Slowly Making Progress

Have you ever felt that your efforts were being hampered?  Well that is how I was beginning to feel.  Maybe I was feeling paranoid.  I have good reason to feel that way.  While serving on the DuPage Water Commission my efforts were continually being stonewalled.  You can read about that here Swimming against the current and here FOIAed again.

The whole thing started back on February 12, 2013 when I spoke at a DuPage County Board meeting about a concern that was brought to my attention by several individuals.  You can catch up on the situation here Shared Services?.  

On March 5, 2013 I sent an email to DuPage State's Attorney Nancy Wolfe, below is a copy of the email.

It is my understanding that DuPage County is storing all of the DuPage Forest Preserve documents and we have been since 2002.  I do believe that DuPage County should take inventory of all of the forest preserve documents currently in our possession.  I do believe that any documents that are delivered to the county must be documented,  what type of document(s), the date and time the county received the document(s) and where the document(s) are being stored.

I do believe that  transportation of the documents needs to be defined.  Who is and how are the documents being delivered to the county? Is staff delivering the documents? Are we using a courier service?  What type of protections are there for transportation of documents and who is responsible for them during transit.

I also believe that an intergovernmental agreement must states who is responsible for the documents.  The arrangement as it is right now is troubling.  If a document is missing or damaged the county can blame the FP or the other way around.  

Lastly, there should be some type of fee for storing the documents.  

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me and I look forward to working with you on this most important matter.

A few weeks had passed, I had not heard anything from the State's Attorney's Office. I phoned to check on the status of the Intergovernmental Agreement.  To my surprise the agreement had not been worked on.  After a few more weeks, still hearing nothing,  I had sent another email inquiring about the status of the agreement.  I received a response that they were working on the first draft of the agreement.  I responded asking to have the process explained to me and how long the process would take. I never did  here back from my last inquiry.  Yesterday I had a DuPage County Board meeting .  I was not going to leave the campus until I  spoke with Ms. Wolfe.  Well, I did speak with her and  I was pleased to learn that the first draft of the Intergovernmental Agreement between DuPage County and the DuPage Forest Preserve is complete.  The draft is now in the hands of the DuPage Forest Preserve for review by their attorney.  

The first part of the process has taken much longer than anticipated.  The good news is that things are moving along and progress is being made.