details of Welch suit against Odelson and Sterk

Proviso Insider (Chris Welch*) has posted the details of Welch's suit against Burt Odelson and Mark Sterk.

* I'm going to assume that Proviso Insider is Emanuel "Chris" Welch on matters pertaining directly to Welch. Emily Robinson and perhaps others post as Proviso Insider, but I think they are mostly working on behalf of Welch.

Trib covers Welch legal bills story

Chicago Tribune (Jo Napolitano) published an article about Chris Welch, the president of the Proviso Township High Schools board of ed, having the school district pay his legal bills.

What's new in the Trib story?

Welch--I believe for the first time--publicly acknowledged he is one of the writers for Proviso Insider. He denies writing the allegations that are the basis for Mark Sterk's defamation suit.

Board member Theresa Kelly filed a complaint with the regional superintendent of schools, Charles Flowers. Flowers was formerly a board member with Kelly and Welch. Flowers is a politically enemy of Welch.

There's some discussion of the possibility Welch was acting in the scope of his duties as a member of the board of education.

I don't like the way the article handled this. One, it omits that Welch denied being involved in Proviso Insider. It seems impossible to reconcile the claim Welch's writings on Proviso Insider were part of his duties as a member of the board of education and the fact that he was doing the writing anonymously.

Two, Welch is never required to give a cogent explanation how his writings were in the scope of his duties.

If a claim isn't reasonable, I have a problem will journalists printing it. People who are doing things that are illegal shouldn't be able to offer untrue justifications without a clear explanation the claim is untrue.

Welch called his service as board president "a 24-hour-a-day job." He said that he has been sued three times before and that his legal fees were covered by the district on each occasion.

This is a logical fallacy. Welch has been sued for his actions as a board member. But that doesn't mean that everything he could get sued for is somehow related to his position as a board member.

In fact, Welch has filed a suit of his own against the firm, alleging the attorneys put pressure on his former employer to try to convince Welch that the board shouldn't dismiss Odelson & Sterk.

This is an interesting wrinkle in the story. For more info, see Proviso Insider.

Board members Bob Cox and Dan Adams are quoted defending their votes to pay the legal bills in question.

There's also a discussion on Forest Park Forums.

[UPDATE, June 25, 2008: Forest Park Review (Josh Adams) has more details and there's a tough Forest Park Review editorial.]

the rumor about Sterk vs. Proviso Insider trial being soon is NOT true

There's a rumor circulating that the Sterk vs. Proviso Insider (aka Welch, E.C. & Robinson, E) will start imminently. I spoke to Mark Sterk Friday and he said this is not true. The trial is far enough in the future Sterk declined to give a specific estimate of when it would happen.

See Proviso Probe.

BTW, this what Proviso Insider originally wrote:

Will Odelson & Sterk Be Indicted Next???

Sources tell the Insider that Burt Odelson and Mark Sterk of Odelson & Sterk, Ltd law firm will be indicted next by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Sources tell the Insider that Mark Sterk was the attorney advising SD89 Board member Ric Cervone on how to lie to a grand jury. Sources also say Sterk was passing on fees for helping Cervone to Maywood SD89. According to sources close to the situation, all the parties involved knew the indictments were imminent, and the indictment is one of the reasons why Odelson & Sterk has been getting fired by all of their clients. In recent months, in order to help save face in numerous govermental entities, Odelson & Sterk has been fired by SD89, SD209, the Village of Oak Brook, the City of Berwyn, and many other places. Sources say Cook County Board President Todd Stroger will be the next to dump Odelson.

Are Burt Odelson and Mark Sterk crooks? Will they be indicted next?

Sterk has denied coaching Melrose Park police officers to lie to the grand jury and Proviso Insider backed-off the claim once it was challenged. Proviso Insider initially responded to the lawsuit by removing the defamatory claims. Now the updated entry has been removed.

bad PR for Flowers' ROE

SouthtownStar (Angela Caputo) rips the Cook County Regional Superintendent of Education. (h/t Proviso Insider)

Sterk's lawyers finger Welch and Emily Robinson as Proviso Insider

Today Mark Sterk called me and told me the following.

