I viewed with interest the recent (1/23/19) article “Auditor declares negative village fund balance.” Some of my fellow residents at The Grove were interested in viewing the budget. One of the residents went to the village website and found only the audit. “An audit is not a budget,” said this resident.
When this same resident called the Village and asked, “Where is the actual budget?” they were asked to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. This baffled me. Shouldn’t the citizens of a village be able to view the budget whenever they want to?
I shared this experience with the candidates on the Forest Park Forward Village Commissioner slate. They told me that one of their supporters had actually gone through the trouble of submitting a FOIA, and when they received the Village budget, it had many redacted lines. What is going on here? Any advocate of good government would expect transparency in this matter. Most villages publish their budget on the website as a matter of course.
The Forest Park Forward commissioner candidates (Julianne Bonwit, Mark Boroughf, Jon Kubricht, and Jessica Voogd) have pledged Transparency, Responsiveness, and Inclusivity. They have also endorsed Rory Hoskins for Mayor of Forest Park. Read more about them here: http://www.forestparkforward.com/
Let’s give them our votes.
Carol Gulyas,
Resident who is volunteering for the Forest Park Forward slate
