Township supervisor denies wrongdoing, says decision was made to save taxpayers.
Algonquin Township will pay a downstate watchdog group $162,500 as part of a settlement reached following a years-long battle over Freedom of Information Act requests.
Township Supervisor Randy Funk called the settlement a compromise as the township did not want to continue with a drawn-out process that would incur more legal fees.
“When I inherited all of this, what we determined is there was a high probability that we would win all these lawsuits,” Funk said, “but we also determined the cost of paying for the lawsuit and lawyers would be higher than the $162,500 payout.”
The Edgar County Watchdogs, a group that advocates for local government transparency and accountability, filed seven lawsuits against the township and the Algonquin Township Road District since 2018. The road district was remove from one of the lawsuits in October 2018, settling that lawsuit for $40,000.
An attempt to reach the Edgar County Watchdogs regarding the settlement was unsuccessful.
In 2018, the township’s Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, officer, Karen Lukasik, resigned as fallout from the lawsuit, which alleged that Lukasik had removed or mishandled records. Pamela Gavers is currently the township’s FOIA officer.
The group also had raised questions about Algonquin Township’s contract for a street sweeper, in which it appeared as if they had made a prearranged deal with a supplier during a bidding process.
Read more here.