Either today or Monday Sterk's attorneys will amend the lawsuit against Proviso Insider to name Emanuel "Chris" Welch and Emily Robinson as defendants. (Emily Robinson is pictured above with Proviso Township High Schools (District 209) board member Brian Cross.)

Sterk sued Proviso Insider for defamation based on this entry.

Robinson has been active in Proviso politics as a campaign worker for Welch. She was the press secretary for his 2006 state representative campaign and played a less public role in the 2007 school board race.

Sterk v. Proviso Insider covered in Sun-Times

Sun-Times (Steve Patterson) reported on Mark Sterk's lawsuit against Proviso Insider.

I wrote about the case in some detail on Prairie State Blue.

BTW, when I talked to Sterk about the case he seemed pretty upset. He seems determined to inflict some payback to "John Doe", aka "Proviso Insider".

[UPDATE: Proviso Insider responds with... just read it. It's funny.]

District 209 aggregator

I'm behind on writing about Proviso Township High Schools (District 209), including giving more detail about Monday's board meeting.

But here's what others are writing.

Proviso Herald (Chuck Fieldman) has an article on Robert Libka saying he wants to be superintendent. The article doesn't include any quotes from people critical of Libka or the fact that Libka used district funds without board approval to attend classes at Western Illinois University last time he was in charge of the district. Libka's course work at WIU caused him to be absent from District 209 during the work week, something he did not clear with the board of education in advance.

Forest Park Review (Josh Adams) emphasized the budget almost being balanced and mentioned the increase in attendance driven by the board placing Fields on administrative leave.

Forest Park Review (Josh Adams) digs into the story of District 209 parting ways with the designers of the district's web sites.

Forest Park Review also has an editorial on school budgets, both District 209 and Forest Park elementary schools (District 91).

Proviso Insider also wrote about the board meeting.

Yarbrough camp nominating petitions

I asked Democratic Committeeman Karen Yarbrough who she is circulating petitions for. She responded by text message, "St. Rep, Obama delegate, Durbin, Obama Prez". I asked two follow-up questions. Is Karen Yarbrough the state representative candidate? She replied affirmatively. I asked who she's circulating for Cook County Recorder of Deeds. She didn't respond to this question.

Proviso Insider claims Yarbrough is running for recorder and Emanuel "Chris" Welch is going to run against a Yarbrough-backed candidate, perhaps Karen's husband, for state representative.

Proviso Insider attacks Tommy Miller

Proviso Insider posted a letter supposedly from Mike Jones attacking District 88 (Bellwood and Stone Park elementary schools) board president Tommy Miller and D88 employee (and Stone Park trustee) Joe Burdi for misspending District 88 funds.

Has Proviso Insider been "born again" as an advocate of good government?

Or did Miller help Stone Park village president Bennie Mazzulla get some action that the Moore-Welch faction wanted? Are the attacks on Miller and Burdi part of a squabble within the coalition that won in April?

IMO comparing James Graham to Joe Burdi is completely inappropriate. Graham is a professional engineer, who was drawing attention to waste at District 88, especially wasteful contracts to politically connected vendors. Burdi's resume was highlighted by having vague duties at International Bank, an institution that had both Ron Serpico and Anthony Bruno on its advisory board, and driving trucks in the Army. (If you click to the advisory board you can see an extra hand on the far right hand of the table. That's Bruno's hand. The photo was digitally altered after Bruno became too controversial to have on the board.)

Yarbrough political committees hit up village's legal counsel

West Suburban Journal (Kevin Williams with Nicole Trottie) detailed how two political committees aligned with Karen & Henderson Yarbrough received $9,000 since 2005 from Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins, the attorneys for the Village of Maywood. (h/t Proviso Insider)

Karen Yarbrough is the state representative for Maywood and much of the surrounding area; she is also Proviso Township's Democratic Committeeman. Henderson Yarbrough is Maywood's village president. Before the April, 2007 election Yarbrough's block had a 4-3 majority on the village board; now they have a 6-1 majority.

In an email to me Karen Yarbrough wrote that the Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins contributions were a “non issue”. I disagree.

In the past I have expressed concern that politicians raising money from law firms that work for local taxing bodies is simply money laundering. At its simplest the taxing body picks a law firm—because legal work is a “professional service” it doesn't need to be bid out—and the law firms merely pad their bills to cover the contributions the politicians want. They can either build the cost of the political contributions into the firm's hourly rate or add extra hours.

