* Radio Television Digital News Association…

[Marilyn Hite Ross] was appointed the Winnebago County, Ill., state’s attorney in November, to complete the unexpired term of her predecessor, who’d just been elected to a judgeship. She had been the previous state’s attorney’s criminal bureau chief. Shortly after taking office in December, she issued a new policy governing her interactions with journalists.

The policy dictates that reporters wishing to interview Hite Ross must submit their questions in advance. If the interview is granted, any reporter who asks about something not on the pre-approved list will have his or her questioning terminated immediately.

Local news organizations in Rockford, the county seat, have tried to get Hite Ross to rescind the policy, but she has steadfastly refused. She even took her policy an ominous step forward, having a reporter removed from a news conference because the journalist asked a question not related to the event’s stated topic.

I’ve never heard of a reporter being forcefully removed from a press conference for asking an off-topic question.

The association’s letter to Hite Ross is here.

* Also…

Hite Ross has offered the board even more questionable advice, [board member Jean Crosby] said. County employee and personnel issues “should not be discussed in public, or with the media, to avoid potential liability for the county,” Hite Ross wrote in a Feb. 13 memo to the board.

That correspondence followed a guest column in the Register Star written by board member Dan Fellars, D-19, in which Fellars criticized County Administrator Carla Paschal’s job performance and called for her to resign.

“We still have the First Amendment the last time I checked,” Crosby said.

* The sheriff is suing the board…

Winnebago County Board Chairman Frank Haney, municipal leaders of Loves Park, Machesney Park and Winnebago and even a few County Board members are blasting State’s Attorney Marilyn Hite Ross for advising the board to keep mum about how the county spends its public safety sales tax revenue. […]

Hite Ross has advised the board in an April 1 memo to discuss the public safety tax only behind closed doors because of a lawsuit filed in March against the county by Sheriff Gary Caruana, who alleges that the board hasn’t provided his department sufficient funds to do its job, which includes oversight of 911 services. Additionally, the sheriff’s suit claims that the board has misspent proceeds of the public safety tax, which supplements the county’s public safety services. Any public discussion of the tax, especially in the context of the ongoing 911 talks, “risks jeopardizing our ability to defend the lawsuit,” Hite Ross said in an April 18 memo to Haney.

“If the state’s attorney is telling the County Board that they can only talk in closed session about the public safety tax as it relates to 911, then how are we ever going to work this out?” Jury said.

* So is the county board chairman…

Chairman Frank Haney will sue the Winnebago County Board within 30 days in an effort to reclaim the executive power that the board stripped from him in recent months.

Haney’s ability to file a complaint in circuit court to reclaim his power was made possible by Judge Donna Honzel’s decision on Wednesday to appoint Haney’s personal lawyer, Ken Florey, as the chairman’s special state’s attorney. Haney’s basis for such a lawsuit: The County Board, by approving a series of ordinances that have diminished Haney’s power, has violated his rights and subverted the will of the voters who elected him chairman.

* And…

Winnebago County Chairman Frank Haney violated at least half a dozen conditions of the county’s vehicle policy after crashing his county-owned vehicle on June 8, according to a policy review conducted by Auditor Bill Crowley.

Haney was driving on an expired driver’s license at the time of the crash and his vehicle registration and license plate sticker had expired more than a year before the accident, Crowley noted in a four-page memo to the County Board on Tuesday.

Haney’s relationship with the board has deteriorated since his election in November 2016. Board member Fred Wescott, R-17, was among those who called on Haney to step down in December, asserting that the chairman lacks leadership skills and is unable or unwilling to listen to the board’s concerns. Haney’s four-year term ends in December 2020, and he announced in April that he won’t run for re-election.

Wescott renewed his call for Haney to resign last Thursday, stating that Haney was using his county vehicle for personal business — a flagrant violation of the county vehicle policy.

* Related…

* Our View: No, Marilyn, you’re not going to muzzle us