A series of taxpayer-paid Orland Park Public Library (OPPL) videos have disappeared from the library's official Facebook page without explanation, the Edgar County Watchdogs (ECW) contended recently on their Illinois Leaks website.
The videos, featuring former OPPL spokesman Bridget Bittman, were produced at taxpayer expense by local videographer Maqbool Rashid. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in July resulted in documents showing that the videos cost at least $4,350.
The ECW questioned the deletion of the videos because Facebook does not have a video limit. The only library videos left are the 22 filmed since Jacqui Boyd took the public information coordinator position at the library. At a cost of $250 per video, the OPPL has spent an estimated $5,500 for the new videos, the ECW said.
Bridget Bittman
| Linkedin
Bittman left the OPPL in August 2015 after nearly all of the counts in her defamation lawsuit against Megan Fox and Kevin DuJan were dismissed. In turn, Fox filed a countersuit, alleging that Bittman had made false statements to the media to harm Fox's reputation.
While the missing videos featured Bittman, the ECW questioned the logic of removing existing videos and commissioning new videos at an additional expense to the taxpayers.
"As usual, the OPPL Board of Trustees was offered an opportunity to explain the thinking behind removing the Bittman-era videos and arguably wasting the thousands of dollars spent on them, but they offered no reply," the ECW posted.
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