This article only covers the SECOND of the three topics due to the amount of information presented for each topic. We will link all three topics in the same post on social media as they are presented.
The Jasper County Board held a special meeting on Tuesday, January 27th in the County Board Meeting Room to discuss multiple incidents involving County Clerk, Amy Tarr and the January 15th regular County Board meeting. Chairman, Jason Warfel, opened the meeting and outlined the topics of discussion including:
- Neglect of Statutory Duties
- Destruction of Public Records
- Making False Statements
Chairman Warfel outlined the proceedings stating he would give an overview of each topic, provide background contents for each matter and then the board would have questions for each topic. He invited board members to add any pertinent information or relative context as needed.
Destruction of Public Records
In Illinois, the unauthorized destruction of public records is a felony. Social media and electronic records are considered public records regardless of format.
January 15th Meeting: During the reports portion of the meeting, Clerk Amy Tarr’s zoom picked up comments she made. Before this she had been muted during the meeting as is everyone upon entering Zoom. The comment heard was. “Ain’t no way in hell my girls would go to that meeting.” Warfel swiftly muted the clerk. Following the meeting, the video and audio was uploaded to the county website.
Midmorning Friday, January 16th: The video was removed from the county’s website. County Clerk Tarr admitted to board member Eric Spiker that she had deleted the video. Efforts made by Chairman Warfel to retrieve the video were unsuccessful. The video had been removed from the back end of Zoom and from the trash bin. The removal from the trash bin meant permanent deletion.
Thursday, January 22: Clerk Tarr indicated she had a copy of the meeting which she had downloaded from zoom before deleting and would be willing to post the video if the board agreed to edit portions of the video. Tarr was informed that if she did indeed have a copy of the video that it needed to be put back up on the website as soon as possible unedited.
Tuesday, January 27 Approximately 2:30 pm: The unedited video was reuploaded to the website.
Issues for Discussion:
The Clerk is the keeper of many records of the County. Unauthorized destruction of records is against state law. Board questions seek to determine the intentionality of the deletion of the video and the alleged attempt to ransom the video to erase statements made from public record
The Clerk states, “ I went on there thinking that maybe you know, because I know at some points in time people have asked to redact things being said prior to the video for the board member comments that we’d like go ‘hey don’t put that in the board minutes’ ‘don’t put that in everything’.
Chairman Warfel asked for an example stating that the video had never been redacted.
Tarr states, “ No. I’ve never redacted video but for comments that were made before video, before Zoom. I mean we’ve said ‘hey don’t add that to the minutes’ people have made those comments before we had video.” Tarr then states, “I mean, I don’t know, probably some of these board members weren’t present at that point in time, but I know prior board members have asked that different things not to be posted in the minutes.”
I didn’t mean to delete it, I was just trying to see if it could be edited. I had no intention of it being deleted. Umm I think my words were “oh shit” whenever I did it because I did not mean to and I think I told Spiker that morning whenever I was out in the car leaving from there that I need to see, you know, if we could upload it again because I didn’t know what I did. Even today as we were speaking I’m like going I don’t know how to do this Eric. I don’t know how to put it back out there.”
She thought she had informed board member Spiker beforehand that she had downloaded a copy. She thought she had discussed it beforehand about getting the video back up.
Board Member Spiker discussed the effort put into reuploading the video.
Board Member Geier asked why the video was downloaded to which Clerk Tarr explained she was just wanting to see if she could ask to have her statement redacted. She wanted to see if it could be. During this portion of the meeting, he also discussed that if she had come to the board they could have had a discussion about possible options.
She denies knowing what to do when Geier points out that she not only deleted the video but also entered into the trash can to delete the video from there as well.
She then states, “When I hit something, I hit something and it deleted a portion of the video and I didn’t, I wanted to bring back up the full video is what happened.”
Discussion was held about Tarr allegedly holding the download hostage until the video was redacted. Tarr states this is not what happened, Spiker states she asked if it could be redacted and he does not believe she was holding it for ransom.
Chairman Warfel explained that the video had been deleted both off of the Zoom site and out of the Zoom trash can. There were two separate deletions involved to permanently delete the video from Zoom.
*Editor’s note: We are including a video showing the step by step process to delete a recorded meeting from Zoom. Click here to view. Note: This does not include the steps to permanently delete from the trash bin just the initial deletion.
Clerk Tarr states she was deleting the edited video and it was no longer the entire video.
Chairman Warfel asks: “At what point were you going to have a conversation with any of the board members that you intended to remove a video that had been posted by this board. I guess I am just at a loss that there was no conversation that took place prior to you going in and trying to do this. A simple conversation ahead of time ‘hey is there even an option to redact this, otherwise you don’t touch the video at all. “
Tarr, “I mean I think I felt like you guys were gonna put it out there to be ridiculed and I mean..”
Chairman Warfel says all the meetings get posted immediately after the end of session. This meeting was no different.
Discussion was held about the severity of the statement made by Tarr on the video and that it wasn’t severe and while it was discussed for a moment after the meeting that would have been the end of it.
Schackmann asked why it took so long to reupload the video. Tarr does not know how it did not get done sooner. The video was only reuploaded after Spiker asked Tarr about it on the Tuesday of the special meeting. Schackmann states, “Why did the initiative just start today, and I think if we had seen you try earlier it would have been less of an issue. Because, by waiting three hours before this meeting it gives off a sneaky vibe and so I guess that’s my question, why was that process not started earlier so that we could resolve the issue earlier?
Chairman Warfel points out that the issue arose between the January 15th meeting (with deletion on the 16th) and announcement of a special meeting on January 22. The board unanimously agreed that the special meeting was needed to resolve the issue.
Upon Schackmann’s statement, hoping that Tarr sees how it could have been prevented, Tarr commented about how she wishes someone would have told her the incident happened.
I wish it would have been communicated to me that it had happened. I mean, I didn’t even know it happened until Alisha Wise came in and told my girls… inaudible… . Everybody in here has my cell phone number and could have said “Hey Amy, did you realize you did what you did. No one reached out.
Chairman Warfel points out that he was typing an email to her informing her that her comment had been broadcasted on the Zoom meeting when he was informed the video had been removed.
James Judson asked “What did you think you said?” She said she wasn’t sure what all she said and wasn’t sure what others might have said.
Chairman Warfel summarizes with “The County Clerk’s office is responsible for many key functions of local government, including the sacred duty of elections. This calls into question the trust and integrity of the County Clerk’s office. If a duly elected County Official is willing to break the law to delete a personally embarrassing video, it calls into question what else they would be willing to do? The County Clerk must show some signs of understanding, which I will give the County Clerk credit. She does seem to understand the severity of the action that was taken and work to rebuild that trust with the board and the citizens of the county.
