"I hereby veto all items that were considered in the illegal meeting of the board held on September 16th."

She said so in terms: "Therefore, in accordance with section 1-5-7 of the code, I hereby veto all items that were considered in the illegal meeting of the board held on September 16th." ⚠ She then listed them: the amendment to the August 3 minutes, the approval of the August 17 minutes, and the professional service agreement with B&F Construction Code Services.

The item was on the posted agenda in advance, under Village President's Report, New Business, as "Vetos: September 16, 2026 Special Board Meeting." So this was planned, not a reaction to anything said in the room that night.

Sources: September 21 agenda; meeting recording.

The mayor, reading the ordinance she was relying on, into the record.

What she read: "Section 1-5-7 of the code states that if the mayor does not approve an of an items considered at a board meeting, the item shall be returned to the board of trustees with the mayor's objections thereto in writing at the next regular meeting of the board of trustees occurring after the passage thereof." ⚠

What 1-5-7 actually says, in full, under the heading "Approval And Veto Of Ordinances": "The president shall carefully inspect all ordinances passed by the board of trustees and fix his official signature to such as he may approve and return them to the village clerk; such ordinances as he shall not approve shall be returned to the board of trustees, with his objections thereto in writing, at the next regular meeting of the board of trustees, occurring after the passage thereof. Such veto may extend to any one or more items or appropriations contained in any ordinance making appropriations, or to the entire ordinance…"

Plain English. The ordinance uses the word "ordinance" seven times, in the singular and the plural, and the word "items" once, and that one use is about line items inside an appropriation ordinance, not about agenda items. The mayor's rendering swapped the ordinance's subject, "ordinances," for a much wider one, "items considered at a board meeting." That is the difference between a power over laws the board passes and a power over anything the board does.

Why it matters here. Nothing done on September 16 was an ordinance. Two were motions to approve minutes and one was a motion to approve a contract. On the text of 1-5-7 alone, none of the three is reachable.

Source: Manteno Village Code 1-5-7.

The necessary premise of vetoes one and two.

First, how Manteno's veto power is wired. Section 1-5-3 of the village code says: "The president of the board of trustees may exercise the same veto powers, and with like effect, as the mayor of a city; and the board of trustees may pass ordinances over such veto in the like manner as a city council." So the ceiling on Manteno's veto is whatever a city mayor's veto is under state law.

Second, what state law allows. 65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-45: "All resolutions and motions (i) that create any liability against a city, (ii) that provide for the expenditure or appropriation of its money, or (iii) to sell any city or school property, and all ordinances, passed by the city council shall be deposited with the city clerk… Those ordinances, resolutions, and motions which the mayor disapproves shall be returned to the city council, with the mayor's written objections, at the next regular meeting…"

Third, that section applies to villages. 65 ILCS 5/1-1-2(8): "Wherever the words 'city council', 'alderpersons', 'commissioners', or 'mayor' occur, the provisions containing these words shall apply to the board of trustees, trustees, and president, respectively, of villages."

Put together. A motion is vetoable only if it creates a liability, spends or appropriates money, or sells property. A motion to approve minutes does none of those. It records what happened at a meeting. It spends nothing and obligates the village to nothing. The August 3 minutes amendment and the August 17 minutes approval were not within the veto power. The B&F professional service agreement was, because it creates a liability and provides for the expenditure of money.

The village's own rules point the same way. Rule 7 of section 1-6-5 singles out the identical pair of categories for a recorded roll call: "any resolution or motion: a) to create any liability against the village or b) for the expenditures or appropriation of its money." That is the line the code draws around motions that carry legal weight, and minutes are on the other side of it.

Sources: 65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-45; 65 ILCS 5/1-1-2; Manteno Village Code 1-5-3 and 1-6-5.

Trustee Boudreau said it at the meeting: "I want to make sure too that she said she vetoed those things, that those vetos are on the next board meeting agenda as by Illinois state law they are supposed to be, because last time that also became an issue." ⚠ He is right, and here is the mechanism.

65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-50: "Every resolution and motion specified in Section 3.1-40-45, and every ordinance, that is returned to the city council by the mayor shall be reconsidered by the city council at the next regular meeting following the regular meeting at which the city council receives the mayor's written objection. If, after reconsideration, two-thirds of all the alderpersons then holding office… agree at that regular meeting to pass an ordinance, resolution, or motion, notwithstanding the mayor's refusal to approve it, then it shall be effective. The vote… shall be by yeas and nays and shall be recorded in the journal."

What that means on a calendar. The objection was delivered on September 21. The next regular meeting after that is Monday, October 5, 2026, and that is when the override vote must be taken. Manteno has six trustees, so two thirds of all trustees then holding office is four. Trustees Boudreau, Crockett, Gesky and Zimbelman voted for all three items on September 16. If those four hold, the override carries.

Note the two-step, because it caught the village out once already. The objection is received at one regular meeting and reconsidered at the next one. It is not voted on the same night it is delivered.

Sources: 65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-50; meeting schedule on the September 21 agenda (Village Board: 1st and 3rd Monday, 6:00 pm).

At the September 16 special meeting itself, reading a statement before any motion was made, before any discussion, and before she left the room: "I want to be clear that this meeting is illegally called and while I do not believe it is legally required, I will veto every action taken by the board at the supposed special meeting." ⚠

Worth noticing, and not the same as saying it was improper. A mayor is entitled to say in advance that she will veto whatever a meeting produces. But it does mean the veto did not follow from anything the board actually did or said that morning, including the explanation that the August 17 item was a date correction. The stated reasons came five days later; the decision came first.

Source: September 16 special meeting recording, roughly 7:30.

