UPDATE #2: Did Avon Township Officials (Rusch, Ditton & Brust) Commit Fraud?

Update 8/13/13.  The Round Lake Area News (link in Update 8/11) reported the Lake County State's Attorney has assigned an investigator.  The Round Lake Area News also told me their site had over 600 viewers for their related story and many numerous viewers were linked from the Patch Blog.  Thank you for reading.
  
Update 8/11/13.  I guess I am not the only one who is concerned that our township officials may be or are committing criminal acts.  There is a blogger on the other side of the township who has posted visual proof of misfeasance by Supervisor Lisa Rusch.
http://www.roundlakeareanews.com/avon-township-newsletter-ruschs-benghazi/

Information obtained through the Freedom of Information Action (FOIA) is showing that just may very well be the case.

If you recall, just before the April 2013 election, Avon Township dropped a newsletter on about 10,000 doors in Avon Township.  10,000 is an unusual number because there are over 25,000 doors in Avon Township. That question will be speculated upon later on.

Go to the township's website www.avontownship.us  and look at the meeting minutes from January through April of this year, you don't have to look hard because there is no mention of the "proposed" newsletter.  

Since the newsletter cost the tax-payers over $7,000 dollars according to documents obtained through the FOIA, you would think such an expenditure would be discussed.  After all, Avon Township prides themselves on transparency! Don't you think discussion is a good business practice when it comes to spending money especially ours? Since there was no open discussion and a product was delivered, one could assume discussions were being conducted privately.  

No more assumptions now, and I will tell you why.   Through the FOIA, credit cards statements were obtained. Sure enough on the township credit cards issued to Assessor Chris Ditton and former (<-- maybe that is why) Highway Commissioner Tom Brust are charges for a printing company to print and mail the Avon Township Newsletter.  On several video-taped occasions Township Supervisor Lisa Rusch is caught on camera lying when asked about the Newsletter.  Either her non-answers or "I don't know" are blatant lies when as Supervisor she is charged with reviewing township expenses and signs the checks.  Supervisor Rusch did know about the newsletters as we have now learned from subsequent video-taping of board meetings. The former Trustees to this day still don't know how this newsletter ever came to be.  Three of the Trustees are no longer Avon Township officials.  

If you or I spent over $7,000 at our place of business' fund without the knowledge of those who also matter, we surely would be fired and perhaps even charged with theft.  Why in Lake County is it different when you have the title "elected"?  Shouldn't those individuals be held to even a higher standard? 

I believe the elected officials know they can get away with "wrong-doing" because a) we citizens are like ostriches with our heads in the sand oblivious to those that that take our property tax dollars and b) those same officials use the money we give them to hire fancy suits to find vagueness in the laws and hope they can bully us into "giving-up" under the premise "you can't fight city hall"

Avon Township pulled a fast one in April 2013, and we paid for it without accountability.  That is FRAUD in my eyes!

Still with me?  Let go back to that newsletter.  You may or may not be aware, but a former trustee thought the timing of the newsletter was pandering to voters.  You see this was a "special kind" of newsletter that only talked about the Supervisor, Assessor, Clerk & Highway Commissioner. The format was a departure from the two previous newsletters.  The former trustee filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections alleging it violated state statute because it was a political piece aimed at name recognition for the top four incumbent positions.  In their judgement, the State Board of Elections ruled since the newsletter didn't say "vote for me", it was not a political newsletter and did not violate any law. There is that vagueness of the law again.  

Lets go back to the 10,000 number again.  You know, the number of newsletters sent out.  Why just 10,000?  Why didn't every household in Avon Township get a newsletter?  That question has been bugging me for four months now and I have a theory.  It has to be a theory because the township has refused, yes refused  to turn over the mailing list or disclose the process they used to pick the 10,000 doors.

I have been asking a lot of questions and talking to a lot of people in the township.  My conclusion is that newsletters were only sent to the doors of people who vote in these small town elections.  Since turn-out is much smaller than the big presidential elections, the township "targeted" what doors got the newsletter.  Those people who typically do not vote in municipal elections have no idea there was a newsletter. 

OMG how do they know if I vote or not?  The County Clerk maintains a database of registered voters and that database reflects when you vote; not who you vote for, just the when.  I don't know how you even get that information, but I am sure elected officials have access to this data.  How else did Avon Township know who to send the newsletter?

If my conclusion has any validity to it then I would suspect the Illinois State Board of Election may be interested in reviewing this case again.  The newsletter didn't say "Vote For Me", but given the township's absolute refusal  to release the names or process they used to target the newsletter, I am willing to bet they did use privileged  "voter information" in the process of determining who got the newsletter.  To that I say, they violated state statute. 

People, we do not get help from the main stream media because they just aren't interested in petty local politics when they have an entire State to can report on. The current State's Attorney campaigned he would develop a "Public Integrity Unit" if elected.  Well Mr. Nerheim, let Avon Township be your litmus to see how well that unit is running.  Tell us Supervisor Rusch, Assessor Ditton and former Highway Commissioner Brust did not commit FRAUD because all indicators point to FRAUD!