Argoudelis Watch: 177 Days of Waiting, and Still No Press Release

It’s been exactly 177 days since we first asked John Argoudelis if he intended to stay on as Plainfield Township supervisor after assuming the District 5 seat on the Will County Board.

That’s five months and 26 days.

When we asked him , two days after the election, Argoudelis told us he had made a decision. But he wanted a week or so to get his thoughts together and to draft up a press release, he said.

"(I) made my decision some time ago," he said. "I will announce it via a formal press release. I just want the opportunity to release a well-written, thoughtful statement rather than a simple yes-no answer to a question posed by any individual press member."

We could appreciate that.

We used the time to run his dual-office holding by the Better Government Association, a government watchdog group that investigates elected officials in order to protect the public’s interests. , a policy and government affairs coordinator for the BGA, told us it is legal be a township supervisor and a county board member – although it can be something of a sticky wicket.

Plainfield village Trustee . Peck added a little historical perspective to the issue, letting us know that in the olden days the township supervisor was required to sit on the county board.

As the weeks turned into months, we took the opportunity to have a little fun with the Argoudelis stand-off and wrote for him. Alas, he never used them.

When we asked him about the release earlier this year, he said his wife was in the hospital. I asked Argoudelis about the announcement again when we visited about a he was having with with Plainfield resident Stan Paulauskas and he said he was working on it. When I emailed him Wednesday, he never got back to me.

It’s not that we want Argoudelis to step down. We’re not making any judgment if he chooses to keep drawing the $23,000 he gets from Will County along with the $28,000 he gets for being township supervisor (even though gets help for his workload from a township administrator and administrative assistant, who are paid a combined $85,000 a year).

That is his prerogative.

But we do think he should come clean with the voters and tell them publicly what he intends to do.

That is why, now that nearly six months have passed, we are launching the Argoudelis Watch. It will be like “Nightline” and the Iranian hostages, for those of you who are old enough to remember the early 1980s.

Each day, at the end of the “About Town” column, we will count down the days that have passed since last fall’s election. Here’s the first one:

ARGOUDELIS WATCH: 177 days since Election Day 2010 and still no statement from John Argoudelis on whether he intends to be both township supervisor and a Will County Board member.