Former Harrisburg mayor Eric Gregg. Now also former PRB member.
SALINE CO., Ill. - In keeping with his utter hubris - and an ill-founded apparent belief that he's somehow still a protected and favored special individual in downstate Illinois politics - former Harrisburg mayor Eric Gregg has filed a lawsuit against Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner in Saline County Circuit Court, seeking to be reappointed to his previous position on the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.
Gregg was a 2013 appointee to the PRB by former governor, democrat Pat Quinn, who rewarded Gregg, a Republican (on paper, anyway) with the position after Gregg helped cover over the fact that Quinn screwed up getting federal disaster assistance to the city of Harrisburg following the February 29, 2012 Leap Day Tornado that tore apart the Gaskins City neighborhood of the town and killed eight.
The problem came in when Gregg issued false information on his application for the job, wherein he claimed that he'd had no other sources of income in the previous calendar year, as well as other little falsehoods, other than his mayoral pay...a fact that he should have known we'd pick up on when we started submitting Freedom of Information Act requests in June of 2013 after Gregg was holding the PRB position at the same time he was receiving income from that mayoral position (Illinois law has it that a person cannot hold any positions, elected, appointed, hired, etc., nor have any income from any source, while working on the PRB.)
Then when Gregg filed bankruptcy in late 2014, he fudged a little on those documents, too...a huge no-no in the federal realm, and something that we here at Disclosure emailed the governor's office about in January, asking if Rauner intended to keep Gregg on the taxpayer payroll on the PRB, given that the man couldn't tell the truth if his life depended on it.
The gov did something about it (resulting in this front-page article in the current issue) - he terminated Gregg - and in response to this, last Wednesday, Gregg shot back with a lawsuit against Rauner and the chairman of the PRB, Craig Findley...wanting his job back.
In the filing, Gregg claims that under the same LAW that prohibited him from holding the position of mayor of Harrisburg even one day while also holding the position with the PRB (730 ILCS 5/3-3-1...which he violated from April 26, 2013, to July 8, 2013), the gov can't fire him because that law lists that grounds for removal from the PRB can only be "incompetence, neglect of duty, malfeasance or inability to serve."
Gregg claims he didn't commit or endure any of those...apparently not aware that the legal definition of "Malfeasance" is "wrongdoing, especially by a public official."
The Governor has Eric Gregg eight ways to Sunday on malfeasance...and Gregg's apparently too ignorant to see it. So he's putting up a fight. One must wonder why, if he's in bankruptcy, he's able to afford yet another attorney, Thomas F. Crosby of Winters, Brewster, Crosby and Schafer LLC in Marion, to pursue this frivolous thing in Saline County Circuit Court.
We'll have the entire thing in the upcoming print edition, on stands a week from tomorrow...and available by e-Edition a week from tonight. If you don't have a subscription to either the print or the e-Edition, what are you waiting for? You can sign up right here online...or you can rush out and get a copy of the current October 2015 issue, still on stands at vendors because we loaded em up, as this one's a hot one. Check our vendors list at the link to see where your nearest vendor is...and don't miss this issue, where Gregg is on the front page, a spot we're firmly holding for him in the November Special Edition hitting stands in a week.