The premise running through both statements. From September 21: "Although I do not believe I have to veto items considered at an illegally called meeting of the board, I want to create a clear legal record of the illegal nature of that meeting." ⚠

Nothing in the Open Meetings Act gives any officer that power. Under 5 ILCS 120/3, when the Act is not complied with, "any person, including the State's Attorney… may bring a civil action in the circuit court." It is the court, not a member of the body, that may grant relief, and the specific remedy of declaring action void is limited: the court may consider "declaring null and void any final action taken at a closed meeting in violation of this Act." The September 16 meeting was open, in the board room, and live-streamed.

There is also a tension inside the position itself. If the meeting was void, its actions are nullities and there is nothing to veto. If there is something to veto, the meeting produced valid board action. The statement tries to hold both, and the veto is the part with legal effect, so in practice the village has now treated the September 16 actions as real board actions that have been returned for reconsideration.

The ordinary route for a resident or an official who believes a meeting violated the Act is a Request for Review with the Attorney General's Public Access Counselor, or a suit within 60 days. We have seen no filing of either. If one is filed we will publish it.

Source: 5 ILCS 120/3.

The village code. Section 1-6-3, quoted in full: "Special meetings may be held at any time on call of the president or any two (2) or more trustees; such call shall be in writing, duly signed, and shall be presented to the clerk, who shall proceed immediately to cause notice of the same to be served upon the president and trustees in person or by registered letter, and such notice shall describe in brief the nature or object of the call."

State law. 65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-25: "The city council may prescribe, by ordinance, the times and places of the council meetings and the manner in which special council meetings may be called. The mayor or any 3 alderpersons may call special meetings of the city council." Read through 1-1-2(8), that is the president or any three trustees in a village.

So the authority is not in question. Two texts, one local and one state, both put the power to call a special meeting in the hands of trustees acting without the president. The mayor read 1-6-3 aloud at both meetings, including the words "or any two or more trustees." Corrected September 22, 2026: this card was graded True on the footing that "four signed" and that the mayor "did not dispute" it. She did. In the veto statement, at 52:35, she said: "Trustee Gesky called the meeting himself. It wasn't in writing and it wasn't served by the clerk." ⚠ The four-signature account comes from Gesky ("there was a request by four trustees signed") and from Crockett ("it was approved by four trustees"), and the document is on our request list, unobtained. Until it surfaces, the grade is Disputed, trustees' account.

Sources: Manteno Village Code 1-6-3; 65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-25.

The mayor, in the exchange with Trustee Crockett, roughly 1:05:26.

Crockett: "I'm glad that you had mentioned that it needed to be called by two or more trustees. It was actually called by four trustees, and that was signed by four trustees that are here on the board…" ⚠ On the clerk: "We had no clerk when that meeting was called." Mayor: "That's true. But you do have a mayor. It should have been approved by me." ⚠

There is no approval step anywhere in the text. Section 1-6-3 gives the power to the president or two or more trustees, in the alternative. "Or" is doing real work in that sentence: if the trustees needed the president's approval, the trustees' route would be meaningless, because the president could simply call the meeting herself. Section 3.1-40-25 of the Municipal Code is written the same way. Neither text contains the words approve, consent, countersign or concur.

This was said roughly fourteen minutes after the mayor read section 1-6-3 into the record herself. The ordinance she quoted is the ordinance that answers her.

This part of the mayor's statement is accurate and is not disputed by anyone: "The village clerk was not involved at all in the calling of the September 16th special meeting." ⚠

The context is that there was no clerk to present it to. Crystal Wolfe had resigned. Trustee Gesky, at the September 16 meeting: "each elected official was served. There was a request by four trustees signed. No, it was not delivered to the clerk because quite honestly, who is our clerk? We don't have one. We've gone through four, five clerks in the last year." ⚠ At the September 21 meeting: "That's why I drove on Sunday, 48 hours prior, to Mike's house. I met with Peggy. I delivered it to you, mayor, at your house. Everyone had prior notice to it." ⚠ The mayor did not say she lacked notice. Her own account has the papers reaching her.

What the clerk step is for. Read 1-6-3 again and notice what the clerk is asked to do: "cause notice of the same to be served upon the president and trustees." The clerk is the delivery mechanism for actual notice. The purpose of the requirement was met by hand delivery to each official three days out. Whether a vacancy in the clerk's office can defeat a power the same code gives to two trustees is a question for a court, and no court has been asked. What is not arguable is that the village created the gap: it has had no clerk, and on September 21 it had still not filled the office lawfully.

The separate Open Meetings Act clock was met, on his account. Under 5 ILCS 120/2.02(a), notice of a special meeting including its agenda must be given "at least 48 hours before such meeting." Delivery on Sunday for a Wednesday 7:00 a.m. meeting clears that by about a day. Note that Gesky's own two figures do not fit together: "Sunday" and "48 hours prior" cannot both be right for a Wednesday 7:00 a.m. meeting (48 hours prior is Monday 7:00 a.m.). Both are his figures; we have not seen a dated receipt.

Sources: Manteno Village Code 1-6-3; 5 ILCS 120/2.02; both meeting recordings.

The mayor, in the veto statement, naming an employee from the dais: Ashley Peterson, the Village's Marketing and Community Relations Director (she is also the Chamber of Commerce's President and CEO). We name her once here because the mayor did, and because the Gesky quotation below does; we are not repeating the discipline allegation beyond what is necessary to address the legal claim. She is a village staff member, not an elected official.

As a reason the meeting was illegal, this does not work, and the Open Meetings Act says so in terms. 5 ILCS 120/2.02(b): "The failure of a public body to post on its website notice of any meeting or the agenda of any meeting shall not invalidate any meeting or any actions taken at a meeting." The website posting is required, and its absence still would not make the meeting unlawful. Its presence certainly does not.