Raising money from vendors and contractors looks bad, but there are a number of ways raising money from law firms is worse.

1. Legal work is not bid upon.
2. If there is a quid pro quo negotiated it is more difficult for outsiders, including law enforcement, to detect because of the protections of attorney-client privilege.
3. There is no protection against attorneys padding their bills other than the personal honor of the attorneys. Normally, law clients have an incentive to be skeptical of the bills and pay as little as possible. But when politicians are making money off the attorneys the incentives for keeping bills low are weaker than the incentives to “get along and go along”.
4. The interrelationship between attorney and client also taints the legal advice given. Normally an ethical lawyer counsels clients on ways to avoid legal costs. But if the politicians can reasonably anticipate a kickback to their political committee (or an ally's political committee) then they have an incentive to make choices that increase the legal bills, not keep them down.

When people want to rip on Karen Yarbrough they say she practices politics like the people she seeks to replace; at best she's a “reluctant reformer”. She's more articulate than Eugene Moore and less likely to do something flagrantly illegal. But from the community's point of view the new boss looks like the old boss.

I disagree with this assessment. But I think Yarbrough has to make an effort to be better. Most of the people with their hands on the levers of political power want the system to stay the same. The people with political power can convert it into wealth and power for themselves and their political allies. They are going to serve the community as little as possible while maintaining the perks of attaining political power.

There's always going to be a pull to “get along and go along”. Yarbrough and her team have to make an effort to resist this inevitable pull. The pull is inevitable, but giving in to pull of “get along and go along” politics isn't.

IMO, the Yarbroughs should return the contributions to Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins and the Village of Maywood should attach language to the contracts with all law firms that they are expected to stay out of local politics in the Proviso area.

Robert Libka & Tommie Miller have a history of looking out for each other

Proviso Insider:

The Insider is hearing rumors that the former CEO of Proviso Township High Schools District 209, Robert "Bob" Libka, is about to be named the number two person in charge of Bellwood School District 88.

Proviso Insider has good sources at District 88 (Bellwood & Stone Park elementary schools).

Proviso Insider characterizes Libka as affable. But Libka is agreeable because he's an incompetent that lets the world happen around him. He genuinely tries to be nice to everybody, but he accomplishes little to nothing.

I pretty much avoided discussing the allegations against Tommy Miller, Proviso West boys basketball coach, and now president of the District 88 board of education. The allegations are rather sordid and will inflict substantial hurt on Miller's family.

But there were allegations made that Tommie Miller was a serial sexual predator against student athletes that he coached. Miller allegedly had sexual relations with numerous female student athletes he coached including his wife when she was in high school.

These allegations were reported to Libka when he was CEO of Proviso Township High Schools (District 209) and Libka declined to investigate. (However, when anonymous allegations were made against a board member who was a Welch opponent, Libka photocopied these allegations and sent them to the entire board. The allegations were that this board member had a homosexual encounter.)

Miller is a political ally of Emanuel Chris Welch, who was president of the District 209 education. Miller was a board member at District 88 where Welch was racking-up massive legal bills as the district's attorney. At one point Welch billed District 88 about $200,000 in a six-month period.

Libka declined to investigate, but Chicago Public Schools did investigate the same allegations against Miller. CPS found the allegations "not substantiated", but I am skeptical of these conclusions.

The most solid piece of evidence against Miller is that his wife had a child at 16 years old in October. If you go back nine months Miller's wife was a 15-year old finishing basketball season.

The allegations against Miller include the detail that he reached financial settlements with the families of the girls/young women involved.

My experience doing similar investigations for the Navy was that the bureaucracy will contort logic into a pretzel to find messy sexual allegations unsubstantiated. If CPS substantiated the allegations against Miller, not only would CPS have to explain to the media that it had a sexual predator in its schools, it would also have to explain why CPS continued to OK Miller being in CPS after his sexual relations with student athletes were first detected. And CPS would have to explain how the information about the initial investigations disappeared from CPS records. And this would lead to follow-up questions. How many sexual predators has CPS allowed to stay in the school system? How does a sexual predator get results of investigations purged from his records?

