*EDITOR’S NOTE: Following the March 28 Sangamon Valley Public Water District board meeting, the Mahomet Daily filed several FOIA requests which helped with information for this article. Subsequent articles will come with findings from those requests.
Customers of the Sangamon Valley Public Water District will have the option to vote on whether they would like their board members to be elected — instead of appointed — on the June 28 ballot.
The question was posed by four board members, Bud Parkhill— who was not re-appointed in 2021 — Mike Melton, Bob Buchanan and Mike Larson, who have been appointed to terms that led to 55, 40, 31 and 12 years, respectively, on the SVPWD board. The group now feels that the positions should be elected, according to statements made by Buchanan in the March board meeting.
On Tuesday (May 10), the seat held by Larson, one of seven on the board, will be discussed by the Champaign County Board Committee of the Whole. Three other community members applied for that same seat.
Typically, applicants are reviewed by the County Executive, who is currently Darlene Kloeppel, and a recommendation is made to the trustees. Kloeppel will recommend that Larson is reappointed to the seat. Kloeppel’s recommendations are not always taken, though.
In 2021, with three seats open, incumbents Parkhill and Meghan Hennesy applied, as did Colleen Schultz. Kloeppel recommended all three candidates be appointed to the open seats. All three appointments were pulled from the agenda, and Champaign County Republican board member Jim Goss cited his belief that the candidates had a conflict of interest: Hennesy and Schultz serve on the Mahomet-Seymour School District board. SVPWD does not provide water to the Mahomet-Seymour CUSD #3 district.
Goss also noted that Parkhill had a conflict of interest because, as a land owner with significant acreage in the Sangamon Valley Public Water District boundaries, the land could potentially become a site for a Mahomet-Seymour School District building as it looked to expand facilities. The Committee of the Whole agreed that Parkhill’s conflict was worth noting as there are laws in place concerning conflicts by board members.
Hennesy and Schultz were appointed by the Committee and the entire board that month. Parkhill was not.
Parkhill’s seat was filled by Monte Cherry. Michelle Grindley is the seventh member of the board. She was seated three years ago.
That process was not unusual, as all seats on the SVPWD board have been appointed by the County Board, not selected by any other board member or employee.
With the seat held by Larson coming up for re-appointment, and Buchanan and Melton to follow, those three current board members partnered with Parkhill in March to circulate a petition asking electors to consider electing board members.
When SVPWD staff began to receive phone calls stating that circulators were stating that newly appointed board members were “run out of Chicago,” that the University of Illinois was taking over the district and that rates would double for their customers around March 14, the district released a statement on their website. Parkhill’s employee circulated a group of petitions throughout the Candlewood Mobile Home Park that Parkhill owns. Buchanan was another circulator.
Three days later, Buchanan contacted Sangamon Valley Public Water District office manager and board secretary Lindsey Stroud about dropping the petitions off to her for certification. Per the Illinois Public Water Act, the secretary’s role is to certify the petitions.
Buchanan wanted Stroud to certify those petitions, even without the full board’s knowledge, but Stroud told him via email she did not feel comfortable doing so. Instead, Board Chairman Hennesy met Buchanan at the district office the following morning (March 18) to accept the petitions.
When Hennesy asked Buchanan what the district’s responsibility for the petitions were, he said he did not know. Buchanan reiterated that position when the petitions were presented to the board during their regularly scheduled board meeting on March 28.
It was then that all seven members were informed of the scope of what was taking place.
During the March board meeting, Larson said that he became involved as the district approached the topic of restructuring the board from seven members to five. The board never took a final vote on this measure after discussion in February. Buchanan said that he didn’t feel that the Champaign County board, which has had more and more seats filled by Democrats over time, did their due diligence in making appointments recently.
Melton, who was only able to attend meetings online throughout the winter months because he travels out of state until spring, was not present at the in-person meeting on March 28, but wrote an email to Stroud on March 27 stating that he did not believe SVWPD Operator Kerry Gifford should be allowed to “choose” board members.
