The item that fired up McLean County Board Members at this months meeting wasn’t even on the agenda.
At the end of the justice committee report presented by Chuck Erickson, who presides as committee chair, county board member Jim Soldner asked to be recognized by county board chair John McIntyre. This is allowed under the “Appearances by members of the public and County employees in reference to an item not on the agenda” section of the meeting.
After being recognized, Soldner brought up the recent confrontation involving county board member Sharon Chung and County Sheriff Jon Sandage that happened during last week’s Justice Committee meeting.
Cities 92.9 asked Soldner to summarize those comments for us after the meeting and this is what he had to say. “Well I just wanted to make the public aware that the meeting was on YouTube but I thought it was an opportunity for the public to see what actually happened. I have been on the county board since 2008 and I don’t recall a time when a single county board member has spent so much time dealing with inmates. I know that the sheriff said her name was on a lot of emails between inmates and I’m not so sure that is the job of a county board member. I agree that it’s the job of a county board member to work on problems but not necessarily to solicit lawsuits and I believe that’s what she’s done. So again my idea was to mainly get it out there so that media would know for people to take a look at that.”
Board member Shayna Watchinski feels differently about the situation She defended Chung during the meeting saying, “What I saw was the sheriff interrogating a county board member for doing what she was elected to do.” Referencing claims that one of the inmates Chung had contact with has white supremacist tattoos, Watchinski said it shows, “member Chung is willing to help all constituents regardless of what they believe.”
Erickson interjected saying that Chung has the right to an opinion. However, Erickson says that Chung has been questioning Sandage for months and has made accusations regarding the quality of his work. According to Erickson, Sandage also has the right to respond back to those accusations and include his thoughts on Chung’s job performance.
Sheriff Sandage has a history with county Democrats and them accusing him of less than desirable behavior. In October of last year contention arose from a matter regarding inmates use of tablets. After being allowed to use the tablets the board questioned the Sherriff’s Department charging inmates for using the tablets. When the board postponed for a month a decision regarding the vendor’s contract Sandage felt it might be better if he pulled the tablets back from the inmates since payment for them was in question. The nine Democrats on the board put out a press release saying Sandage acted out of retaliation.
The delay in that incident was a result of the proposal including plans to charge inmates for using the tablets. In the proposal inmates were to be charged 25 cents per email and five cents per minute of internet. Sandage approved the purchase in November after determining he had authority to do so and board approval was not required. In December Chung accused Sandage of nickel and diming the inmates.
In February Chung accused Sandage of stonewalling board members because he wasn’t planning to run for re-election. She surmised that Sandage didn’t care what board members think.
Also during February, Chung criticized a change made by Sandage that converted physical mail sent to inmates to email to reduce the number of illegal substances getting in the jail through traditional mail. Chung said the action was excessive and accused Sandage of wanting to punish everyone in the jail. Chung also criticized what she described as a jail culture that treats inmates as less than human.
