How to "Do Atlantic City" on Lisle's Taxpayers Backs

How would you like a one week trip, including airfare, meals and hotel expenses at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino paid for by Lisle taxpayers?

There is only one catch… You first have to run for Village Clerk.

Yup, Lisle's elected Village Clerk, Tim Seeden, was the lucky winner of this year's all expenses paid, one week trip to Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Just 4 weeks after the record setting April 18 flood in Lisle, Tim Seeden took off for a one week conference  for the International Institute of Municipal Clerks held in Atlantic City. The conference was held May 19 -23, 2013. The event kicked off on Sunday night at 7 pm May 19, 2013 with a reception with costumed entertainers, the Philadelphia Mummers.

Session topics included: 

• Leading the Clerk's Office Through Difficult Economic Times 
• Public Service Ethics (Lisle doesn't have an ethics officer or an ethics commission)
• Grant Writing: Action Step for Municipal Clerks 
• Electronic Posting of City Meeting Notices
• How to Design a Legally Defensible Records Retention Plan

Wednesday Evening's bash was a Beach Party featuring a tribute to Bruce Springsteen.

The International Institute of Municipal Clerks touts membership of 10,000 clerks from the US, Canada, and other countries. In the U.S. alone there are over 80,000 units of local government. In 2012, the IIMC sent out a letter to its membership citing concerns with falling attendance at it annual meeting and conference and pledged to make the conference more affordable in following years.

Not many municipalities pay to send their clerk to the International conference. Since 2009, many of those municipalities that previously paid to send a clerk to the international conference have been cutting this expensive conference from their budgets due to economic conditions …. But not Lisle.

Here is what Tim Seeden's one week trip to Atlantic City cost Lisle taxpayers.

• Airfare  May 18 - 24                      $   233.78
• Conference Fees May 19 - 23               $   575.00
• Trump Taj Mahal Casino & Hotel May 18-24  $   861.50
• Meals & Transportation                    $   237.59
• TOTAL                                     $ 1,907.87

Tim Seeden has been the elected Clerk of the Village of Lisle for 14 yrs and was first elected in 1999.

Stay tuned... More to come on the taxpayers cost of Seeden's other overnight trips taken this past year for conventions and meetings. 

We need a tax increase? Really?