It continues to intrigue us the level of crossover between the city of Marion and the city of Harrisburg.
And what’s on the front page this month exemplifies that crossover.
When we first started working in Williamson County last year, we were amazed at how some of their city officials were so close to some Harrisburg city officials, “helping” with “ideas” to make Harrisburg work the way Marion “works.” Of course, it’s already been an established fact that Marion “works” on corruption….and since Harrisburg has such a good foothold on that, it would stand to reason that then-Harrisburg mayor Eric Gregg would be all eager to get in on THAT action, since he was an incompetent leader all-around, and support from the corrupt would be just his bailiwick.
But at the time we were covering Gregg’s faux pas in the ‘burg, we simply didn’t know or understand the idiocy of Marion’s city attorney, Steve Green…not until he told one of our correspondents that she couldn’t photograph him at a city council meeting last summer.
Once we started looking into THAT debacle, and realized that of course Marion would want a city attorney with a room-temperature IQ (so he could be manipulated int telling the media, and subsequently the public, whatever Marion wanted them told), it kind of escaped our purview that Steve Green was also involved in Gregg’s flounderings in Saline County circuit court.
Until we went to do an update on Gregg in late June that reminded us that ol Steve-o was right there from the outset.
So here now is the noontime Read the Lead, the front page article that tells the whole sordid, messy story about just what a slacker Eric Gregg, Quinn appointee to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board (Parole Board), really is, Refusal costs Gregg attorneys:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steve Green, shown on left in the photo, is one of the many attorneys dumping their services as counsel for Eric Gregg (shown at Harrisburg’s Wing-a-ma-Jig fest recently) in the civil case filed against Gregg in Saline County by Luann Walker.
SALINE CO.—The former mayor of Harrisburg is having a very difficult time in the Saline County court system, and that’s mainly because he refuses to abide by its rules.
And the fallout from that refusal has been the turnover of attorney he’s retained in the case, one of them being the questionable Steve Green, city attorney of Marion, who was the first in a series to have bowed out due to Eric Gregg’s stubbornness.
Gregg was named the respondent in a civil suit in late 2012, several months before it was announced that he was ascending to a plum position on the state’s prisoner review (parole) board.
The suit, filed by a former Gregg business partner, LuAnn Walker, alleges that Gregg did not wrap up their business partnership appropriately, and as a result, owes Walker large sums of money.
And the suspected reason why Gregg is ignoring interrogatories and legal demands for discovery of his financial doings lends greatly toward assertions Disclosure has held for at least the past year: That Gregg lied on his statement of economic interest in order to secure the job on the Prisoner Review Board (PRB), an act which could get him charged criminally.
The court documents in the case show that Gregg and Walker were in partnership with MidAmerican Energy Services, one of many such somewhat fly-by-night outfits that have developed over the past several years as energy distribution (electricity and gas) became more deregulated in the markets and allowed energy “aggregation” (an individual company purchasing “energy” at a fixed rate for later sale to counties and municipalities) to enter the field.
The two were in partnership in the business since November 2008, according to court documents, and were to equally split the profits of the business, which were obtained after one or the other, or both, pitched the energy aggregation to such public bodies as school districts, cities and counties who enter into energy contracts typically with other, larger providers.
But in late February 2012, Gregg told Walker that they were going to “no longer conduct an ongoing business venture.” This cannot be done under Illinois law without proper “winding up of business” as outlined by statute, and is especially true if the aggrieved partner was continuing to honor the terms of their agreement, as Walker claims she was, under the Illinois Uniform Partnership Act of 1997.
Under a three-count claim, Walker alleged Winding up of Partnership Business, Breach of Oral Contract, and Breach of….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To read the rest of the article, click the headline above the excerpt if you have a membership to the online e-Edition, or, if you don’t, simply click this link here to get your membership started. Membership to the online e-Edition gets you every article we’ve ever produced for print since two years ago this month, and you can peruse the site all day long for only $5.99 for a month’s worth. Or, if you prefer to hold a hard copy of the paper in your hands, you can visit on of our 50 vendors throughout southern Illinois, including these in Saline County: In Harrisburg, M&H Liquors, Discount Food Mart, Book Emporium or both location of ROC One-Stop; in Eldorado, College Drive Liquors and both locations of ROC One-Stop; in Raleigh at Raleigh Quick Mart; and ROC One-Stop in Carrier Mills and Galatia. In Williamson County, you can pick up a paper at ROC One-Stop in Marion on West DeYoung, as well as in Johnston City and West Frankfort; and Pit Road Racing on the square in Marion and Hunter’s Cove Barbershop on West DeYoung. Hurry…this one is on stands for only eight more days, and they have been moving quickly, with re-stocks in most locations!!