Something's fishy about the missing restaurant receipt that is the subject of controversy regarding the Orland Park Public Library and its director, Mary Weimar, according to the Edgar County Watchdogs (ECW).
The bill from a June dinner at Chicago's Lao Sze Chuan was $96.50, according to the credit card charge, but the library has said either that Weimar never received a receipt or lost it.
The Illinois Public Access Counselor's office followed up on a complaint after the library failed to provide an itemized receipt in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The ECW reported that Supervising Attorney Joshua Jones called the library several times regarding the receipt.
Mary Weimar
The library's position was that it did not have to provide a new copy of the receipt, and that the PAC did not have the authority to force them to do so. Jones concurred that the PAC could not compel the library to provide a duplicate receipt.
The ECW's Kevin DuJan reported that prices at the restaurant were not high enough that a single meal would cost nearly $100 and speculated that either there was more than one person enjoying dinner or Weimar had purchased a bottle of wine. The credit card authorization form Weimar submitted for the dinner listed only her name.
The ECW questioned the library's reasoning in refusing to obtain a duplicate receipt that would show the items ordered at the meal. If it was a legitimate business expense, there shouldn't be a problem with obtaining a duplicate receipt, the group said.
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