So, CPS had plenty of incentive to find the allegations against Miller "unsubstantiated".

Libka can't find a job in a real school district. So he's come back to Welch and Miller so he can get the big buck for looking the other way while the political bosses enrich and empower their cronies.

did a lawyer assist Cervone in obstructing justice?

I usually resist the temptation to debunk each story on Proviso Insider. My brother analyzed Proviso Insider as being “entertainment”, a sort of parallel universe created by the author(s). It is based on “what ifs” and wishful thinking.

But the spin on the Melrose Park PD indictments is interesting. See Proviso Insider.

Sources tell the Insider that one of the current police officers indicted is G. Ric Cervone, a board member in School District 89. Sources say Ric Cervone was probably indicted because he takes advice from Mark Sterk of Odelson & Sterk. Sources say both Mark Sterk and Burt Odelson are also about to be indicted.

Or Proviso Insider:

Sources tell the Insider that Burt Odelson and Mark Sterk of Odelson & Sterk, Ltd law firm will be indicted next by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Sources tell the Insider that Mark Sterk was the attorney advising SD89 Board member Ric Cervone on how to lie to a grand jury. Sources also say Sterk was passing on fees for helping Cervone to Maywood SD89.

Proviso Insider says one of the Melrose Park police officers was coached to lie to the grand jury. This is not an exceptional insight. I heard this rumor when the cops were testifying and the indictment includes multiple obstruction of justice charges.

Proviso Insider claims that an attorney coached Ric Cervone to lie to the grand jury. The indictment doesn't name any attorneys, but it doesn't seem impossible that the attorneys played a role in helping Cervone and others to create a plausible defense.

Proviso Insider names Mark Sterk as the attorney who coached Cervone to lie. This part makes less sense. Proviso Insider claims Sterk helped Cervone because of their relationship at District 89 (Maywood and Melrose Park elementary schools). Cervone was on the board and Sterk was the board's attorney.

Why would Cervone turn to the school district attorney for help? He had a lawyer paid for by the Village of Melrose Park to work on this case.

If a lawyer coached Cervone to lie, it seems more likely it was either the attorney hired by Melrose Park to work on the case, Anthony Onesti, or, possibly, the village's general counsel Giglio & Del Galdo. Giglio & Del Galdo are large political contributors to Melrose Park village president Ron Serpico.

From the indictment:

COUNT TWO
38.It was further part of the scheme that on or about September 21, 2005, after learning of the existence of the federal criminal investigation, including the Grand Jury Investigation, defendant CERVONE met at the Police Department with Day Shift Officer 1 and Officer A and provided them with false information about their accumulated time due and how they had earned it, well knowing that time due was being investigated by the Grand Jury and with the intent that Day Shift Officer 1 and Officer A would present the false information to the grand jury and federal agents.
39.It was further part of the scheme that on or about September 21, 2005, after the meeting described in paragraph 38 above, and after learning of the existence of the federal criminal investigation, in the Grand Jury Investigation, defendant CERVONE again met with Officer A at CERVONE's home in Melrose Park, during which CERVONE directed Officer A to lie to federal agents and the grand jury about how Officer A earned his time due so as not to implicate CERVONE and defendant SCAVO.

COUNT TEN
2.On or about December 26, 2003, in the Northern District of Illinois, and elsewhere, VITO R. SCAVO and GUY RIC CERVONE, defendants herein, for the purpose of executing and attempting to execute the above-described scheme, knowingly did cause to be transmitted by means of wire communication in interstate commerce a writing, sign, and signal, in that defendants SCAVO and CERVONE caused a wire transfer, of which $2,149.21 represented Officer A's salary for the par period ending December 31, 2003, from Melrose Park's bank account at Banco Popular in Melrose Park to an ADP bank account through the Federal Reserve's facility in New Jersey;
In violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343, 1346, and 2.

COUNT ELEVEN reads like COUNT TEN except the date is August 17, 2005.