During that February discussion, it also became evident that board members who had served terms over decades had enrolled in a 457b retirement plan. According to the IRS website, 457 plans allow employees of certain state and local governments and non-governmental entities to defer income taxation on retirement savings into future years. SVPWD also has a separate 457b plan for its employees.
When asked to provide the documentation for the terms of the board 457b plan, no documents were provided as they were not kept at the SVPWD office. It remains unclear whether board members (non-employee trustees) can have a 457b retirement plan.
According to Gifford, though, he was responsible to maintain those plans for board members during his time of employment. As of January, 2021, the aggregate trustee investments were $316,699.20 and withdrawals in 2021 were $115,721.09. The 2021 year end balance was $259,936.90. The board retirement plans were dissolved in January, 2022.
Following the trail of benefits board members received during their time on the board is difficult, but documents acquired via FOIA requests show that during his time on the board, Parkhill often used SVPWD employees. equipment and inventory (reimbursed at cost whereas other customers would have to pay double plus $35 per hour) to maintain privately-owned water and sewer lines in Candlewood Mobile Home Park; oftentimes had SVPWD use Parkhill Construction for services both inside Candlewood and on SVPWD property; attached development onto customer-funded water and sewer lines; and had SVPWD purchase land from Parkhill Enterprises. Bud Parkhill is part-owner in Parkhill Construction and Parkhill Enterprises.
As a new board member, Cherry may or may not know what has taken place at SVWPD during the last five decades, yet, during the March 28 board meeting, he noted that having a board appointed by the County gives the customer protection from small town politics that are often riddled with corruption.
“Especially in smaller districts where, you know, most people don’t come out to vote anyway,” he said. “This is Mahomet and usually there’s a special interest behind the government. Whatever comes out of it, if it does go through (that) people are elected, most likely those people would be there to serve special interests. But by having people appointed by the county board, again, you don’t have that problem; you have board members of all different backgrounds, bringing different things to the table.
“But as I’ve seen on numerous elected boards in Mahomet, there’s no question that there is a special interest behind those options and they work very hard to make sure they keep control of the board.”
After the March 28 board meeting, Larson and Buchanan declined to comment further on their involvement or reasons behind being part of the petition process. Hennesy made it clear that the next steps were for Stroud to sign off on the petitions.
Stroud reached out to the Champaign County Clerk’s office to see what the next steps were.
Stroud wrote, “On Friday, March 25th, the District Attorney recommended that the Chairman present the petition to the Board at the next available board meeting, and noted that I, as the Secretary, should certify the petition as long as it appears to be in conformity. Our attorney also noted that we had until April 21st to certify the petition to the Election Authority (Champaign County Clerk) and also had until April 4 to receive objections.”
A week later, after doing research, the Clerk’s office responded.
Director of Operations Michelle Jett told Stroud that, although the district should consult with its attorney, the Illinois Water Authorities Act requires the board to vote on the petitions. As a district that falls under the Illinois Public Water Act, Stroud and General Manager Gifford were not sure that the district was a water authority.
For weeks, Stroud and Hennesy went back and forth with the Clerk’s office and attorneys, reviewing their requirements all the while repeatedly hearing from Mike McCormick, an attorney representing Bud Parkill, who pushed to see what date the petitions would be given to the Clerk’s office.
The district was first told that the petitioners had missed the submission deadline, while later being told, “After further research, I have determined that the petition that was filed with the SVPWD is a public question, not a board resolution question. Therefore, the filing date with the Clerk’s Office is April 21, 2022. It’s a Thursday and the office is open from 8-4:30.”
Getting advice from the district’s attorney, Webber and Thies, was not concrete, either.
“During that meeting the attorneys did not advise us of anything else and suggested that we talk to the county clerk with additional questions,” Hennesy wrote in an email interview. “They were unsure if we needed to turn the petitions in, but did think that perhaps we could be compelled to do so. They could not offer much on our concerns about the reports we had received about what was being said when signatures were gathered. We did leave with little confidence in what our next steps should be.
