Harl says Peru employees are bogged down by Freedom of Information Act Requests
I have to admit I filed one today, not on a whim, but because the city has failed to provide the information I have been waiting to see in the minutes of one of their council meetings and it has never appeared.
The Mayor should be pleased that so many people are interested in Peru City Government.
23 comments:
Yeah ok. Its probably the same 4ppl doing it
Having heard about this and then read the "Leader of the Valley" face book page.
It seems that this group of disgruntled former elected officials and their minions is trying to discredit hard working staff that work at city hall. It has been proven that there was a problem and it was caught and dealt with.
According to their leader he want a third party audit well an audit like that will cost 50,000 or more. If you go to the website and look at the last audit it was done by a third party and not the city.
I for one am upset that this group thinks that tying up the staff for their own purpose is of when it take time away from the duties they are suppose to be doing .
Let talk about being fiscally responsible.
The few want to boggle down the city staff and make the taxpayers pay for not electing them for office. Nothing more than sour grapes. The problem with it is that it cost tax dollars.
After reviewing thousands of votes, city records and more......nothing has been found!
Does anyone know if the trip to China was discussed and voted on at last night's council meeting? If so, was the cost for that trip discussed? I'm sure it would be more than the $2500 alderman Potthoff comments that the city had to pay for FOIA requests. How much did it cost the city to pay an employee overtime on Saturday to run the street sweeper (in my opinion that was a waste of tax payer money)? We should be keeping our sewer grates maintained on a regular basis not just when it's pouring rain. We surely do not need a street sweeper to clean them.
Employees are on call weekends. A weekend storm was on Saturday, employees who cleaned catch basins were called out. Employees are paid for on call and you might as well have them do something.
I don't have any problem having employees work on week ends to deter flooding in my basement. I also did see two alderman out cleaning sewers Ferrari and Potthoff. I don't think they charged the city.
FOIA requests are part of having a transparent city. The request should have specific topics. You may have a few being abusive and a pain in the butt.
What you say 11:39 may all be well and true but I still don't understand why the street sweeper was needed to prevent flooding and if employees were called in why were aldermen cleaning sewers? It's, in my opinion, routine maintenance and the city should be out on days like today unplugging clogged grates.
During a heavy rain the leaves in the street will go to the sewer drains. The street sweeper removes those leaves from the streets and we hope prior to the sewers being clogged. Common sense will say that a very windy storm in October will cause more leaves to fall and more sewers being clogged. If, having a street sweeper out during a fall storm is the biggest problem in our city then we are fortunate. I also understand that employees are on call and receive on call pay, why not have them do actual work? Employees are also picking up leaves and street sweeping during the week.
Let's have a contest. Please send the 3-4 people who request all these FOIAS.
I bet all will have Former Mayor Candidate/ Former Alderman/ Former employee after their name. I guess Peru will just continue to pay, you have no choice. Why cant we just say..."Get a life"
Because there has been a failure to communicate between Peru city officials and the taxpayers of this city.
Haha. I knew it Perez and tom lol
Lois
There has not been a failure to communicate between anyone.
You all receive answers to questions asked, but they are not what you want to hear.
The above mentioned people who are asking for all the foia information, are getting what was charged and what was paid for by the city. However these Watch Pups are not telling the whole story.
In the case of the former city employee they failed to let everyone know that it was paid back and that the finance office brought it to light when he found it and all this was given to the individual who requested it.
Just have to wonder what would happen if people started to publish just one side of their past
11:38 AM
You seem to fail to understand that comment has absolutely nothing to do with the information foia'd by Mr. Perez. My concerns are that people seldom seem to know so much of wht is taking place or about to take place in the city.
First of all all the questions asked by many residents need to be asked and answered in a friendly environment. And that is not happening. There is an adversarial atmosphere between the aldermen, mayor and other officials and the public. The monies supporting the city are not "pennies from heaven", they are the taxpayers hard earned dollars. At the present time I am not sure that any one of the elected officials have any respect for the people who support this city and whether the city fathers understand the in kind feeling that is given back to them.
BTW the overpriced park development is just one example of lack of communication.
Lois,
You seem like a nice person, every question I have asked has been answered. If I want to see the plans for the water project that is going to happen in my neighbor hood I went to the city and all my concerns were answered.
I think what is happening with these three individuals is they were not reelected and one was let go( angry people).
I don't trust any of them because of what I hear in around town.
And what park development ( splash park) I believe that was bid out and the city has to take the lowest bidder. correct?
12:23 PM
Your going to the city should have not been necessary. This project should have involved the community for which it is being constructed. Several public meetings would have served that purpose. Did I miss them? Or did they not happen? Peru has a habit of believing that the people we elected should make all the decisions without public input. I don't know if you remember that they once did it right when the swimming pool was unusable and they planned on rebuilding. They conducted numerous public meetings with companies that were seeking to give Peru a new pool and it was done the way it should be done. The companies brought information and pool designs etc. We were at that time well informed. I did not think they chose the right company but at least the efforts were made to include the public. This should have been no different.
