way to make sure Heller is appointed and remains as Fire Chief by appointing a neighbor who would vote how Larry wanted him to vote. Why would Larry do such a thing??? Larry later refused to remove the unqualified police chief and his sidekick even after all the turmoil that has turned up and may lead to legal liabilities.  We wonder if this is how he makes decisions at his Metra management position.

The eleventh hour's turn of events would explain Kirchgatterer’s behavior at board meetings. Brushing off other trustees who want to get real answers from Larry's newly inherited cronies.  Disgusting to say the least.  Larry must have given Kirchgatterer what she and Thomas asked for, so she sides with Larry continuously. Given her noticed behavior, Kirchgatterer has failed to carry out her duties as a trustee with objectivity and integrity. Kirchgatterer is not new to controversy. There were some reports filed with the Forest View Cops by Chad McDade and Kirchgatterer’s former customers looking for their bikes, money or bike parts after the sudden closing of the motorcycle repair shop.

It is overwhelmingly obvious that some deals were made behind closed doors and we wouldn’t be surprised if the FBI pays Forest View a visit in the near future.

Everybody Wants to be Somebody

With Larry Powell scared out of his wits and putting up the stonewall, we ventured off on our own to find out what these elected officials are afraid of.  It can’t just be the corruption happening with the police department.  This must be deeper.  We didn’t want to blow our cover so we took out our secure satellite phone, climbed on the roof and made a call to the former village president to ask for an interview.  Holy cow he actually answered! We explained who we were but not who we were, and he gladly confirmed our “fabricated” stories:

Powell always wanted to be president:

In 2001 Larry Powell ran against the village president and lost, not by a few votes… HE REALLY LOST!  Powell then became what Gary Wiseman calls “bitter” and didn’t really care to show up and carry out his duties as a trustee.  Heads-up Mark! We may need to send a new FOIA request for attendance records.

Heller always wanted to be a fire chief:

Years ago, the village of Forest View transitioned from having a Director of Public Safety to separate top level management for each public safety division.  Seeing an opportunity, Thomas Heller while already being an elected trustee asked to be appointed to the Fire Chief position, but he was passed over. The village president evaluated the situation and chose the most qualified individual for the job.  Deputy Fire Chief Larry Moran, a Doctor of Education with a Masters in Public Safety Administration and undergraduate degrees in Fire Science was the obvious choice.

After losing his 2015 re-election campaign for trustee, Thomas Heller saw the opportunity to get back in the seat he lost.  A village trustee had stepped down after relocating outside of the village limits leaving an empty seat on the board.  This prompted Heller to request a reappointment to that empty trustee seat but again was denied. The village president refused to put someone on the board that just lost a reelection, a move which would have been unethical.  Heller still wanted to be involved in some way, so the village president was nice enough to appoint Heller to Building Commissioner. Heller allegedly had experience with inspections in Stickney as an $18/hr fire captain.  Ya get what ya pay for….

Why Not?

In 2016, the village president announced that he would not be seeking reelection.  Thomas Heller saw yet another opportunity to move on up the chain.  The retiring village president advised Thomas Heller not to run because it would have possibly caused a conflict of interest with his employment with the Village of Stickney.  Heller ran anyway. Since Heller was unopposed, it was an easy win for him.  And that’s where the nightmare all began. Heller began making moves and brought his friends and their friends to positions within the village.  We learned that when Barb Trainor was removed in mid 2018, she was immediately replaced without a search for a new candidate. The position was filled with a person connected to Heller’s wife and another village trustee.  Next, instead of conducting a search for a viable, educated and experienced police chief candidate, Heller appointed his Stickney buddy Gary Wiseman whom he was already considering even before he was officially elected.  Sounds innocent enough but when you can’t answer if your choice for police chief has a degree, you should stop the babbling and rethink what you are about to do.

As you can see Thomas, your choices created a domino effect. Your bad choice made another bad choice and you and your friends ended up on display for the world to see.

