Can the Master Playbook Be Passed Fully Intact Tonight?

Despite all of my efforts, even I still can’t accurately identify what is causing the delay of bringing our Village in compliance with our own laws, however I recently found yet another clue that offers up yet another loophole to continue this illusion-filled “Fluff and Stuff” strategy to cover up the condition of the taxpayers asset, which is the consistent maintenance and upkeep our Municipal Code book.  Fluff enough up to the surface, stuff it in front of us and then tell us that’s all we’re going to get…period, point and end of discussion…or at least that’s the general impression I continue to walk away with each time I leave Village Hall to see if anything at all has changed even in the slightest.

I suspect the continued silence from Village Hall has something to do with why I had to file a second FOIA request today asking to see all copies of all laws from January 1, 2005 through 2009.  The fact is simple enough.  There is no existing copy available to the public that contains a complete set of all of our laws.  And yet we continue to be told all sorts of laws and policies are on the books and will be subsequently enforced, which makes this quite dynamic and complex.

The clause has to do with publishing the law by permission of the Board in pamphlet form and then believing that posting it to the half-corked, out-dated, over-saturated bulletin board in Village Hall and then claiming this somehow satisfies the clearly stated requirement at the beginning of the book that the Village is obligated to keep 3 copies of the book on file at all times and available for review, with the only time qualifier on the review factor being normal Village Hall business hours.

Also, I must add here that the official responsibility for this current state of disrepair was told to me by a Village employee that this is a direct result of the failed effort of Stephens to secure both a codifying services and web design service grant.

Sure that might be the results, but there was zero support from any direction in pulling together the image of the Village in such a way that we would have even a sliver of a chance of rising to the top of the piles upon piles of grant requests the givers of such money receive every year, of which Murawski was clearly absent as at least a cheerleader for the endeavor, but then again so were the police chief and the fire department who should have been scrambling to support the efforts with insistence on the points of matter that with a website not significantly updated since 2001, it puts the citizens at risk in a variety of ways, including the lack of ability to announce something Midlothian-wide and at a moments notice, such as what I did on my Alerts blog with the FDA RSS feed.  Taxpayer dollars went towards spent time and ink to print a pubication from an outside source (the FDA and Illinois Dept. of Public Health alerts) but we can’t invest the ink into producing even one copy our own code book.

The missing code book is an all or nothing endeavor that will take more than Stephens, Kreis and Gillis to bring this particular run-away train into the station…

Or in this particular case, bringing together a full copy of our Municipal Code book and getting it onto our shelves for further use.  I’d also like to point out that I would think our current circumstances, if well-stated, could attract the income we need to fast-track this situation rather than just pursue an in-house cure.  For my own involvement in this matter, I felt I had to stop typing since I couldn’t count on the book I was using at the library to be representative of our current laws and the rest continues to be said.  I have already filed 2 FOIA requests (the 2nd one today), one for the ordinances and one for copies of any invoices paid on for any codifying-related services and we’ll see what happens next.  Could it be possible the complete book could be turned over to Stephens by Murawski at tonight’s meeting with the promise that all previously passed legislation is not only in the book, but indexed as well?  I can certain dream about Murawski somehow burning the midnight oil, but I suspect with his tight grip on taxpayer dollars, he wouldn’t see any value in paying anyone anything extra to get the job done and delusion would be more accurate if I tried to conjure up a vision of him volunteering his time to get the job done.

I even suspect the meeting will pass tonight without any clear marker left behind one way or another as to what the status of the book is (Sterling Codifiers has us at 35% in digital format last I checked) and what is being done to correct the situation.  I also have no magic crystal ball telling me with unwavering precision what is or is not going to happen…and perhaps my current actuarial formulas are so out of whack, I have grossly overstated and subsequently miscalculated what it will take to get the job done.

It’s only 2:57 a.m which means the office isn’t even open yet and  perhaps I should not codify my cynacism so early in the day.  But it still remains a real challenge to find reason and motive to abide by the terms of a contract in which we’re only allowed to see certain portions, told about some of the parts not visible and with our names are already automatically signed to the deal.  I can see the Constitution any time I want both at the national and state levels, so I have no issue with the existence of this automated contract bestowed upon me by fate of birthplace.

But here on the local level, these circumstances continue to remind me of some of the worse record industry deals recorded in the history of the entertainment industry to where the artist was left with nothing but troubles and peril while the record company waltzed away with the contract, the royalties, the copyrights, the identity, the branding, virtually guaranteed future income potential…

And the laundry list of defenses they have put up over the years to explain away line-item behaviors that remain clearly never in the best interest of the signer of such a contract and it’s one of those observations where you don’t have to take my word for it.  There is ample evidence available for such a parallel to be painted for your own private evaluation as to which artists have endured what types of indecencies at the hands of those who signed a pledge to keep their best interests at heart…at least on the surfuce.  Rumor used to be that a band couldn’t be signed by a major record label unless they were ready to release all copyrights to all materials.  There were some investigative pieces written about the subject in a variety of music-based publications, discussing the economic sinkhole making the jump from local to national can become without the assistance of one of the Major Players and that when it comes to concert venues, especially the largest ones, without being on an MP roster means you’re not getting in…

This all goes back to the principle that as a citizen, I am expected to follow the rule of law and even though my citizenship was automatically generated and the rules automatically assigned, the farthest I’ve ever moved is a long-jump over the I-80 border and then back again.  It’s not the easy answer of “if you don’t like it, just move.”  How about “if you don’t like it, then change it” or some other derivitive?  But I don’t hold any greater influence than what I drop into this blog and how I choose to conduct myself when I am discussing this matter with others, including Village Hall employees and it should continued to be examined as to whether or not the Village has been criminalizing the behaviors of critics of the Murawski Administration or if out of control rumors continue to distract us from serious endeavors before us.

It’s been brought to my attention I have somehow been selected to play the role of Unofficial Village Idiot, of which if self-application of such title can also be used by em, then yes I am the Unofficial Village Idiot.

What an unofficial idiot I am for not filing an FOIA request back when I was entering our Municipal Code to the Internet in 2008, but hindsight continues to speak volumes about just how (in)effective such a step would have been back then versus the current status of the current request, which is complete inaction as of yesterday.  Hmmm…I have now made an official note in this unofficial idiot playbook that its okay to blame me for not holding up my end of the citizenship contract in 2008, which still included the clause I was obligated to pursue my happiness and I know I’d be much happier if a valuable Village asset was once again intact and ready to resume its role in discussion, debate and yes, even perhaps more discord and even discontent.

But at least we’ll all be able to start reading from the same pages!

So the question for me before I go to sleep remains whether or not the Master Playbook be passed tonight in a complete format, even if it remains sitting on a shelf inside of the office.  Perhaps my dreams this morning will provide me some answers…