The posting was legally required, by someone. Section 2.02(a) requires the agenda of a special meeting to be given at least 48 hours in advance, and 2.02(b) requires a public body with a staff-maintained website to post notice there. Trustee Gesky said he posted at the physical locations himself: "I was the one who did post the agenda at all locations because I did not want to involve any of our employees in that." ⚠ On the website request he said every board member was copied: "the request of a trustee, which everyone was carbon copied, every board member was carbon copied on it and could have texted her or emailed her not to do it if they didn't want it." ⚠

The village code restrains elected officials on both sides of this. Section 1-19-8 says: "No citizen or elected officer of the village shall dictate the appointment of any person to, or their removal from, office by the village administrator or by any of the administrator's subordinates. Except for the purpose of inquiry, elected village officials shall not give orders to any subordinates of the village administrator, either publicly or privately." A trustee asking a staff member to post an agenda and a mayor announcing that staff member's discipline from the dais are both elected officials reaching into staff work. Gesky appeared to know the line: "I didn't give an order. The request of a trustee." ⚠

Gesky also said the mayor had made the same request of the same employee: "when you requested a special meeting and couldn't get it on the village website because Dawn was on vacation, she was the only one who had access to it. I believe you asked Ashley to post it on the Facebook at that time." ⚠ That went unrebutted in the room. We have not independently confirmed it and are requesting the emails.

Sources: 5 ILCS 120/2.02; Manteno Village Code 1-19-8.

Seven in the morning is the village's own normal meeting time. The meeting schedule printed at the bottom of the mayor's own September 21 agenda lists six standing Committee of the Whole meetings. Four of them are at 7:00 a.m.: Public Works (4th Tuesday, 7:00 am), General Government (4th Tuesday, 7:00 am), Planning and Zoning (2nd Wednesday, 7:00 am) and Properties and Recreation (2nd Wednesday, 7:00 am). The September 9 committee meeting the mayor attended and spoke at began at 7:00 a.m. The Public Works and General Government meetings scheduled for the morning after this one, September 22, were also 7:00 a.m., and were cancelled (the cancellation was posted September 16).

And the meeting was not hidden. It was live-streamed on the Village's own Manteno Village View channel, the recording is public, the agenda was posted on the Village's website, and the Village's own meetings index carries a link to the video alongside the agenda. Four members of the public addressed the board during public participation. The meeting closed with "Thank you guys so much for watching." ⚠ Trustee Boudreau, responding on September 21: "the mayor says we're hiding stuff. The meeting's recorded. It's public knowledge." ⚠

There is a real criticism inside the wrong one, and it is worth separating out. A 7:00 a.m. meeting is hard for working residents to attend, and on this occasion two of the six trustees could not be there. A late speaker, not named on the recording, made exactly that point at the September 16 meeting: "I don't think this meeting was necessary, especially since we know at this time of day two of our trustees can't make it. This could have been done in a regular business meeting on Monday." ⚠ Another asked why a meeting was needed "half a week before we have the normal board meeting." ⚠ Those are fair objections to the timing. They are not evidence of concealment, and the village schedules four of its six standing committees at that same hour.

Sources: September 21 agenda, meeting schedule; Village meetings index; September 16 recording.

Voting no is not a violation of law. The advice and consent structure the mayor invoked elsewhere in the same statement exists precisely so that a board can decline. A trustee who votes against an appointment is exercising the power the Illinois Municipal Code gives him, and the September 8 code enforcement vote, which failed 2 to 3, was a roll call on a motion the mayor herself placed on the agenda.

No authority has found otherwise. There is no court order, no Public Access Counselor opinion and no finding of any kind holding that these four trustees violated any law. The lawsuit between the village and the trustees over who the village attorney is remains pending and undecided. Until something is decided, "in clear violation of the law" is a characterisation, not a finding.

The same applies to the September 16 statement that "this is now the second time that Joel Gesky has broken Manteno law when calling a special board meeting." ⚠ No adjudicator has said so, and on the text of 1-6-3 the call itself was within the trustees' power.

On the August 3 minutes, this is close to what the trustees themselves said they were doing. Trustee Boudreau, chairing the September 16 meeting, explained the amendment on the record: "we are reflecting in these minutes the mayor at that meeting tried to adjourn the meeting. However, she did not have the majority to adjourn the meeting. Only two voted in favor, four voted against. So therefore the meeting was continued on… That's when we moved to approve the engagement of new lawyers to defend the four trustees in the lawsuit brought by the mayor. And then a motion to reconsider the veto to approve Cainkar." ⚠ So yes, the August 3 amendment is about the attorney votes, and the trustees said so openly rather than burying it.

On the August 17 minutes, it is not what happened at all. Boudreau, on the same recording, introducing that item: "This is simply just a change of date. If you look at the packet that was provided last meeting, it wasn't approved because the date was said August 7th and the meeting took place on the 17th. So, just correcting the date." ⚠

The agendas back that reading. The Village's own September 16 agenda lists the two items differently: item one is a "MOTION TO APPROVE AN AMENDMENT TO THE PREVIOUSLY APPROVED AUGUST 3, 2026 REGULAR MEETING MINUTES," and item two is a "MOTION TO APPROVE AUGUST 17, 2026 REGULAR MEETING MINUTES." The second is a first approval of minutes that had not passed, not an amendment of anything. The mayor's stated reason covers both items equally, and for the second one it does not fit the item.

For what it is worth on the date question, the village's own file for the August 12 special meeting agenda is published under the filename "August-7-2026-Special-Meeting.pdf." Date errors in Manteno's meeting paperwork are not rare.