“After following up with the clerk (per their suggestion) and getting more confusing messaging and some internal personnel issues, we needed further legal advice. At that time we looked for a different attorney who might have more expertise in the matters we had in front of us.”
On April 15, Hennesy instructed Stroud to turn the petitions in, as promised to McCormick, on April 18.
But on April 18, Stroud resigned as Secretary of the Board.
“I have spent most of this holiday weekend stressing about the submission of the petition, to the
point where I haven’t been focused on my family like I should be,” Stroud wrote. “Over the past few months the Secretary position has become more stressful and the stress has recently become exacerbated by the petition. In addition to the stress the petition has caused me, I also have some problems with specific board members that cause me to not want to serve on the board.”
Although Stroud is an employee of the district, she was never paid to be the secretary of the board, just as Gifford was never paid to be the treasurer, as outlined by district policy.
“Besides the above concerns, all three of these board members were directly involved in the
development of the petition. At the last meeting Mr. Larson stated that he came up with the idea
after looking into the public water act, and Mr. Buchanan was a circulator, and hand delivered the petition to the district,” Stroud wrote.
“As I have said before, I feel that this petition was done fraudulently based on the customer feedback we received, and I am not comfortable signing my name to something that I feel was done incorrectly, and fraudulently.”
In an email interview Stroud said as secretary she was not trained in her responsibilities as prescribed by the Water Act.
On April 20, James Martinkus sent both Stroud and Hennesy an Emergency Petition for Writ of Mandamus filed on behalf of Parkhill. Parkhill filed as an elector within the district, and while Illinois law allows residents to register on the date of election, Parkhill is not currently a registered voter in Champaign County.
The following day Hennesy and Stroud were to appear in court as Parkhill sought to compel them to submit the petitions to the Clerk’s office.
That night, at an emergency board meeting to hire an attorney (Edward Flynn) to guide the district through the process, Hennesy was told by board member Larson that if she just turned the petitions in, the emergency petition would be dropped. After stating this several times, Schultz asked Larson if he was the petitioner, to which he replied “no.”
Hennesy looked for another attorney for the district to turn to for guidance in the weeks leading up to the deadline to turn in the petitions.
“Mr. Parkhill has hired attorneys at many different firms in and around Champaign and we needed to find an attorney without a conflict of interest. That is how we came to hire Mr. Flynn,” Hennesy said.
The following morning, Hennesy submitted the documents to the County Clerk. At this time, she learned that it was not only the secretary who could have submitted the petition, but also any board member could have done so on behalf of the district.
Should voters choose to elect board members on June 28, the Public Water District Act states:”
“If a majority of the votes cast on the proposition are in the affirmative, the trustees of the district shall thereafter be elected as provided by this Section.(c) There shall be 7 elected trustees, except that if the size of the board has been reduced under Section 4.1, there shall be that reduced number of elected trustees. Each trustee must be a resident of the district. No party designation shall appear on the ballot for election of trustees. The first election of trustees shall be at the next nonpartisan election held after approval of the proposition as provided in subsection (b), and trustees shall be elected at each nonpartisan election thereafter as provided in this Section.(d)(1) In the case of a 7 member board, the length of the |
terms of the initial elected trustees shall be determined by lot at their first meeting so that 3 of the initial elected trustees shall serve for terms of 2 years and 4 shall serve for terms of 4 years. Thereafter, each elected trustee shall serve for a term of 4 years.“ |
The Sangamon Valley Public Water District has submitted its boundary map to the Clerk’s office to ensure that only their customers are counted on the ballot measure. Sangamon Valley Public Water District provides water and sewer service to properties north of I-74 and east of IL-47.
The first election of trustees should take place on the November, 2022, ballot, if voters choose to elect those seats.