COUNT NINETEEN
2.On or about September 21, 2005, at Melrose Park, in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, GUY RIC CERVONE, defendant herein, corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct, and imped, and to influence, obstruct, and impede the due administration of justice, namely:
a. CERVONE provided Day Shift Officer 1 and Officer A with false information about their time due and how they accumulated it, well knowing that time due was being investigated by the grand jury and with the intent that Day Shift Officer 1 and Officer A would present the false information to the grand jury and federal agents; and
b. CERVONE directed Officer A to lie to federal agents and the grand jury about how Officer A earned time due so as not to implicate defendant CERVONE and Scavo;
In violationof Title 18, United States Code, Section, 1503.

Let's assume Cervone was going to work with a lawyer to concoct a story to protect himself or the enterprise from federal agents or the grand jury detecting the illegal acts. Which lawyer does it make the most sense for Cervone to engage? Or turn the question around. Which lawyer has a motive to approach Cervone about lying to the feds?
a. Mark Sterk
b. Anthony Onesti
c.Giglio or Del Galdo

Onesti and probably Giglio & Del Galdo already knew the facts of the case. If the feds brought down the enterprise Sterk wouldn't lose anything. He'd still have the same legal accounts. However, if bringing down the enterprise resulted in Ron Serpico losing his position as village president Giglio & Del Galdo would lose many of their most lucrative legal clients. Onesti got tapped for the MPPD contract because of his close relationship with Giglio & Del Galdo.

If Cervone worked with a lawyer on concocting a cover story it seems much more likely it was either Onesti or one of the lawyers at Giglio & Del Galdo.

What did Mike Del Galdo tell me at the special meeting of the District 209 board of education, “If you want to get treated like a professional you have to act like a professional.” Wouldn't it be ironic if unprofessional behavior got Del Galdo convicted? Hey, Mike, there's more to being professional than wearing a suit and sucking up to those in power.

BTW, props to Shamus Toomey for this lead, Sun-Times (Shamus Toomey):

The feds Thursday called it "an illegal racketeering enterprise."

In Melrose Park, it was known as the police department.

School board meeting Monday night

I skipped the District 209 meeting Monday night.

I was at the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum listening to members of Iraq Veterans Against the War read poetry and display other works of art. See Daily Kos.

But go ahead and comment on the school board meeting and related issues. Proviso Insider has.

A07, Proviso Insider attacks board member Theresa Kelly [D209]

Proviso Insider has a video (above) attacking Proviso Township High Schools board member Theresa Kelly for extravagant travel as a board member.

While I disagree with the impression left by the video, Proviso Insider deserves credit for using the Internet in an innovative way in a local school board election.

Forest Park Review (Josh Adams) wrote a news story on the larger issue. The article which was based on documents as well as interviews found stuff that looked questionable, but nothing illegal.

To the extent that this kind of spending is a problem, the Forest Park Review article shows that the problem involves staff and various board members.

However, the article doesn't do a very good job of differentiating appropriate from inappropriate spending.

Here's my understanding of the situation:

• "Best practices" calls for board members to attend at least one training per year.
• District 209 board members, including Kelly, attend two or less trainings per year.
• The board of education is supposed to oversee training, including travel expenses.
• Chris Welch raised the issue of Kelly's travel expenses in past elections, but hasn't done anything about as president of the board of education.

ENVIR, Hillside dump to close & be converted to green space [H, BW]

Proviso Insider:

According to sources close to the situation, waste disposal at the landfill will end for good in late spring of 2008, and the landfill will be converted to green space by the end of 2008. Sources say a community meeting to detail the plans for closing the landfill is set for Thursday, April 12, 2007 at 7pm at St. Domitilla School, South Hall, 605 Hillside Avenue, Hillside, Illinois.

While Proviso Insider lacks credibility on political issues and stories about local people, I hope s/he's got this one right.

The Hillside dump has under the worse circumstances been the source of noxious odors in Bellwood for many years.

A07, NOMCO meeting [M]

North Maywood Community Organization (NOMCO) held its endorsement session last night.

The meeting was chaired by Maywood Trustee Gary Woll. Woll is a candidate for re-election, so some may consider it a conflict-of-interest for him to chair the meeting.

I didn't attend the meeting. People who did attend are encouraged to leave their observations in the comments.

My understanding is that the following candidates were endorsed for District 89:

• Duane Black
• Donna Miller
• Regina Rivers
• Della Patterson
• Lenore Sanchez (two-year term)

And Ralph Harris and Kevin McDermott were endorsed for District 209.

