Mercer County Illinois Communities

Some of our mercer county board, building commission and mercer county sheriffs dept are keeping a huge secret, a 5.5 million dollar secret...

These agencies want to build on to the jail and house more federal prisoners from the US marshal service. The current federal prisoners are destroying the Mercer County Jail as we speak, a jail that was built, then a few years later built again because of poor craftsmanship.

The current administration believes that this will be a save all for the jail. As of today the jail has never received anymore than $50.00 per day per prisoner and they think they may receive $60.00 per day, but there has never been a contract with the Marshal service and there are no outlines in the future to say there ever will be a contract.

Posted online from WRMJ's website Charlie Box a board member said that there is no risk of loosing the current inmates even if Thompson is sold to the federal government to house federal detainees. I wonder if Mr Box received a phone call or if he is simply making this up as some preventative damage control, since he is one in favor of the expansion. This is a classic case of closed door politics - almost everyone I talk to knows very little about the $5,500,000 jail expansion. How could this be? Simple answer they are trying to slip this through under the radar.

Fortunately there is a group known as Concerned Citizen that have filed papers with the courthouse to try and stop this waste of money. Our county jail has been mismanaged for years and it is time to get someone with administrative qualities into office as Sheriff.

My name is Jason Lee Soseman. I am a life-long resident of Mercer county and a local business man for over 13 years. I bring this knowledge i have been given to the people of Mercer county . I welcome all questions or concerns you may have. email jasoseman@hotmail.com ,it may take a day or so to respond if so please be patient.

Just to keep people informed , the Mercer County Board approved to borrow $100,000 from the liability fund to make payroll . Are the county board , building commission and the sheriff sure we need to waste $5,5OO,OOO on a dead horse when they cant even stick to the budget they approved. I would urge any and all residents of Mercer county to attend at least one board meeting this year . thank you Jason Lee Soseman

Jason,

If you could post the meetings on the calendar for people, that would be fantastic - should be a community meetings category. I know that I, personally have no idea when they are...

I will get some info for everbody . The smaller committee meetings are the ones where the real info gets passed around , the county board meetings are just a finished product and brief summary of what was decided at the committee meetings . The regular scheduled meetings for the law enforcement committee is the last Wednesday of the month , with the exception of December and the meeting is Tuesday December 29th. I hope to see some of you at the jail annex , this meeting is open to the public .

http://www.evoter.com/illinois/office ... ber-county-board-district
This is a site that will show who is running for all offices in the 2010 Nov. election. Hope to see you at the poles .

I would encourage some of you who are watching, to sign up and post your concerns or thoughts , this is a great chance to ask questions .

In 2009 the current jail administration went over budget by $173,000 of YOUR tax payer dollars .

Time for a update , Mercer County has approved to borrow $202,000 on Mar. 2nd 2010 . This will bring the total borrowed for year 2010 up to a painful $537,000 , add to that over $200,000 debt left over from 2009 , for a not so grand total of $737,000 .
The time is right to make some drastic modifications to the governing board of Mercer County . There has been one lone stand out on the board and that is Robert Vickrey , he has always asked the question WHY when everyone else on the board just goes along . Call your local board members and let them know it is time to stop wasting our money . Do we need another payment of $400,000+ ? Do we need a jail expansion ?

County Board members
Maxine Henry Keithsburg 309 374 2669
Bill Thorp Viola 309 596 2584
Dan Schroeder NewBoston 309 587 2036
Bill Olson Aledo 309 582 7481
Terry Elliott NewBoston 309 537 3388
Charlie Box Sherrard 309 593 2140
Floyd Utze NewWindsor309 667 2405
Bob Vickrey Aledo 309 582 2542