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.