In honor of Groundhog Day, the Observer would like to acknowledge Village President Bob Abboud and his five compliant Trustees on the Village Board. In the true spirit of the holiday, these individuals have consistently demonstrated their fear of seeing their shadows on anything that might cast an unfavorable light on them. Unfortunately, for the taxpayers of Barrington Hills, Abboud & Company’s actions virtually ensure at least fifteen more months of communications blackouts.
During two recent Board of Trustees (BOT) meetings, two options were presented to the Board to videotape and live-stream the meetings on the Internet. In December, one proposal, at a maximum cost of $35,000, failed to pass, ostensibly because several trustees said they could not justify the expense.
Then, in January, American Tower Corporation (ATC) came before the Board with a proposal to upgrade its current Outdoor Distributed Antenna System facility to 4G capability. The new lease would have allowed additions to its existing equipment shelter and antennas. In return, ATC offered to pay for the replacement of a ComEd power feed to the Village, installation of a new fiber optic cable connection, and to supply video cameras for broadcasting Village meetings, in addition to paying the monthly web hosting fees–all at no charge to Village residents.
Surely our Board jumped at this offer, right? Not so! Our Board decided that they would prefer direct financial compensation instead, to be negotiated at a later date, and postponed any decision on videotaping meetings.
Despite President Abboud’s claims that “Transparency trumps all,” his actions and those of his Board members directly contradict that ideal. First, they said that they opposed video recordings due to the cost. Then, they said that they opposed video recordings because of the potential for portions of the meetings to be excerpted and used in political ads against them in future campaigns. Then they said they wanted ATC to offer cash instead of agreeing to shoulder all of the costs of broadcasting the meetings.
ATC’s offer is not without precedent. The construction of the addition to the Village Hall in 1993, which includes our state-of-the-art Police Station, was funded by American Mobile Services, in exchange for permitting the construction of a cell tower. ComEd and Nicor, two other for-profit companies, both supply utility service to the Village Hall campus at no charge to taxpayers.
As for the flimsy objection that video clips could end up being used on YouTube in future elections, the Village already audio records all BOT meetings. It wouldn’t take much for an enterprising individual to add a slideshow of still photographs to accompany the existing recordings and accomplish basically the same thing.
Abboud and his crew talk a good game when they claim to be dedicated to improving public access, but their actions reveal their inconsistency. Monthly minutes of the BOT are little more than outlines which fail to document any discussions or debates. There are virtually no 2011 meeting minutes available on the Village website http://www.barringtonhills-il.gov for any commissions and committees. Some boards, like the Equestrian Commission, Board of Health, and Legal and Beautification Committees have never had any of their minutes posted. President Abboud is firmly on record as advocating further restrictions to the public’s right to request information via FOIA. The latest actions of this Board to squelch videos of meetings only serve to reaffirm the Observer’s pessimism that true transparency will ever exist under the current regime.
Abboud’s five Trustees aren’t so much groundhogs as they are lemmings – blindly following him on a path off a cliff.
The Observer
I’d like to propose an alternative to the old “chain letter’ by suggesting that each “commenter” enter a one-word adjective to describe Pres Abboud and Trustees or their performance in office.
May I start with the word “disgusting.”?
Could not have been better said……….. bravo to the Observer!
@Phil B
corrupt
Right On! This administration is over the Top!
If this Board was really serious about getting cash, why didn’t they chose to recoup the legal fees spent on the LeCompte litigation?
@ Phil B It’s hard to come up with just one word. How about … despicable?
Newton’s Third Law
To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction: or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions.
Keep pushing Observer!
How many police officers do we pay for at this point in time? I read with awe the summary of their monthly work! Do we need that much of a security force for under 4000 residents?
I’ve been looking at the Barrington Library Trustees – they’re even worse than the village – they put nothing online but their very abbreviated minutes. They’re about as transparent as a brick wall.
@DJ
No one is worse than the village of BH – ask any of the ‘enemies of the state’ how vindictive and malicious Abboud and his co conspirators really are….. you probably know little of the extent to which they will reach to get their way.