Freeport Needs a Water and Sewer Commission

Freeport's water and sewer system is a public utility.  The funding and expenses must be kept separate from the City of Freeport's other financial books.  The users of this most important public utility deserve to know how it is being run and who it is that is making long term, publicly expensive decisions.

Prior to 2017 and City Manager Lowell Crow, Freeport utilized a  Water and Sewer Commission which would handle all things regarding our public utility.  The Board of Water and Sewer Commissioners consisted of five people, the members of the commission usually had plumbing, construction or engineering experience.  Here is a picture from City ordinances as the paragraph appeared in the 1980s.

In the writer's opinion this system worked very well and provided much more in the way of transparency for us, the owners of the public utility as well as the Freeport City Council.  As it stands now all decisions have already been made somewhere behind closed doors prior to arriving on the City Council agenda.

At present, there is a plan for the largest buildout of water and sewer in the history of Freeport, in to the Forrestville Valley School district south of the Titan Tire plant.  A plan that would not be any where near economically feasible had Covid relief money not dropped from the sky.  How feasible it will be for present users of the water and sewer system to maintain such a buildout without numerous new users, no one knows for sure.  There has been no independent feasibility study of any type conducted.

So where did Freeport water and sewer rate payers (and by extension the Freeport City Council) first learn that this massive buildout was being proposed? The July 12, 2021 meeting of the Planning and Development Committee of the Stephenson County Board, that is where it was first made public.

Meeting minutes from this meeting make it clear that this proposal, and the plan to spend Stephenson County's American Recovery Plan Act dollars on the project, originated behind closed doors within the Greater Freeport Partnership.

One question to the Stephenson County Board.  Why ask the citizens of Freeport to subsidize another school district with our public utility?  Forrestville Valley will reap industrial property without the added cost of new students.  And the school board in Forreston can close their one school in Stephenson County, at German Valley, without so much as a telephone call to the Chairman of the Stephenson County Board.

Why can't this money be used to help construct a treatment plant on site?  Titan already treats their own.  Why is there only one solution on the table?

There are many more issues beyond this one confronting rate payers of Freeport's (not Stephenson County's) water and sewer system and the Freeport City Council.  We need and deserve much greater transparency when it come to our only but most important public utility in Freeport. 

I urge the incoming Freeport City Council to bring back the Water and Sewer Commission,  appoint competent and qualified commissioners and begin to examine the functionality of our public utility from top to bottom.  

As always, yours in honesty,

John Samuel Cook

2023

How About Legislating Some Ethical Values?

Do you think the board of directors of a major corporation would ever tolerate their CEO being married to the finance director of the company they oversee for shareholders?  Clearly such a situation would be rife with moral, ethical and perhaps legal pitfalls. 

Right off the bat spouses are always going to look out for their spouse first as their individual livelihoods are dependent upon each other.  Secondly, its too easy for the CEO and  finance director to collude virtually undetectable as they'd be living together as husband and wife.  Third, if one of them is partaking in potentially illegal conduct, the other one has every reason in the world to help hide their matrimonial partner's misdeeds.  Fourth, being married protects spouses from having to testify against each other in any matter, a marriage is its own legal entity.  Anyone can increase this list.

Below is a picture that was posted on  Illinois State Senator Andrew Chesney's Facebook page  along with the County Board Chairmen of Jo Daviess, Stephenson, and Ogle Counties in northwest Illinois.  The Senator's post bears his signature hashtag #nwILLINOISvalues.

It just so happens one of those county board chairman happens to be married to the elected county treasurer.  Scott Helms, the Stephenson County Board Chairman is married to Stephanie Helms the Stephenson County Treasurer.

Has any member of the Stephenson County Board even thought about the ethics of this arrangement?  Has any of them formally requested the Stephenson County State's attorney look into the potential legal pitfalls of this arrangement?

If this was two democrats doing this in Stephenson County Senator Andrew Chesney would literally screaming from the hill tops and authoring legislation prohibiting full time elected county officials' spouses from serving on  the county board that is charged with oversight.  Scott Helms is overseeing his wife's department.

I wonder if the bank where Mr. Helms works would consider having a president of the institution being married to the bank's comptroller?  Would Mr. Helm's employer consider that ethical?  Or do they, like most organizations, have an ethics policy preventing this type of unethical behavior?

So please Senator Chesney, prove you care about real values and honest ethics in northwest Illinois.  Sponsor legislation that would prohibit the spouse of a full time elected county official from running for the county board?  Maybe the local Republican party can talk about more than national issues on their Facebook page being we seem too struggle  with ethical behavior right here in Stephenson County.

Senator Chesney and the full Stephenson County Board should be doing everything in their power to avoid even the mere appearance of unethical behavior.  However Republicans around here seem willing to stick their heads in the sand when it's their own practicing questionable behavior.  

Stephenson County is desperately in need of higher ethical standards.

As always, yours in honesty

John Samuel Cook, 2023