We’re slowly but surely uncovering the basis of the horrendous problems Saline County is into where it regards fiscal mismanagement and egregious spending.
Carey Harbison
However, is the one that took up so much of the last county board meeting really one of them?
According to Rod Wallace, it is…and yet according to documentation, well…not so much.
The ongoing squabble among detractors of Danny Ragan regarding the basis of the argument—his retirement benefits—hit high gear at the last county board meeting, and we covered it in full in the current edition. Here now is your noontime Read the Lead, “Accusations fly, tempers flare at county board meeting“:
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SALINE CO.—A high-tension debate that appeared to be a just-below-the-radar campaign push dominated the December meeting of the Saline County Board.
Rod Wallace
In the end, not many were as enlightened as perhaps the participants hoped they’d be, however, primarily because of the dry content and large amount of numbers and percentages thrown around. Still, it served to underscore two points: One, that years ago, retirement plans as offered by the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF) were entirely too generous and were what got the state of Illinois in the horrific mess it is in with pensions right now; and two, that a citizen who is upset with something his representatives in government are doing has the right, and indeed the duty, to run for office himself in an attempt to set things right.
Saline County Treasurer Danny Ragan and county board candidate on the upcoming Republican Primary ballot, Rod Wallace, had requested to be placed on the agenda in order to speak on differing sides of a single topic. Board Chairman Carey Harbison invited the two to decide between themselves who would speak first, with Wallace insisting Ragan initially take the floor.
Ragan addressed the Board, stating that he wished to clarify some “mistruths that had been brought against him” in regards to his pension plan. He advised that “a young lady who is campaigning against him, as well as her father who is campaigning for her, had spread the rumors,” and wanted it known that this was “not a campaigning speech, but an act of self-defense against the allegations of wrongdoing on his part.”
(Those present knew that he was specifically referring to Sara J. Wallace, who is the Republican candidate challenging Ragan on the ticket in the Primary March 18; her father is Rod Wallace.)
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