Jim Dey: Prospects picked to fill Patterson's vacancies

Feb. 19—It's time once again to dive in to another round of quick takes on the people, places and events that were being talked about over the past week:

More musical chairsFormer Champaign County Board Chairman Kyle Patterson's move to a more lucrative post as supervisor for the City of Champaign Township left two holes to fill in county government.

First, there is his District 7 seat on the county board. Then, there is his post as board chairman.

A caucus meeting of board Democrats produced two candidates.

First, former Urbana Schools Superintendent Don Owen will take the District 7 board seat once occupied by Patterson.

His appointment is scheduled to be approved by the full board on Feb. 22. That vote is just a formality, according to county executive Steve Summers, because the law requires that Democrat Patterson be replaced by another Democrat, in this case, caucus choice Owens.

The second post — board chairman/woman also is expected to be filled by the choice of the caucus — current Vice Chairwoman Samantha Carter.

The caucus backed Carter over another interested board member, District 8's Emily Rodriguez.

A longtime Champaign-Urbana resident, Carter lives in Champaign's Garden Hills neighborhood. Before joining the county board, she was active in the Champaign County Black Chamber of Commerce, the Don Moyer Boys & Girls Club and the county NAACP.

Summers said choosing a replacement for chairman is more formal because it's an issue for the entire board — Republicans and Democrats.

As a consequence, Summers said nominations will be made from the floor for the chairman's post but professed to have no idea who will be chosen.

Board Republican J.J. Farney said he expects the GOP to "put up one of our own members" for the post. But with only six Republicans compared to 16 Democrats, Farney said the majority party will prevail.

Welcoming Owen as a new board member, Farney noted that Owen has been attending board and committee meetings, so he'll be better prepared to serve.

"Don is here and engaged," Farney said.

What, me worry?Years ago in Chicago, there was an Outfit hoodlum named Sam DeStefano whose erratic behavior earned him the name "Mad Sam."

How mad was he? So "mad" that fellow mob bosses decided to whack him to keep his antics out of the news.

Central Illinois now has its own "Mad Sam" — aka former Macoupin County state Sen. Sam McCann.

He's the former Republican legislator who feuded with his fellow members of the GOP, including former Gov. Bruce Rauner. Then he turned independent and ran for governor as a third-party candidate in 2018.

He also was free with money that was not his, dipping his hands into campaign funds and spending the illicit cash on personal items. Evidence showed he continued to do so even after FBI agents questioned him about his expenditures.

After he was indicted in 2021, McCann's various maneuvers delayed his trial until last week.

Over the past few months, McCann has been moving heaven and earth to avoid the inevitable. Not for the first-time, he fired his court-appointed lawyer. Then he decided to represent himself. Then he checked into a hospital.

Finally, U.S. Judge Colleen Lawless ordered McCann taken into police custody so he would be compelled to show up.

McCann won a final one-day reprieve when he decided he would not act as his own lawyer.

When his trial finally started on Tuesday, things went from bad to worse as the prosecution began to unload its evidence of financial misdeeds on the former "selfless" public servant.

Then, in a final twist, McCann surprised everyone by pleading guilty to all charges on Feb. 15.

Noting McCann's penchants for doing one thing and then another, the judge warned McCann that "you can't take it back" when she was informed of his change in plea.

"Do you still want to plead guilty?" she asked.

McCann's guilty plea was all the more bizarre because he arranged this week for the posting of a brief video on his social-media account in which he claimed authorities were coming after him "with an ungodly pack of lies."

Prosecutors alleged that McCann misappropriated roughly $550,000 in funds from his campaign accounts and engaged in other illegalities — money laundering and tax evasion — to cover up his misconduct.

Lord knows what will happen between today and his June 20 sentencing. Surely, the McCann follies are not over yet. In the meantime, he remains in custody.

Follow the moneyA suspected financial scandal at Peoria's public television station WTVP has led to an audit of station finances by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The station's new board chairman, John Wieland, said he and the board treasurer were recently informed of the CPB audit. But he said he is confident that when the audit is completed in May or June, that CPB will restore station funding.

The station has been in turmoil for months in the aftermath of suspected financial mismanagement that has resulted in pending criminal investigations.

Because of the station's financial woes, the station board ordered a $1.5 million budget cut that led to the layoffs of nine employees and the suspension of the publication of "Peoria" magazine.

Wieland said a private foundation stepped forward with a three-year, $1.2 million contribution to help out. But that commitment is conditioned on the restoration of CPB funding.

CPB is currently withholding WTVP's 2024 Community Service Grant funds. The audit is expected to focus on how WTVP spent such grant funding between 2020 and 2023.

News of the station's problems became public last fall after an auditor provided, according to the station's board, "insights into the expenditures and uses of funds at WTVP that were questionable, unauthorized or improper."

"We believe that such expenditures have been stopped and are closely reviewing every proposed or recurring expense the station makes," the station's executive committee said at the time.

Ultimately, 11 board members, including board President Andrew Rand, resigned their posts,

Improper spending was attributed to two former station executives, the president and finance director.

One day after former station President Lesley Matuszak resigned, she was found dead in her home, presumably from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Why the intrigue?The news that Gov. J.B. Pritzker granted a pardon based on "innocence" to former death row inmate Randy Steidl was quite a surprise.

Steidl's pardon request has been pending for years, so long that he said he had given up hope that he would ever be officially cleared in connection with the 1986 double murders in Paris, Ill., of Dyke and Karen Rhoads.

But there was another aspect of the pardon that also is odd — the secrecy surrounding the pardon itself.

Pritzker issued the pardon in mid-December, but Steidl and his lawyer didn't find out about it until a month later.

Indeed, Gary Swygert, a lawyer with Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, said Steidl's lawyer never was officially informed, He said she learned about the pardon by happenstance after an encounter with an employee of the Prisoner Review Board.

"They didn't tell anybody. I don't get it," said Swygert.

He said that he has no idea how and when the issue was brought to the governor's attention.

"I think justice is finally being served. But why? I can't tell you," Swygert said.

Other than to confirm the issuance of the pardon, neither the governor's office nor the PRB would comment.

Steidl and Herbert Whitlock were both wrongfully convicted in the high-profile murder. Both served long stints in prison before having their convictions overturned.

Now that Steidl has been officially declared innocent of the murder, Whitlock is hoping that he also will be cleared.

The Rhoads case remains officially open, although no law-enforcement agency is taking or ever will take a serious, second look at the who, what and why surrounding this horrific case.

Spring training

forecastsFans of the St. Louis Cardinals can expect a good season, according to baseball prognosticators. The same can't be said for the moral reprobates who cheer for the Cubs.

Cubs fans will be sickened to know that both Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus rank the Cardinals as the top choice to win the National League's Central Division.

The central, of course, is one of the worst divisions in both the National and American leagues. So the Cards' ranking is somewhat akin to being selected as the tallest midget in the circus.

Still, hope springs eternal for Cards, Cubs and White Sox fans as spring training begins and a new season and plenty of sunshine beckon.

Fangraphs said the Cardinals have a 38.3 percent chance to win the division. The Cubs followed at 21.3 percent. Fangraphs also predicts the Cardinals will finish with a thoroughly mediocre season record of 84-78 record.

Baseball Prospectus also projects St. Louis will win the NL Central, with a 52.9 percent chance. They put the Cubs' chances at 18.3 percent. BP predicts the Cardinals will clinch the division by a "a comfortable margin of five games with an 85-77 record."

Predictions by sports experts are always interesting and always suspect.

The experts picked last year's Cardinals team as a solid division champ favorite. They finished 20 games under .500, the Cards' worst in 33 years.