Sources: September 16 agenda; September 16 recording, roughly 12:40 to 14:20.

The board has adopted a parliamentary authority, and it says otherwise. Rule 19 of section 1-6-5 of the village code: "The president shall decide all questions of order, and, in all cases not covered by these rules or where they are not applicable, the board shall be governed by parliamentary law as laid down in the current edition of 'Robert's Rules Of Order'."

Under Robert's Rules, correcting minutes and reconsidering a decision are two different motions with two different deadlines. Reconsider is tightly time-limited and belongs to the session at which the vote was taken. Correcting minutes that have already been approved is done by the motion to Amend Something Previously Adopted, which is in order at any time, with no deadline, whenever an error in the record is discovered. That is the ordinary and intended remedy for a set of minutes that does not match what happened.

Why the distinction is not a technicality. Minutes are the legal record of what a public body did. 5 ILCS 120/2.06 requires a public body to keep written minutes of all its meetings. If a set of minutes is wrong, leaving it wrong because a reconsideration window closed would freeze an inaccurate public record permanently. Robert's Rules is built to avoid exactly that, and the village has adopted Robert's Rules.

Whether these particular amendments are accurate is a separate question, and a live one: the mayor says they rewrite history, the trustees say they correct it. That dispute is about the content of the August 3 meeting, not about which motion was procedurally available.

Source: Manteno Village Code 1-6-5, Rule 19.

Amending minutes changes the record of what a body did. It does not undo the thing the body did, and it does not re-open the vote. A motion to amend minutes is not a motion to rescind, and nothing in the September 16 agenda or the recording purports to rescind an earlier action.

The slippery slope points the other way too. If a board could never correct approved minutes, then whatever the record said first would stand forever, whether or not it matched the meeting. Both the mayor and the trustees have an interest in the August 3 minutes being right, because the question of what the board did that night after the failed motion to adjourn is currently before a court.

Trustee Gesky: "Today we received a notice from you appointing Allen Pickrel as the temporary clerk… and this is nothing against Allen [as captioned, "Alan"], but I'd like to see the statutory language that gives you the right to appoint a temporary clerk." ⚠ The answer from the table was section 1-5-5(E) of the village code, read out at length. We cannot establish from the captions whether the mayor or the attorney read it, and we are not putting a name on it. What matters is the citation, and the citation is checkable.

What was read: "Section 1-5-5, the appointment and removal of appointed officers under the village code. Section E: if an appointed officer ceases to perform their duties of or to hold an office by reason of death, permanent physical or mental disability, conviction of a disqualifying crime or dismissal from or abandonment of office, the president may appoint a temporary officer to fill the office. The term for any temporary officer appointed shall be 30 days. No person shall be eligible to be appointed or to fill an office as a temporary officer more than two times in any one fiscal year." ⚠ That is an accurate reading of 1-5-5(E).

Reason one: Manteno's clerk is an elected office, so chapter 5 does not reach it. Section 1-5-5 is titled "Appointment And Removal Of Appointed Officers," and subsection (E) opens "If an appointed officer…". Section 1-8-1 of the village code: "The village clerk shall be elected and serve for a four (4) year term and until his successor is elected and qualified, as is provided by statute."

Reason two: the clerk has its own vacancy section, and it requires the board. Section 1-8-3, in full: "If the office of the village clerk shall become vacant the president and board of trustees shall appoint a successor as is provided by statute." The statute it points to is 65 ILCS 5/3.1-10-50, which for a vacancy in an elective municipal office other than president or trustee says the president "must appoint a qualified person to hold the office until the office is filled by election, subject to the advice and consent of the… board of trustees." There is no 30-day temporary mechanism in either one.

Reason three: even inside 1-5-5, resignation has its own subsection, and it is not (E). Crystal Wolfe resigned. Subsection (C), two paragraphs above the one that was read: "An appointed officer may resign from his or her office. If an appointed officer resigns, he or she shall continue in office until a successor has been chosen and has qualified." Subsection (B): "Vacancies in all appointed offices may be filled in the same manner as original appointments," which subsection (A) defines as "appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the board of trustees." Resignation appears nowhere in the list of five triggers in (E): death, permanent disability, disqualifying conviction, dismissal, abandonment. The state statute is written identically, at 65 ILCS 5/3.1-30-5(d).

So every road leads to the same place. Whether you treat the Manteno clerk as elected (which the code says) or as appointed (which the mayor's own description of Crystal Wolfe's "appointment" implies), and whether you read chapter 8 or chapter 5, filling the vacancy takes the board. The one subsection that allows the president to act alone is the one that does not apply to a resignation.

This is not an argument about Allen Pickrel. Gesky said so himself, and nobody at the meeting raised any objection to the person. The village needs someone to take minutes and it has nobody. The point is that the fix on offer was a mayoral appointment with a citation attached, and the citation does not hold it up. The clean version takes one roll call at the next meeting.

The practical question Gesky asked, before 1-5-5(E) was read out, has not been answered either: "is he going to fulfill the duties of more than just a recording secretary…? So if we want to call a special meeting, do we give it to him?" ⚠ The answer given was "You will, because he is fulfilling the duties of coming to our meetings and taking the minutes." ⚠ Those two things are not the same, and given that the clerk's role in section 1-6-3 is the whole basis of the illegality claim, the village needs to settle which one he is.

Sources: Manteno Village Code 1-5-5 and 1-8-1, 1-8-3; 65 ILCS 5/3.1-30-5; 65 ILCS 5/3.1-10-50.