Truth in Numbers - UPDATED

While Larry keeps telling us that all the information on this blog are lies, we give you real numbers that he can’t deny.  We have posted many truths on this blog which has piqued the interest of many residents.  The grand total for last week was five thousand hits to the bog.  Our inbox is full of emails daily with questions and comments of disgust.  It appears that many of our residents had no clue the accidental village president was Larry Powell.  They question how it was legal or ethical for Thomas Heller to just clear the way for himself to a high dollar paying village job.  It is our opinion that Heller isn’t qualified and many of the firefighters we talked to who currently employed by the village feel the same way.

The village wants us to go away. They probably have their legal team looking for a way to shut us down.  The first amendment is a tricky one when all we do is spew out the truth. Oh Larry, we're just getting warmed up.

After taking a few shots at the village administrator Mark, the FOIA request one of our sources had sent to the village was responded to. Thank you Mark! Better late than never.

The data requested shows a direct correlation between Salvador Rodriguez being appointed deputy chief and the exodus either by terminations or resignations of cops who served the village for years:

Update from the comments (verified): 

You actually forgot a few: Jim Kostro (9 years), John Denis (1 day), Shook from Cicero (No show)

Then you have the hiring of cops who were either not qualified or saw through the bullshit and left. Two of these dudes didn’t even show up after being appointed. All vetted by Salvador Rodriguez:

Seven of these cops didn’t even make it past field training.  We are told that at least one of them was the friend of the Chief’s wife who had never worked a real cop job before.  A complete waste of village taxpayer dollars.  A few of these cops were hired prior to Salvador’s promotion but Salvador was the only one doing the hiring since Deputy Chief Perez was shutout of all decision making. It was the Gary and Sal show and if you didn't like it, you were guided to the exit.  Speaking of exit, someone should hold talk to some of those old timers that left or got fired.  We will again bet our paycheck that the stories they tell will be different from the stories told by Salvador when he faced the board.

A complete pattern of lies and failure but people change right Larry?

Political Favors Part 3

Background investigation? Who needs one when you have a buddy to vouch for you?

While the village is busy chasing their own tail searching for their internal “leak”, we were busy taking advantage of the external information resources available to us.

Kudos to the folks over at Merrionette Park that actually abides by the law unlike the Village of Forest View’s municipal administrator.

Merrionette Park provided further proof of a Forest View cop being hired without a background investigation.  We are sure that Merrionette Park didn’t fabricate this, or did they?

>>>>FOIA RESPONSE LETTER<<<<<

We can hear the explanation now:

“These individuals were already police officers in other towns so there wasn’t a need for a full background investigation”.

What they really mean to say is:

“These police officers are buddies of my buddies, so don’t worry about a background”

Or:

“I didn’t have time to get them done”

December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August

You could almost have a kid in that time frame.

We are told that the female cop in question is a very nice person and a great cop and coworker. This is not an attack at her character. This is an attack on the lack of accountability for the actions of the second in command who likes to hold his peasants accountable for not reading or responding to emails in a “timely manner”. People get fired for that in Forest view.

It’s okay, Larry and his cronies buddies will just look the other way.

It’s all fabricated.

Stonewalled!

A BIG thank you to all of the residents that attended the meeting last night. You have now witnessed firsthand the Forest View Stonewall.  First they warn you that no one will ask or answer any questions about the content of this First Amendment Protected blog.  Then an executive session behind closed doors with an unusually extra long delay. That delay was intended to make us lose patience and leave. Some of us did but we understand people have jobs and obligations.  The Village needs time to fabricate their responses to the issues brought up by this blog and its readers.  This blog is not based on fiction or speculation.  No one likes to be caught off-guard and be exposed but sometimes that is what it takes to show their real colors. The problems at the cop department are nothing new to the accidental village president. Larry Powell along with his trustee friends have known this for months but chosen to ignore them.  With some of the village board being gullible and in Powell’s brunch club, it is often hard to open their eyes to the truth.

• Can’t fabricate a story about permits not being issued in a timely manner.
• Can't fabricate a story of a Village President that WASN’T elected by the residents.
• Can't fabricate a story of a Village President that WAS elected by the residents suddenly is now a fire chief.
• Can’t fabricate FOIA responses from real villages about background investigations that didn't happen.
• Can’t fabricate a story about an exempt non-union deputy chief getting paid overtime when he isn’t entitled to it. 

