Story courtesy of Jc Tinsley for TOC News
The White County Housing Authority serves Norris City, Crossville and Grayville with a total of 115 housing units specifically for the elderly and low income families. According to Commissioners Charles “Skip” Land and Terry Daubs, there’s wrongdoing happening and it starts with Executive Director Leigh Short. Both men were at the White County Board meeting Tuesday night and for nearly 25 minutes, laid out their concerns with how the agency is being run. Land alluded to a variety of complaints and issues alleging he was told by both the chairperson Christine Wells as well as the agency attorney that their meetings weren’t recorded “because it might come back to haunt us.” That led to other concerns. For instance:
The employee in question, Land says has been shorted around 2 dozen weeks of vacation over the years. He says the maintenance man is afraid of repercussions and Land says there’s a precedent that’s been set.
In addition to staff being afraid of Executive Director Short, Land says tenants living in unacceptable conditions remain afraid to rock the boat as well.
The concerns extend into financials as well. Land says the Housing Agency is dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars. He says the Executive Director alone is in charge of inventory. Bottom line, Land says he’s done his homework and says he knows something’s fishy.
The Housing Authority is set to meet Wednesday morning where I’d expect a lively meeting. White County Board members refused to make any decisions at the meeting, instead as Chairman Ron McAnulty put it, they’d put it under consideration and “chew on it”.
In other business, the White County Board accepted resolutions for both Maintenance under the Illinois Highway Code and also Weight Limits on County Roads. Both are annual resolutions. The board took no action but had a sprightly discussion regarding the interagency agreement regarding emergency dispatching. The discussion surrounded whether and how much money the financially stressed County Ambulance Service should be paying toward dispatching. The agreement calls for the Ambulance to be paying $36,000 toward dispatching. County Board member Ken Usery says:
With Sheriff Doug Maier absent and Ambulance Service Director Adam Allen out due to a positive CoViD diagnosis earlier in the day, the board ultimately decided they would probably need to address which budget they allocated the money to in the coming year.
No executive session was called and the White County Board adjourned around 7:40pm. They’re next set to meet in regular session on February 9th at 7pm, again from the 2nd floor courtroom of the White County Courthouse.