Proviso Insider spins the NOMCO meeting against District 209 board member Theresa Kelly.

ED, Proviso Insider blames elemtary schools for high school's shortcomings [D88, D89, D209]

Proviso Insider regurgitates Proviso Township High Schools' all purpose excuse that its failures are really the failures of the elementary school districts.

The Insider has learned that the feeder schools to Proviso Township High Schools, District 209, are sending students to high school reading way below grade level. Out of a possible 1600 students preparing to enter the high school in August 2007, 1400 students are reading at 3rd, 4th or 5th grade level. The worst prepared students are coming out of school districts 88 and 89. Sources say a report detailing the inept performance of the feeder school districts will be released next week.

What do you notice about the districts that are the "worst prepared"?

District 88 and 89 are the ones that "the mayors" are complaining about Rep. Karen Yarbrough trying to "take over the world".

The usual suspects (Chuck Baxter, Anthony Bruno, Bennie Mazzulla, Eugene Moore, Emanuel "Chris" Welch, Frank Pasquale, Ron Serpico and perhaps Claude Porter) have a bunch of patronage, contracts, legal bills, land deals, etc. from two school districts, District 88 and District 89.

And these school districts, the most political school districts in Proviso Township are the weak sisters feeding into Proviso Township High Schools, District 209.

Proviso Insider--who many suspect is District 209 board president Chris Welch--blames two elementary school districts for the shortcomings at the district he has run for years. Proviso Insider neglects to mention that Welch's allies control Districts 88 and 89. And Proviso Insider neglects to mention that s/he's opposed to changing control of the weak school districts.

So Proviso Insider wants to blame District 88 and 89. But Proviso Insider doesn't want to change the status quo at either district.

Proviso Insider wants the elementary schools to keep failing so Welch can keep pointing his finger at the elementary schools and shirking responsibility while the politically connected continue to milk the system for jobs and contracts.

A07, Italian mayor says Yarbrough trying to take over the world [D88, D89, D209]

Proviso Insider is trying to portray Democratic Committeeman Karen Yarbrough's involvement in school district races (District 88, District 89 and District 209) in a negative light. Proviso Insider quotes one of the Italian mayors as accusing Yarbrough of trying to "take over the world".

First, claiming that fielding candidates for three school district races is an attempt to take over the world shows how parochial the speaker is. If three school districts is the entirety of your world you need to take a ride on the "L" and visit a couple museums, Mr. Mayor.

But the statement also conveys a sense of entitlement. A few Italian-American mayors and other politicians have been pulling the political strings for years. They have allowed a few Blacks and Latinos to hold office but the decisions about how the big money was spent have largely been left to the Italians.

And Black and Latino children have gotten poor quality educations in District 88 (Bellwood and Stone Park), District 89 (Maywood and Melrose Park) and District 209 (Proviso Township High Schools). A reasonable inference is that political bosses concerned about making themselves and their cronies rich have neglected the education of the students. It's not like Black and Latino students should be expected to amount to much anyways, right?

The mayors and other Italian politicians kept their power by being organized and exploiting interpersonal differences and feuds in the community.

And now the communities are getting organized. Mayors Ron Serpico, Frank Pasquale and Bennie Mazzulla are getting nervous. They want to divide the Black community as much as possible by exploiting whatever negative feelings there are about Yarbrough.

But the education reform movement isn't about Karen Yarbrough. It's a bunch of people that want to improve education and they've rallied around Yarbrough.

This happened largely because Chris Welch, the president of the District 209 school board, antagonized so many people and then challenged Yarbrough for state rep in 2006. Welch motivated many people to change the system because he's so arrogant, obnoxious and really pretty cruel, vindictive and sadistic in how he practices politics.

When Welch challenged Yarbrough the reformers networked through Yarbrough's campaign, but they aren't "her people". They are involved because they want to improve our communities and Yarbrough is savvy enough to work with these citizen activists.

BLOG, new Proviso blog

There's a new blog in Proviso, Proviso Highlighter.

Proviso Highlighter isn't shy about lurid allegations. I wonder if the allegations on Proviso Highlighter will cause Proviso Insider to fabricate even more over-the-top stories.