You can’t fabricate the FACTS!

We welcome an investigation! The problem is the accidental village president and his cronies won’t give it to you.  This shouldn't be a problem if they have nothing to hide.

The right to petition government for redress of grievances is the right to make a complaint to, or seek the assistance of, one's government, without fear of punishment or reprisals. 

That right was stripped from us last night.  We encourage all our residents to keep in the fight and attend the next board meeting with us on November 26th, 2019.  This blog will live on.

Countdown - UPDATED

Today is the day! Time to ask our elected officials to explain themselves.

• Why did the village appoint a chief of police with a questionable record?
• Why are village vehicles used as school buses?
• How did Lawrence C. Powell end up as our Village President?
• How did the former Village President Thomas Heller end up as our fire chief?
• Why does the village manager not return calls to our residents?
• Why does the village manager ignore FOIA requests?
• Why does the phone number on the village website ring the cops?
• Who is Barb Trainor and why is her email plastered all over the county website?
• What happened to the public works director they hired?
• Why did the cop department hire all these cops without a background investigation?
• Why do we have two police chiefs for a department of 8?
• Why did the cops cover-up a DUI arrest for a Cicero cop's family member?
• Why was nothing done about the racial profiling towards Hispanics?
• Why was nothing done about the racial discrimination of a black cop?
• Why is the deputy chief allowed to steal from the village and get paid overtime?
• Why is the deputy chief still employed with the village after all the lies?

It all starts at the top: Thomas Heller Lawrence C. Powell and company.

Village board room at Village Hall!
Tuesday November 12th, 2019 7PM
Home and 46th Street

Collateral Damage

Last evening during a planned social function we learned that a Forest View dispatcher was fired on Thursday by Salvador and Gary.  A letter was sent to Larry Powell to inform him about the termination and that it was for policy violations. This kind of happening is not usually newsworthy but we then learned the circumstances behind the episode.  During Salvador’s internal investigation on how this blog gets it’s information, he was sifting through hours of security video looking for his big break in the case.  Salvador came across a video of the dispatcher in question snapping a photo of a blotter log.  We asked why she would do something like that and after it was explained it made all the sense in the world.

The Forest View cop department is still running on antiquated pen and paper databases.  There is no computerized database of calls that come into the cop station.  A blotter log is created on a computerized spreadsheet then printed and stored for historical purposes.  This makes stuff difficult when someone needs to search for information about something in those logs that happened in the past.  The cops and dispatchers can’t just go to a computer and search, they have to go grab a stack of printed sheets of paper and go page by page to locate what they are looking for.  Cops, dispatchers and even Salvador have taken pictures of schedules, computer screens, logs or cop reports.  We are told that this is common practice in Forest View. Maybe Salvador should check his text message history and look at the times he requested reports or log information from his Coke Bottle assistant or any other dispatcher and cop.  We are assured that Salvador’s own cell phones are full of the same kind of photos the fired dispatcher snapped. Not only of cop blotters or cop reports but of private citizen's driver's licenses and insurance cards.  That would make for a lot of policy violations for everyone if a policy that says "no cell phone photos allowed" even exists.

The fired dispatcher worked in the Forest View cop station about 3 or 4 times a month so why would she be the target of the leaky faucet investigation?  As bad as we want to feel for her, she should have seen this coming.  We are told she sleeps with Salvador’s enemy, the cop that Salvador fired back in August.  Salvador despises the guy and probably wants to bang his girlfriend, but she probably wouldn’t give it up. On the other hand, Salvador can’t figure out how the information is leaving the cop station, so she was the first to go. Gotta have something to show the Larry and Mark club that Salvador is taking action to stop the bleeding! Common sense says the dispatcher should have started looking for a new job the day they fired her lover. She was collateral damage and automatically guilty by association. Can't really feel sorry for her there.

Needle in a hay stack.

