Ackerman project doesn't add up

Thanks for having a reporter at the Dec. 15 Glen Ellyn Park District meeting. I found Marco Santana's report interesting, but of course it can only be an abbreviated account of a meeting that lasts for several hours.

I'm puzzled at a couple of statements Santana quotes: Commissioner Hess and President Minogue each separately saying that Commissioners Creech and Nephew are "trying to stop the Ackerman project." This seems nonsensical, as the building is on the verge of opening for use. All I have seen, reading agendas and minutes, attending one meeting, and watching the video of another, is that they keep asking for an accurate financial account of this major construction project.

This is a construction project for a public agency, publicly bid and paid for by taxpayers. It's normal practice for the monthly accounts, including subcontracts, change order proposals, and approved change orders, to be fully laid out and the sums to be subtracted and added in an orderly fashion. This is what Commissioner Creech keeps asking for. What is hindering the Glen Ellyn Park District staff from showing the board accounts that make sense? Theoretically, the Board is responsible for fiscal oversight, but Commissioners Hess and Aubrey seem to be saying, in the Herald's account, that it's been the ordinary practice in the past for the staff to be unable or unwilling to lay out the costs clearly.

This is arithmetic. Things should add up. Why don't they for this project?

Edna E Heatherington

Glen Ellyn