"I decided to appoint Jim Paicz as our building inspector because we were getting so many permits. Like I think Peggy counted 33 were stacked up in our office. So I took my executive ability and appointed him." ⚠ He was on the agenda in advance, under Village President's Report, Appointments, as "Jim Paicz, Building Inspector," and he gave a report: about eight permits approved and about twelve inspections done in his first week, and "I'm probably a good month behind." ⚠

The backlog is real and nobody disputes it. Manteno has had no building or code official of its own for well over a year. The Daily Journal, September 17 sets out the sequence: building official Ryan Marion resigned in May 2024; administrator Chris LaRocque then carried the building and code duties on top of his own job until he retired on August 29, 2026, leaving the role largely vacant. Since then permits have piled up, and the board's objection on September 8 was about money rather than the man. Trustee Gesky said so again on September 21: "it was never an issue of Jim. It was an issue of dollars and cents." ⚠ The question below is not whether someone should be doing this work. It is whether this is how the village is allowed to put him there.

The exchange at roughly 1:09:08. Gesky said he had expected a vote and noted that a temporary appointment would run 30 days. The answer, from the attorney at the table: "Trustee, he was appointed not to the director of the building department, which requires advice and consent of the board. He was appointed as a building inspector. So it's a different position." ⚠

The mayor's own statement, twenty minutes earlier, used the other title. In the same report: "Jim Paicz has become our code enforcement officer." ⚠

And the code defines that term. Manteno 1-22-4, in full: "Any reference to the code enforcement officer in this code shall mean the director of building and zoning." The standalone code enforcement officer chapter, chapter 16, was repealed in 2005 and its own entry now reads "(Rep. by Ord. 04-45, 4-4-2005). See chapter 22 of this title."

Chapter 22 is the office that needs the board. Section 1-22-1: "The office of director of building and zoning is hereby created. Such officer shall be appointed by the village president with the advice and consent of the board of trustees." Section 1-22-2 sets out that officer's duties, and they include the inspecting: "(I) Inspects buildings during various stages of construction, alterations and repair… (J) Reviews building plans and specifications… and calculates appropriate permit fee… (K) Issues certificates of occupancy… (O) Acts as building official with respect to all codes promulgated by the International Code Council."

There is no office of "building inspector" anywhere in the Manteno Village Code. We searched Title 1, which creates the village's offices one chapter at a time: village president, board of trustees, officers and employees, clerk, law, finance, police, public works, corporate seal, chaplain, electrician, code enforcement officer (repealed), administrative adjudication, taxes, village administrator, ethics, contracts, director of building and zoning, emergency management liaison. Building inspection appears in the code as a duty of the director, not as a separate office.

That leaves two possibilities and both have a problem. If the job is the office, 1-22-1 requires the board's consent, which the board declined on September 8. If the job is not an office but an ordinary staff position, then the code gives the hiring to someone else: section 1-19-5(H) makes it the village administrator who shall "appoint and when necessary, suspend or remove all employees other than department heads and officers appointed by the village president." Manteno has no administrator. Either way, the code does not put this appointment in the president's hands alone.

This is fixable in one vote, and both sides said they want it. Gesky: "I'd like to put it back on the agenda for two weeks to make him the director of the building department… We've resolved that issue." ⚠ Mayor: "okay, we'll put that on the agenda for the next meeting." ⚠ Watch the October 5 agenda for it.

Sources: Manteno Village Code 1-22-1, 1-22-2, 1-22-4, chapter 16 (repealed), 1-19-5.

Asked whether the appointment still needed board approval on the money side, the attorney answered that it is "in terms of what was already appropriated within the authority appropriated by the board of trustees in the budget." ⚠ As a general proposition that is correct. Paying someone from a line the board has already appropriated does not create a new liability, and does not by itself require a fresh vote.

What is still open is which line, and how much. The board's September 8 objection was budgetary, and on September 21 Gesky said a departure elsewhere in the building department, "the leaving of Miss [Nent]" as captioned (1:08:38), "solved the budgetary issue there." ⚠ Our inference, and only that, is that he meant Yvette Nugent, listed on the Village's staff page as the Building Department's administrative assistant. That may well be right. No appropriation line was stated in either meeting, but the salary is on the record: the mayor said in open session on September 8, "Mr. Paicz is asking for $60,000 and he does not need insurance" (graded on our September 8 page), and The Daily Journal, September 17 reports the same $60,000 offer. What Trustee Crockett said on September 8 he had asked about by email, and never had answered, was how the position would be funded, not the number. (Corrected September 22, 2026: an earlier version of this card said the number first appeared in the newspaper.) We are still requesting the personnel action itself, the rate actually being paid, and the appropriation line it is drawn against.

From the veto statement: "I want to make it clear that I am not opposed to approving a contract with B&F Construction Code Services, but the four trustees never sent me the contract. The village attorney has not reviewed that contract, and no trustee has discussed that contract with me." ⚠

Trustee Mike Barry, about five minutes later, in the Finance report: "And in the contract that the mayor said in her statement that hadn't been presented to her, am I correct? Didn't we all, everyone receive an email with that contract and outlined all the fees? I know I got one. I don't know if anybody else got one… but I know we did have discussion about that." ⚠ Barry is not one of the four trustees the veto statement is about. He was the mayor's supporter on the September 8 appointment vote.

Trustee Gesky, at the September 16 meeting: "these contracts and proposals were emailed to the entire board quite some time ago. I believe it's almost a week ago. So there's plenty of time for people to review those." ⚠

Two accounts, and they cannot both be complete. If the contract went to the entire board by email, the mayor is a member of the board. It is possible the email did not reach her, or that "the entire board" meant the trustees only. This is settled by one document, and we have requested it: the email transmitting the B&F proposal and its distribution list. We will publish it either way.

