The Veterans Assistance Commission of Will County faced questions but provided no answers Tuesday concerning $495,000 spent on a no-bid contract for marketing.
The VAC board met in closed session with an attorney hired to investigate the spending and issued a statement saying it has been advised not to comment as it was pelted with questions and accusations at its regular meeting.
Meanwhile, the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office is disputing claims that it had ever reached a conclusion that the contract with Hey G Consulting was legal.
Hey G, headed by Geriann Wiesbrook, got the contract funded with federal COVID-19 relief money when Kristina McNichol was the top administrator at VAC. The two have been described as friends. McNichol went to work for the city of Joliet in May.
“Do you even know what you got for that $500,000?” Colleen Percy of Plainfield asked the board when it opened its meeting to public comment.
Percy characterized the board’s approach as “hush, hush and it’s going to go away.”
Sam Erkonen, an attorney representing a veteran who raised questions about the spending at a previous VAC board meeting, said he had been contacted by the FBI about the issue.
“I just would urge the board to take this a little more seriously than they appear to be taking it,” Erkonen said.
Also at the meeting was Randall Tyner with the Illinois Attorney General’s Military and Veterans Rights Bureau, although Tyner did not comment to the board.
Board Chairman Jack Picciolo read two brief statements, one at the start of the meeting before going into closed session and another after public comment, saying the board has been advised by its attorney to not discuss the matter while it is under investigation.
“To get to the answers that everyone, including the board, is asking, we are following our attorney’s advice,” Picciolo said.
The VAC has hired attorney Paul O’Grady, who works with the Chicago firm Peterson Johnson Murray, to look into the matter.
The VAC also is represented by the state’s attorney’s office. But the state’s attorney did not represent the VAC in 2021 when it entered into the contract with My G Consulting, said Mary Tatroe, head of the state’s attorney’s civil division.
Tatroe disputed claims that the state’s attorney’s office had reached a conclusion that the My G contract was legal when asked about it previously.
“At that point, it was just we don’t see anything criminal,” Tatroe said.
Tatroe said the state’s attorney’s office advised the VAC to hire an outside lawyer “and that’s what they have done.”