We have been following the happenings at the cop department for a long time. Many friends have been made throughout the years that are connected to the Forest View cop department directly and indirectly.  We have also made anonymous friends who email us content, rumors and many many pictures from fake looking email accounts. Then there's Mr. Coke Bottles, he hears it, he goes home and kills a bottle of vodka and then everyone hears it by night fall.  Everyone seems to know that loud mouth.  We haven't seen things in our inbox that look like blotter logs or cop reports. We are told that nothing on those blotters would be of any value to this blog.  We know what Salvador is looking for, unfortunately it will take him a year or two of sifting through video surveillance to find it.  The images emailed to us anonymously look to have been taken quite some time ago by people Salvador probably burned and may no longer work there.  They could have been taken and passed around by someone who didn't like Salvador back then but now is his best friend.  Many people had access to that office Salvador sits in now.  See, that office was a “watch commander” office before Salvador kicked everyone out and changed the locks.  It was open all day, and all night.  It could really be anyone that steps foot in that office, even those Salvador break's bread with.  Salvador's very own Judas.  Salvador will keep looking for heads to chop but this blog has gone from information leaks to whistle-blower status.  The head he chops next may be the one that takes Gary, Salvador and the village to the bank.  If the first amendment doesn't get them, the whistle-blower act will.

We won’t keep calling the information sent to our inbox a leak.  A leaker only distributes information for personal gain. Gee, where did we hear about a leak before?  Oh yes, the chipmunk who made copies of cop reports and went to show politically influential people who weren’t cops in hopes that they would choose him for the Deputy Chief position since he knew how to write a sentence (for the record, this is a run-on sentence). It was illegal and a violation of policy but he didn’t get fired. No one even slapped his hand.  They blew the whole thing off.  Salvador fires a dispatcher for doing something Salvador and everyone else in that cop department does on a daily basis but turns the other way to the blatant violation of law and privacy committed by Alvin.  They should check Alvin’s locker, the manila folder may still be there with all the reports he was parading around with.  We are told that Gary Wiseman knew that this happened. As a matter of fact, Gary was a witness to Alvin's actions but Gary sat on his hands, monitored the park and did nothing.

Accountability. Google it.

Stellar Performance

On our way home yesterday, we happened to see the Grand Opening of the Shell gas station over on 46th and Harlem.  What was the very first thing we saw? A tall red-faced enraged chief cop guy running around like a headless chicken yelling at drivers.  The traffic was horrendous. 

Poorly planned event but what else would you expect from the Forest View leadership? What did they think would happen when the gas station was going to sell cheap gas?  We are willing to bet that they were warned beforehand but no one is paying attention. Everyone is too preoccupied with blog damage control to worry about what is really important like cop work, special events planning and crowd control.

We did see two of our favorite cops, the new male full-time kid and the former REAL deputy chief Perez out there taking care of business. They did an outstanding job assisting with traffic control considering they had no help due to their boss' poor planning. Kudos to you two for a job well done!

There is a lot of yelling and typing going on in Salvador’s office and there will be until the next board meeting on Tuesday.  Have to create gather evidence to discredit the blog asap! Unfortunately for Salvador, all of the entries made on this blog are derived from true events. Some of the stories may sound childish and silly, but they are very real. The comments are even more real. With all his bridges burnt and other villages not willing to assist him in his cover-ups, he must do it all on his own now.

Happy searching pal!

Powellville: Home of The Heller Cronies

The Forest View Police Department, a breeding ground for “bad bosses” starting with the current “Nit Wit” Chief and his Deputy Chief known as “Imbesal”

What makes a “Bad Boss” ???

• A person who needs to justify his “Do Nothing” job by causing havoc and disorder throughout the working environment.
• A political appointee who actually believes he made it on his own.
• A person who constantly gives negative reinforcement by always threatening discipline.
• A person who constantly needs to harass the troops because of his own insecurity.
• A person who is a total idiot who happened to slip through the cracks and even he can’t believe he got the job.
• A person who sends his personnel a poster of what a “Bad Employee” is, thinking that it’s going to improve everything and make him look intelligent.
• A person who thinks he’s a born leader but is really a miserable failure.
• A person who thinks he solves problems but in reality is the cause of all problems.
• A person who we would all be better off without.

At what point do we say enough is enough?  Don't think for a moment that the cops are the only municipal department with problems.

