Rockford Sun

Pecatonica Township Supervisor Joe Musso's former habits of trying to control the township's office building and who may attend public meetings have been curtailed by a recently passed ordinance, a two-man Paris-based political activist group announced late last month.

Township Electors "took charge" in a post-Christmas meeting when it adopted an ordinance curtailing Musso's power to do what he's been trying - and often barred by court decsisions - to do, Edgar County Watchdogs Co-founders and writers Kirk Allen and John Kraft said in a post to the organization's website on Dec. 30.

Among other things, the recently passed ordinance declares that no one is prohibited from the township's office building without a court order, from attending a township public meeting or being removed from a public meeting unless they are "acting in a disorderly manner."

"Supervisor Musso's reign of terror on citizens had been dealt a massive blow with the passage of this ordinance restricting his ability to intimidate people through abusive court filings," Allen and Kraft said in the post.

Allen and Kraft co-founded Edgar County Watchdogs in 2011. Edgar County Watchdogs is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, according to its website.

Kraft and Allen have been publicly feuding with Musso for quite some time. In October, the pair cited a letter from the Illinois Attorney General's office to back up claims that Musso repeatedly violated the state's Open Meetings Act. Those violations included "prohibiting me from speaking at the February 18, 2020, meeting because I signed up 13 minutes in advance of the meeting instead of 15 minutes in advance," the pair said in an October article they co-wrote and posted to the Edgar County Watchdogs website.

Edgar County Watchdogs also has covered Musso's attempts to have Pecatonica and Seward townships Assessor Scott Hamilton evicted from his office in the Pecatonica Township's admittedly crowded township building.

Other Edgar County Watchdogs coverage "on Musso's abuse" includes "public comment restrictions, arresting at least two people during meetings, calling residents assholes, and submitting false documents to the State's Attorney and Courts, banning people from meetings, and stripping their right to vote from them - with each and every court case adjudicated or settled in favor of the resident and against the Township," the pair said in their Dec. 30 post.

Township electors voted during their December meeting to approve Ordinance 2020-104 to place "restrictions and mandates on how the township uses its buildings and property, and addresses Township Supervisor Musso's abusive use of the courts to intimidate residents," Edgar County Watchdogs' coverage of the meeting said. "The Ordinance as approved is one of the statutory powers of Township Electors."

The ordinance also includes a $10 fine for each violation of the ordinance, to be deposited into the township's general fund.