12:23 PM
Don't blame three people for asking information that should be willingly given. I also foia'd some information that should be easily given because it involved the hire of someone for this city government. I have done it before and know I was given the information with no problem. This year I am finding it much more difficult because the hiring of this person was hidden in the budget and there is no contract signed as per the norm. NO TRANSPARENCY in Peru. Making it harder and harder to obtain information that should be easily done.
I have spoken to my long time alderman many times and have always got the information requested. I don't want to use his name because of the fact that a the hit squad will discredit him. I have spoke to the Mayor and have questions answered.
What we have is the group of 3-4 who have made it their life to berate and antagonize those in office. It's not a big deal in the big picture of city government, and I don't blame any of those in office for not giving them the time of the day. It also not wrong to check the operations of your government and to politic for your point of view. I don't see any of the small group looking at votes and discussion. They simply want those people out of office. It is their sole mission.
Why don't you or those few make a phone call and ask your city official the question instead of having the office gang spending all their time looking for information and costing the taxpayers money?
If you don't get the answer or they hang up on you tell us.
There was a special public meeting for the splash park. Many people were there.
5:18 PM
Evidently I did not know or hear about it from anyone. Could you kindly direct me to the minutes of that meeting? If held by the city it should be available. Funny that no one ever mentioned that before as I could of just read the minutes and found out about the discussion. Looking forward to hearing about where I might find it.
3:31 PM
Not quite sure where to start with an answer to your blog post. Very glad to know you have a long standing relationship with your alderman. So just assuming you just might have other connections to him also. Lot of people do not even know who their aldermen or women are. I have to admit I do not know my latest elected alderman and certainly should with all the problems with this ward.
I do not know anyone who makes it their life to nag at City Hall but know many people who have issues as to what is happening with regard to policy in Peru. Don't think the number is only 3 or 4 people.
I don't know too many who have a good relationship with the whole of city government.
For a starter I suggest you go to the web site and see how many times some of the documents have been downloaded, it is amazing the number of people who do this. Sometimes you don't find enough information in those documents or something gets your interest and that is where the Foia goes into operation. It may answer the rest of your questions or not and at that point of understanding if you have a relationship with your aldermen, seek them out.
Please don't be so quick to criticize the residents who are doing what actually all of us should be doing and researching what our government is all about, how they are spending your money and are they doing a good job or are they wasting it. Anyone who runs for office should be prepared to talk to people in an intelligent and patient manner because knowing how the government works is not necessarily something everyone is great at.
The questions many of us ask, the aldermen or the mayor would not know the answers to without looking much of up it themselves. The officials don't have the time or detailed knowledge in their heads either.
Thank you NewsTribune for giving the names and a short article on THE Foia request. As we thought its the same names.
Years ago satire was utilized as a extremely effective political tool of expression i.e. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Today the art of satire has been pushed aside by the less talented to express themselves as buffoons begging for a feeble opportunity to achieve their goal of making ridicule of well intentioned others.
The FOIA is no more than a legal means of obtaining additional information that should have been previously granted to the public. Mayor Richard J. Dailey I publicly stated that if he was to be quoted to release the entire quote not to take selected sentences. Those who have chosen to use the FOIA are entirely correct in utilizing their legal rights and those public officials who have made public fodder of them are misusing their political office and selecting this as a means of payback. Is there a possible lack of financial understanding by one who is concerned about paying a number of hours to inform the citizenship he as Mayor represents what they lawfully deserve but as a financial watchdog of Peru proposes a trip to China for him and Peru's Economic Director. 90 some hours in expenses for part time clerks fulfilling designated objectives and the law in comparison to a expense paid trip to China for two (Vickrey and Harl) without any stated objective. Which is a complete waste of taxpayers money, Mr. Mayor!
Incidentally Mayor has Peru government ever published the list of city government individual employees salaries and cost of fringe benefits per employee per year? This is to be done by the demand of state law. In your entire time in office you have as yet to follow this law. You do know that you have instituted some of the highest paying jobs in the towns history which have been appointed to those with no formal or experienced background What is more preferable a comment in the open forms of the Times and Tribune or the high cost of a FOIA? I have been told that politicians in Peru pay no attention to this blog. Therefore they do not address the concerns of the entire city populace. Sad to have public officials that are so isolated in these turbulent times.
The agenda for Monday's Public Services meeting once again provides no information as to what they will or will not discuss. If there is indeed nothing to discuss, which is what the agenda suggests, then why have a meeting? Is there another reason that these agendas have become so vague? They used to be very detail oriented.
Sure there is a reason why the agendas have become so vague. Your city representation does not want you to have a clue as to what is going on!
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