Forest View has:

• A useless village manager who makes more than a doctor but can't return resident's calls let alone process a simple permit. 
• A blind incompetent village president who was installed in exchange for a favor to a personal friend.
• An unqualified fire chief who pushed his old fire chief out so he can take his place after losing his job. And now he does nothing all day and can't keep the firehouse fully staffed. Why pay all that money and still have to call other towns to take our fire or ambulance calls?
• An unqualified police chief with a long history of abusing the public, doors and water coolers.
• An unqualified deputy police chief who has backstabbed his own "guys" and has repeatedly lied to Larry Powell and his board.

We are done drinking the Kool-Aid. Powell needs to get the fuck out of that chair.  We need to get our village back.

A message to the woke individual that notified the village residents: 

Our sincerest thank you to you sir or ma'am.  We were wondering why this blog suddenly spiked in visits the past two nights. Then we checked the mail.

A Card Laid is a Card Played

As we are already aware of how the Forest View Deputy Chief of police, Salvador Rodriguez, advanced to his significant role, it is not practical to cover it. Referred to by his subordinates as “Lecture-me Sal” and certain other names that must not be repeated here to avoid a Facebook ban again, all thanks to Mr. Coke Glasses. It is best to demote him ourselves while sticking to his covert name, “Salvador,” after discovering what we know now.

The story begins amid a firing scandal, when Salvador and Gary Wiseman presented themselves in front of the accidental village president Larry Powell and trustees during a recent special village board meeting. This distinctive meeting was called upon to address when a recently fired cop dropped a dime tattling Salvador’s carefree employee write-ups and Gary Wiseman’s checkered employment past. During the meeting, both were questioned whether the pre-employment hiring process was equal for prospective applicants seeking employment in Forest View. Their answer was a resounding, “Yes.” A pre-employment process is undertaken, including an intensive background investigation. Ironically, Gary was appointed by the former village president Tom Heller without undergoing one of these pre-employment background inquiries himself. Does this sound familiar? 

Let us dive into what these pre-employment background investigations entail. They involve a drug test, medical exam, a criminal history check, and similarly to other jobs, employment history checks as well. During these stages, an investigator would contact your past employers seeking more detail regarding whether you showed up to work on weekends or gleefully celebrated snow days off. See but Salvador admittedly never had time to do reference checks. Not even on village license applicants.

When Salvador was appointed as deputy chief, he began clearing his own tracks. Once he succeeded in getting rid of the previous Deputy Chief, he pushed all the part-time cops who had been with Forest View for several years out of the department. Then he embarked on hiring unqualified cops, and this quickly backfired.  The FOIA request our sources sent to back that statement was completely ignored by the Village of Forest View. Someone tell the village administrator Mark Marcolara that ignoring FOIA requests is illegal.

Friends of Salvador

While running out of options, he called all his friends and generously offered them jobs. His rabbit-hole moment was when he skipped the most essential part of the pre-employment hiring process, which was the “thorough background investigation.” Another person with firsthand knowledge about this discrepancy took it upon themselves to expose what Salvador had engaged in.

Several friends hired by Salvador came from the village of Stickney, along with a few former cops from the village of Lyons. One of them also happens to be the current Fire Chief of Riverside, Illinois. It is merely a formality when a village seeking information regarding an applicant obtains a release form signed by the applicant. Those release forms are usually securely filed away, in case the applicant someday returns to accuse their current or previous employer of disclosing unauthorized information about them. The villages were unable to supply evidence of any communication about conducted background investigations or signed release forms sent from the village of Forest View, for any of those individuals. At least one of these cops may have not even had a job application on file when he was already working.

Stickney: 3 Cops

Riverside: 1 Cop

Lyons: 2 Cops

Geezzz! Looks like Mr. Sheahan's rectal area is still throbbing from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s recent visit to Lyons.  She-ahan, "Mystery Man" is sexist. Anonymous women can push your buttons too.

The new female cop:

One of the most recent additions to the Forest View cop department’s full-time personnel was a female cop, who was initially hired on a part-time basis around January 2019. This female cop completed 40 hours of field training in March 2019, as reported by the Field Training Boss (we will circle around to this point). Furthermore, in August 2019, Salvador rushed to place this female cop on a full-time roster after terminating another cop who was not part of his crew.

