By now, most of you have seen the Chicago Tribune article. This stemmed from the Finance Committee (Trustees Carroll, Calandriello and Gira) having a long conversation with a group of reporters following the committee meetings.
After this, we held another board meeting. It was relatively short and I thought it would be uneventful – I was incorrect.
In my role as Mayor, I appointed several people to commissions and they were approved. Then I tried to appoint Ed Schussler to the role of Chairman of the Planning Commission. This is the first Chairman vacancy that has existed since I have been Mayor. It was voted down 6 to 1. Every Trustee had comments but not one questioned Mr. Schussler’s qualifications. They talked about rewriting the ordinance so that the Mayor does not appoint this position and to base it on seniority or rotating it every year or two.
Interestingly, we spent 10 months reviewing our commission structure in a very public and transparent way and these suggestions were NEVER made. Additionally, at the previous board meeting (yes, including the last board meeting) these same trustees voted UNANIMOUSLY to add to our ordinance that the Chairman of all Commissions and Advisory Boards “shall be appointed by the Village President with advice and consent from the Board of Trustees.”
In the past the Trustees blocked appointments but indicated that as long as there was a vacancy they would not block my appointments. For this reason, since that time and in the interest of promoting harmony, I have not attempted to replace people on the commissions even if their terms were expired (even though I have the legal power to do so). In unison, they decided to ignore the will of voters and diminish the powers of the Mayor’s office. They continue to act as if last year’s election never happened. This action comes on the heels of the pre-meeting attacks and Dan McLaughlin’s attacks at the previous meeting.
While the Trustees all had something to say about Mr. Schussler’s appointment, only Trustee Dodge had any questions about the other big vote of the night about spending $200,000 to remediate mold underneath the Village parking garage in the empty restaurant pads. Complete silence from the rest of the Trustees. I also asked what we are doing to ensure this won’t happen again. The answer was that this not the only cost and the Village is getting estimates on the measures needed to stop this from reoccurring.
I want to emphasize that the blame does not rest with our staff. They were asked to do something out of the norm - oversee empty restaurant building shells. That is why I am excited about the RFQ process for the Triangle, that is ongoing, for developers to develop all of the remaining site. We are in the middle of the process and had six submittals, a couple of which are very interesting.
A reminder that there is a celebration of my first year in office at Papa Joe’s on April 11th. In spite of what my adversaries are trying to claim, a lot has been accomplished since the election one year ago. I look forward to seeing many of you there!
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