BAUCH & MICHAELS, LLC

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January 18, 2012 Via Email Ms. Laurie Rabattini Email: laurierob@comcast.net RE: Falsehoods on Your Blog

Dear Rabattini: This letter is to clear the record and ameliorate a recent false statement on your blog that defamed two retired employees of the Northern Moraine Wastewater Reclamation District (NMWRD) and portrayed them in a false light. I ask that you consider posting this letter to your website. This communication is directed to you because you have consciously chosen to shield your bloggers through disguises of anonymity. You therefore have accepted responsibility for the content of their communications. In no manner do I have a problem with people expressing facts and opinions. Indeed, our hope for survival and growth is directly related to free expression and exchange of ideas. But there is no room for and, as your constitutional scholars will readily agree, there is no First Amendment protection for falsehoods. I do have a problem with people lacking the character to stand behind their statements by subscribing their true names to their expressions. And, I have a problem with people who spread falsehoods in maligning others. Today someone drew my attention to a recent thread of comments, many of which directly attacked Ms. Dorothy Bangle, who recently retired as administrator after 31 years of service to NMWRD and our taxpayers. Many of these comments contained false statements of fact and were grounded in ignorance and malice. (In fairness, many posts by a person who calls himself or herself Down by the River at least have some accuracy and perceptiveness, although even these posts are not without factual error.) One person who hides behind the moniker George Bailey appears to be especially hateful and uninformed. In one post, he or she writes: Dorothy is retired now collecting a full pension along with her newly retired NMWRD superintendent/boyfriend. The viciousness of the lie underlying this statement compels correction.

Letter to Ms. Laurie Rabattini, January 18, 2012, page 2. This past December, Ms. Bangle retired after 31 years of service and sacrifice building the District (which is not the Island Lake sewer department) literally from a fledgling municipal corporation to a well-respected, established regional sanitary district. Similarly, Mr. Mark Higby retired as superintendent over a year ago after 32 years of service and sacrifice. For many years both of them were paid far less than they could have earned elsewhere and for far less than what other municipalities were paying comparable employees. And most importantly NEITHER ONE OF THEM RETIRED WITH A PENSION. In its early days, the sanitary district established, long before I began to serve as a trustee, a retirement fund for employees under (as I recall) a 403k plan which is similar to a 401k plan. By 10 or so years ago, as a result of improvident investments and miniscule funding prior thereto, the retirement fund was virtually broke. The third-party administrator no longer wanted to administer the fund, and it was eventually dissolved with very small distributions made to the employees who had contributed to it. At approximately the time I became President of the District, we moved to enroll all our employees in social security, where they are enrolled today, just like employees in the private sector. What is especially offensive about George Baileys attack on Ms. Bangle and Mr. Higby is that the Districts Board of Trustees spent many, many hours since 2006 examining whether to bring the employees into a state pension plan as provided in other municipalities. Had the District done so, Ms. Bangle and Mr. Higby would have been sitting in a much more comfortable financial situation than they are undoubtedly left in today. However, at the end of the day the Districts Board of Trustees, facing the Great Recession that has challenged us since 2007 (although the recession largely manifested to the public in 2008, it was obvious to most intelligent people working with our financial markets what lay ahead for us by mid-2007), that it would be fundamentally unfair to the Districts taxpayers to bring the District into a new governmental retirement system given our current economic conditions. Throughout this time NOT ONCE, NEVER did Ms. Bangle or Mr. Higby ever seek to influence the Trustees to adopt a pension system that these two employees obviously could desperately use. Indeed, in several conversations I had with Ms. Bangle, she expressed to me her recognition that it would be hurt our customers and taxpayers to enter into a state pension system at this time. Ms. Rabattini, your bloggers and you owe Ms. Bangle and Mr. Higby an apology. Whether you deliver is your choice. Very truly yours,

Kenneth A. Michaels Jr. Trustee and President of NMWRD