It was later uncovered that Salvador scurried to conduct a background check on the female cop after she was already seven months into her new employment. It became blatantly obvious that this female cop was hired without undergoing any official background investigations, that are required by village code:

6-2-2: HIRING STANDARDS:

• (A) Education And Experience: Any person appointed as a part-time police officer in the Village must possess a diploma from an accredited high school or a GED;
• (B) Minimum Age: Any person appointed as a part-time police officer in the Village must be twenty one (21) years of age or older at time of application; and
• (C) Other Requirements: Any person appointed as a part-time police officer in the Village must:Possess a valid Class D Illinois driver's license;
  be a United States citizen;Have no felony convictions or disqualifying criminal histories;Have 20/100 vision correctable to 20/20;Be able to pass a background investigation and any other examinations the Village may require;

Some people close to people over at Merrionette Park gave us an exclusive that back in August 2019, Salvador was looking for some information on the female cop who used to work there. Merrionette Park then requested that infamous release form everybody is looking for.

Quick (Insert female cop’s name here)! I know you are off but please take some time to sign a release form and send me a picture of it! We certainly hope she was compensated for that time cleaning up your dog-shit.

Salvador then sought help from another friend, who is a part-time Forest View cop also employed by the female cop’s former department in Willow Springs. That part-time cop was alleged to have conducted a background investigation with the Willow Springs cops on the female cop in the early days of August 2019. Then the part-time cop detective or investigator provided a report to the chiefs, resembling the kind that is provided when genuine background investigations are carried out. Are part-time Forest View cops taking on the additional responsibilities of detectives now?  Was he working as a Willow Springs investigator or Forest View detective when looking at those personnel files? The Village of Willow Springs had NO evidence of a background check nor could they provide evidence of a waiver on file for the female cop:

Since the female cop was hired back in January 2019, there was absolutely no valid reason for Salvador to conduct a background investigation in August. If Salvador would have conducted the background check as required back in January, there would have been record of her release form and communication requesting permission to review her file in Willow Springs.  If this is a new procedure, then it wasn't done for the new cop that transitioned from part-time to full-time just months before the female cop. Well that cop was cut from a different cloth so his background investigation was done before he was hired part-time.  Come on, who are we kidding here.

So Salvador hires a bunch of his friends and their friends and skips the backgrounds because he knows them or his friends know them. Why is Salvador conducting background checks on people he knows? Can we say conflict of interest? A practice that is detrimental to the integrity of the background investigation process.

Of course, Salvador lied to the board…… again.

Salvador’s privileged friends are held to a different standard than the other cops. The Forest View citizen harassment quotas don't apply to them.  We were also advised that all of Salvador’s friends only went through 40 hours of field training which is inline with the training policy of part-time cops.  Unfortunately, this shed light on a lot of unfairness since another cop who had been with Forest View for two years was forced to undergo four weeks of field training when he was transitioned from part-time to full-time. The new female cop? Apparently 40 hours of training in March was more than enough for a part-time certified cop. What was the primary difference between the two? The latter was not a lucky member of Sal’s unique pool of applicants.

And who is acting as a watchdog to monitor all these unfair practices? Believe it or not, that is what Gary is supposedly doing. Hide the garbage cans and the water cooler! Without a doubt, it is now critical for the board to launch an immediate investigation into this matter before these chiefs fraudulently manufacture more illegitimate documents to cover their behinds. They need to look at references on job applications, background investigation reports and training records to connect the dots.

It goes without saying that the cops hired are of good moral character. It is very unfortunate that Salvador Rodriguez put them in the position they are in.

See Salvador, our credible sources have friends everywhere. People you talk to talk to our people.  Those people talk when they see shady shit from a person who back-stabbed everyone in his path to that Deputy Chief throne. What a FOIA didn’t fetch our sources, casual conversations did. Conversations with people that didn't want to get dragged into your “Funny View” mess.  You may want to start getting that resignation letter ready.

You have betrayed the public trust and the residents of Forest View.