Added September 22, from the newspaper record. On Thursday September 17, the day after the special meeting and four days before the veto, the mayor told The Daily Journal, September 17 that she was reversing course and would back the hiring of the firm, that the role is "critical to the village," and that a vote was expected at Monday's meeting. The paper retitled the story to match: its web address still reads mayor-vows-to-block, and its headline now reads "After threatening veto, Manteno mayor now favors hiring code enforcement firm." No vote to approve the contract appeared on Monday's agenda, and the contract was vetoed instead. Whatever the reason for the change, the position stated to the public on September 17 and the action taken on September 21 point opposite ways.

The second half of the mayor's objection is not disputed by anyone: no village attorney reviewed the agreement before the vote, and the village currently has a live dispute about who its attorney is. That is a real reason to want a contract looked at before it is signed, and it is the same reason the board itself gave later the same night for tabling the fire inspection agreement.

The mayor: "regarding the recent attempt to hire B&F Construction, this company has special skills needed to enforce codes at Gotion. So they may offer beneficial services in addition to those of the scope of our regular village needs as serviced by the named temporary code officer. We have already been using them and we want to continue using them because they're very good at what they do with heavy industry." ⚠

Trustee Barry described a much broader role: "B&F is going to be doing all our commercial and industrial inspections. They've been doing them for seven or eight years now. They have the expertise on that stuff that our building inspector is above his pay grade… that was also brought up by our fire chief in case someone would run into a building for structural engineering." ⚠ Gesky at the September 16 meeting gave the same account: regular inspections are required at the plant, and Chief Petersen was part of the conversation.

Gesky told The Daily Journal, September 17 the same thing again after the special meeting: the contract "had been emailed to everyone a week ago for review," and B&F was wanted because it "has the technical ability to assist the village when it comes to matters pertaining to the Gotion battery storage facility in town and its expanding operations in particular." Barry, who missed that meeting for a work conflict but confirmed he was "in 100% agreement" with the contract, said B&F "will handle commercial inspections upon request and also assist as needed with building and zoning work needs," and that the contract "outlines rates for various tasks."

A resident spotted the tension in public comment. David Bergdall, September 21: "you had a special meeting and you decided and discussed hiring B&F to be the building inspector because it was such an emergency because we might be worried about things at Gotion. Well, my understanding, if I might be wrong, is that B&F is doing all of the work at Gotion already. So why would you be using B&F needed for emergency stuff at Gotion as your excuse for hiring them at the special meeting?" ⚠ On Barry's account, Bergdall is right: this is not a new vendor brought in for a new problem. It is a long-standing vendor being put under a written contract for the first time.

Trustee Barry, unprompted: "we never had a contract with them before. It was always kind of just as they did it. So now we have a contract knowing the prices on everything and the prices are very reasonable." ⚠

This is the finding inside the argument, and nobody in the room treated it as one. A village has been buying commercial and industrial building inspection services from an outside firm for the better part of a decade with no written agreement, no scope of work and no agreed fee schedule, and is only now putting one in place. Whatever happens to the veto, that is the part worth following. We are requesting every payment made to B&F Construction Code Services by the Village of Manteno since 2018, the proposal and fee schedule now on the table, and any prior written agreement.

To be fair to everyone involved: getting a contract in place is the fix, not the problem, and both Barry and Gesky pushed for it. The mayor's objection is to how it was approved, not to the firm.

From the veto statement, about the B&F contract: "I have put that item on tonight's agenda for discussion, but I will not unilaterally agree to approve a contract without ever seeing it and without an attorney reviewing it." ⚠

The posted September 21 agenda does not carry it as a discussion item. Under Village President's Report the only Discussion entry is "Collective Bargaining Agreement with LIUNA." B&F appears on the agenda only inside the veto line under New Business. The three items under the board's New Business were the fire bureau chief appointment, the fire inspection agreement, and the bills.

And a vote was expected. On September 17 the mayor told The Daily Journal, September 17 that she would back the hiring and that a vote was anticipated at Monday's meeting. The posted agenda carried no such motion. See claim 20.

In practice the contract was discussed at length, during Trustee Barry's Finance report, and the exchange is the fullest public airing it has had. So the substance happened. But it was not agendized as a discussion item, which matters because 5 ILCS 120/2.02(c) requires an agenda to "set forth the general subject matter of any resolution or ordinance that will be the subject of final action," and because residents reading the agenda beforehand had no way to know the contract would be taken up.

Source: September 21 agenda.

The mayor: "the village administrator position will be posted soon. This position is that of another village officer and therefore this is a position that per Illinois law will be appointed by the mayor with trustee consent." ⚠ That is correct. Manteno 1-19-1 creates the office and 1-19-2 says: "The village administrator shall be appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the board of trustees. The appointment shall be made on the basis of education and professional ability, without regard to political considerations, race, religion, age, or sex."

This closes a question this site left open on September 10. On September 9 the mayor said "Anybody in the village hall is appointed other than the department heads," and we graded the question of which jobs are offices as unresolved pending the village code, which we have now read. The code is the reverse of that formulation: the president appoints officers and department heads with the board's consent (1-5-5(A), 1-19-2, 1-22-1, 2-2-2), and it is the administrator who hires the rank and file, under 1-19-5(H): "Appoint and when necessary, suspend or remove all employees other than department heads and officers appointed by the village president." The September 21 statement is much closer to the code than the September 9 one, and we have gone back and updated the September 9 card accordingly.

Sources: Manteno Village Code 1-19-1, 1-19-2, 1-19-5.

