A Normal Town Council member was threatened by Brian Day after forwarding emails from the public to the Police Chief and the Town Manager in regards to an on-going police investigation that looks into the alleged electioneering going on at Unit 5.
“To be clear, the police department will proceed as they determine is proper without credence to anybody’s political agenda. If your efforts to meddle with that process persist, then the Town will take any and all appropriate legal action,” states Day in a letter address to Stan Nord, a Normal Town Council member.
Cities reached out a few times to Normal PD, who is currently dealing with a federal lawsuit for excessive force and arresting Taylor Brown (she alleges) without probable cause, after receiving a lot of inquiries from the public to our newsroom about the action and updates in the investigation. Brad Park of the Normal PD told us, “There was a report filed and we are looking into it. I do not know the status of the report and if it will warrant any charges at this time. No press release was issued as we generally would not do a press release for a lower type of crime such as this.”
This was prior to another report being made by Vicki Rowe, a who was a Unit 5 parent who was the PTO president. Rowe eventually took her grievances to the Normal Council on Monday.
“Unit 5’s PTO’s can’t endorse a particular candidate or voting item on the ballot. I had many Unit 5 parents tell me last night at the concert that they were upset about the election material at their students’ concert,” said Rowe. There was a packed choir concert held at Normal West on March 16 where “Yes for Unit 5 Buttons,” Mark Adams, Kelly Pyle, Amy Roser and Alex Williams literature cards were placed on a table right outside the concert.
Also at the concert a man, Unit 5 Music Parents president Josh Jensen, gave a 4-minute long speech complete with asking parents in the crowd to stand and to “Vote Yes” for the children.
Unit 5 Music Parents president Josh Jensen told WGLT he wasn’t present at the March 16 concert where a Rowe called to report the advocacy group’s table display, but he was shocked the complaint had been made to police at all. However, the video above is of Josh Jensen…this video was taken on March 16 at the concert.
Earlier this month, emails revealed that the Unit 5 Attorney is concerned about violations of the Election Code and State Officials and Employees Ethics Act.
Curt Richardson, the Unit 5 Attorney, stated in emails to Julie Hagler, Ben Matthews, and Nicole Nichols that the district was concerned about the stuffing of campaign mailers in elementary school teachers’ mailboxes.
“We have been made aware that the attached flyer for the Yes for Unit 5 campaign has been put in all the staff mailboxes in at least two schools (Pepper Ridge and Sugar Creek). I don’t know if you are aware of this but we have concerns that this violates the Election Code and State Officials and Employees Ethics Act. Are you available to have a discussion this morning?” states the email sent from Richardson.
Concerns about the alleged electioneering have been on the rise and the concert drove Rowe to file another report on top of the one filed by Kim Miller, a Normal resident.
On Unit 5’s website there is an “ethics” portion that says it is prohibited to be:
“Distributing, preparing for distribution, or mailing campaign literature, campaign signs, or other campaign material on behalf of any candidate for elective office or for or against any referendum question.”
Stan Nord got about 30 emails sent to him from members of the public about the investigation and relayed the concerns to Town Manager Pam Reece and Normal Police Chief Steve Petrilli.
“It seems more of the public is sharing their concerns with their elected representatives rather than directly with you. This is understandable,” Nord wrote to the Normal Police Chief Steve Petrilli on March 10. “For the sake of transparency, to eliminate accusations of me miscommunicating things or trying to use this investigation as a platform to help my re-election, it may be better for your department to make or issue a public statement to address the public’s questions. … If you need a certain number of the public to contact you directly in order to make this communication happen, then let me know how many people need to contact you.”
Town of Normal lawyer Brian Day wrote back to Nord and said, “using your office to persecute your political opponent is seldom a good look.”
In an email to Stan Nord, Pam Reece mentioned the types of people the authors of these concerns were.
“It is also noteworthy that some authors of emails are current candidates and political party representatives who’ve taken a public position on the referendum issue,” Reece wrote.
Stan Nord said that the Normal Police should act as a deterrent.
“We should not have our law enforcement going in after the fact to solve crimes,” said Nord. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if there was a deterrent that prevented people from wanting to commit a crime? What’s been laid out here in Normal is, ‘Hey we think this crime is minor and we are not going to try and deter you from doing it,'” said Nord. “High crime, low crime, it doesn’t matter…at the end of the day the public wants answers.”
Unlike Bloomington, Normal does not have a Public Safety and Community Relations Board. This is a board that secondarily reviews complaints about the police department and has a quarterly meeting to discuss certain complaints with the council. “If someone has a complaint against an officer or the BPD in general, they would first file the complaint with the department. They do an internal review, so then the complainant receives the results with a letter and if they are dissatisfied with that, they have a certain amount of time, thirty days I believe, to ask for the BPSCRB to review…” said Ashley Farmer, Chair of the Bloomington Public Safety and Community Relations Board BPSCRB at their last board meeting.