The full sentence: "A temporary administrator will be appointed by the mayor ASAP to fill the vacancy until our approval for a qualified permanent village administrator is consented to by the trustees." ⚠ The consent is described as attaching to the permanent hire only.

The code attaches it to both. Section 1-19-7, in full: "If, because of a temporary absence, disability or illness, the village administrator is unable to carry out the functions of this office, the president, with the advice and consent of the board of trustees, may appoint a member of the village's senior administrative staff, or other qualified person, to serve as acting administrator and carry out the duties of the administrator during the administrator's absence."

And 1-19-7 may not even be the right section. It is written for a temporary absence, disability or illness of a sitting administrator. Manteno's administrator retired, so the office is vacant rather than temporarily unattended, and a vacancy in an appointed office is filled under 1-5-5(B) "in the same manner as original appointments," which is 1-5-5(A): president with advice and consent. Both roads require the board.

This is the same shape as the clerk problem in section 4 above, and it has the same one-vote fix.

The mayor's account: "Mrs. Wolfe has resigned from her position as village clerk. When accepting her appointment, she had originally volunteered to take over the time consuming job of fulfilling FOIA requests as an addendum to her clerk duties. She resigned after our administrative assistant, Dawn Gesky, notified her that she could not receive hourly pay to fulfill the FOIA requests per the Manteno Village Code." ⚠

Trustee Crockett's account, from the floor: "It was my understanding that Crystal Wolfe left because you lied to her about her responsibilities. I think that needs to be made apparent." ⚠ Mayor: "That is not true. I did not lie to any…" ⚠ Crockett: "from Crystal Wolfe, I was told that you lied to her about her responsibilities and that's why she left." ⚠ Mayor: "What I told her is that we were going to be paying her." ⚠

We are not adjudicating this, but there is a legal fact underneath it that neither account mentioned, and it matters. The clerk's compensation is fixed by ordinance at 1-8-4: "The village clerk shall receive compensation for his services in the amount of four thousand dollars ($4,000.00) per annum." And 65 ILCS 5/3.1-50-5 says: "Salaries or other compensation shall not be increased or diminished so as to take effect during the term of any officer holding an elective office." The clerk is an elective office in Manteno. The statute's softer rule for appointed officers expressly does not cover "those appointed to fill vacancies in elective offices."

In plain English: whoever holds the Manteno clerk's office during this term is entitled to $4,000 a year and cannot lawfully be paid more during the term, however much extra work the job turns out to involve. That appears to be exactly what "per the Manteno Village Code" meant when the administrative assistant delivered the news. If so, the administrative assistant was right, and the promise of hourly pay, if it was made, was one the village could not keep. That is a structural problem, not a character question, and it will land on the next clerk too.

Added September 22: Crystal Wolfe gave her own account to the newspaper, and it confirms the reading above. Per The Daily Journal, September 18, Wolfe was hired August 20 and resigned after about two weeks. Her resignation letter says she took the job understanding that the clerk position, "which had a yearly salary of $4,000," would be her function. That is the figure in § 1-8-4. The paper also reports, in terms: "The administration has said they want to increase the clerk wages to $8,000 following the spring 2027 municipal election. The clerk is an elected position." Waiting for the next term is exactly what 65 ILCS 5/3.1-50-5 requires, so the village plainly knows the constraint. What could not be done was pay her more during this term.

Wolfe blames nobody, and that is worth recording. In the paper's paraphrase, village employees were gracious and accommodating to her from the day she walked into village hall, and trustees and the administration "were nothing but kind." Her reason was the workload: taking on the FOIA officer role "altered her job function drastically," she called it a full-time job, and she said "I am unable to continue in the capacity being required. FOIA is quite a process in Manteno… FOIA [in Manteno] is huge now. The need is there." Also: "I had a lot of hopes when I took the job… It was a wonderful two weeks, but I couldn't move forward with this." Neither the mayor's framing nor Trustee Crockett's is endorsed by the person they are arguing about.

And the mayor told the paper something different from what she told the board. On September 18 she said, in the paper's paraphrase, that part of the blame for this situation resides with her because she should have rectified the compensation as Wolfe took on more duties than originally planned, and, quoted directly, that "I'm so sad she left. It took me by surprise. I was not trying to avoid paying anyone for the work they were doing," and that she had been planning to seek a $20 to $25 per hour rate. Three days later, at the board table, the account was that Wolfe "resigned after our administrative assistant… notified her that she could not receive hourly pay." Both may be true at once. They are not the same emphasis, and only one of them was said in public session.

Still requested: the resignation letter itself, the written terms of the appointment, and any opinion the village obtained on paying the clerk for FOIA work.

Sources: Manteno Village Code 1-8-1, 1-8-4; 65 ILCS 5/3.1-50-5.

From the statement: "I am hopeful that our new clerk will have a smoother experience than those in recent past due to the new clarity, the change in staff dynamics as the now retired village administrator is no longer in a position to obstruct the duties of the village clerk['s] FOIAs." ⚠

That is a serious allegation about an identifiable former employee, made from the dais, with nothing offered to support it. (The statement said "the now retired village administrator" and did not use his name; there is only one person that describes.) Obstructing the handling of FOIA requests is not a minor housekeeping complaint. No document, email, date or incident was given. Chris LaRocque was not present and has not been charged with or found to have done anything. We have asked the Village for any record supporting it, and we will publish whatever comes back, including nothing.

The statement: "the FOIA requests have become a time consuming role for many villages in current times. Not only Manteno, I know Bourbonnais said it's almost a full-time job for them. Fulfilling these requests in a timely manner is required by law and it seems prudent for us to consider the purpose of the local ordinance that may be limiting the ability to fulfill these requests and consider how to manage the staff costs to fulfill this ongoing legal requirement." ⚠

The workload point is fair and we will say so plainly. This site files public records requests with Manteno. FOIA compliance in a village this size is genuinely demanding, the deadlines are short, and the village has been doing it without a clerk. Naming that out loud is reasonable.

The thing to watch is the second half of the sentence. The "local ordinance that may be limiting the ability to fulfill these requests" is almost certainly 1-8-4, the $4,000 clerk salary, read together with the bar on mid-term raises. If so, the fix is a compensation ordinance or a staffing decision, and there is nothing wrong with the village looking at either. What a village cannot do is narrow its FOIA obligations by ordinance: those are set by state law at 5 ILCS 140, and a municipality cannot reduce them locally. We will read any ordinance that comes out of this closely and publish what it does.

Motion by Boudreau, seconded by Gesky, unanimous: Boudreau yes, Gesky yes, Barry yes, Vaughn yes, Crockett yes, Zimbelman yes. Two small things about the wording: the Village's agenda spells the chief's name "Peterson," while the fire district's own site spells it Petersen, which we use; and the motion as agendized and read was "Chief of the Fire Protection Bureau," while the office the code creates (2-2-2) is the fire prevention bureau. The attorney at the table said the intent was the code office. Boudreau explained it: "this gives Rick a little bit more power over the stuff for the fire protection district. Our last agreement that we had in place was in 1956. So I think it's time to update this stuff." ⚠

The ordinance behind it is real and old. Manteno 2-2-1: "There is hereby established an executive department of the municipal government of the village which shall be known as the fire prevention bureau." (1956 Code.) Section 2-2-2: "The office of chief of the fire prevention bureau is hereby created and established. The chief of the fire prevention bureau shall be appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the board of trustees." (1956 Code, amended by Ordinance 24-18 on February 3, 2025.) The attorney at the table dated it to 1954; the codified source note says 1956 Code, and Boudreau's "1956" matches the book. A small thing, and not worth more than this sentence.

Worth sitting with, given everything above. On the same night the board was accused of refusing "to approve vital staff members… in clear violation of the law," it unanimously confirmed a mayoral appointment to a village office, using the exact advice and consent procedure that the code sets out. When the appointment comes to the board in the ordinary way, the board approves it.

Source: Manteno Village Code 2-2-1, 2-2-2.

Gesky: "since we just got this agreement today, like at the start of this meeting, I would like to have an opportunity to spend a little more time and review it and just ask us to table it." ⚠ The mayor: "We can table this and do it on the next meeting if that's okay." ⚠ Motion by Gesky, seconded by Barry, and it passed unanimously.

Gesky's specific concern was a clause: the previous agreement "had language in there that would allow the fire district to reappoint someone" other than Chief Petersen "based upon their board vote," and he could not find it in the new draft. ⚠ The attorney said the new version simply folds in the existing ordinance and changes the title from fire marshal to chief of the fire prevention bureau: "same purpose, same duties as set forth under this ordinance, same powers, etc." ⚠

Note the symmetry with the veto. The mayor's stated objection to the B&F contract is that she was asked to accept an agreement she had not seen and no attorney had reviewed. About 27 minutes later (the veto statement ends at 54:23; the tabling motion is at 1:21:31) the board asked for the same thing on an agreement handed to it at the start of the meeting, the mayor agreed immediately, and the vote was 6 to 0. The principle is not in dispute. The disagreement is about whether it was applied to the B&F contract.

Payment of bills in the amount of $118,472.98, including TIF #3 at $0, and bills authorized and paid between board cycles at $0. Motion by Barry, seconded by Boudreau, unanimous roll call.

We are requesting the warrant list. There are three open money questions this list may answer: what the village is paying its various lawyers, what it has paid B&F, and the gap between the two bill figures reported around the September 8 meeting. Bills registers are public and we will publish it when it arrives.

The mayor: "Today we had a court case, and this morning the court case involving the village against previously dismissed attorney Joe Cainkar and the four trustees who have delayed… there are motions that were made and now they've rescheduled our next court case for November the 12th at 10:00 a.m." ⚠

Confirmed, and there is more to it than she told the board. The Daily Journal, September 21 reports that at Monday morning's hearing Judge Lindsay Parkhurst set the matter for 10 a.m. Thursday, November 12. Attorney James Vasselli appeared for the mayor and the village; attorney Daniel Bourgault of Klein, Thorpe & Jenkins appeared by video for Trustees Gesky, Crockett, Boudreau and Zimbelman. He is not Joe Cainkar; he has represented the four since the first round, and our July 20 page named him from the July 21 hearing. (Corrected September 22, 2026: an earlier version of this card said this was the first time the trustees' counsel had been named publicly. It was not.)

One more thing in the same story, and the paper was right. The Daily Journal's account of the case history reports that on June 15, 2026, the night the removal letter was delivered, the board voted 4 to 2 to disapprove the removal and reinstate Cainkar. Our own working notes had flagged that as a discrepancy with the timeline on this site, which counted only the June 25 and July 6 votes. The Village's own posted June 15 minutes record it: "Trustee Gesky made a motion to disapprove of the removal and restore and reinstate… Joe Cainkar… Motion passed by a vote of 4-2, Trustee Barry and Trustee Vaughn voted no." That is a third disapproval vote, taken the same day as the removal, and we had missed it.

What actually moved. The trustees' response to the lawsuit was only completed and added to the case file that Monday, and Vasselli said he was seeing it for the first time. Parkhurst gave him 14 days to respond and then gave Bourgault 7 days to reply, which is what produces the November 12 date. A ruling is not expected for several days after the hearing. So the practical effect of Monday is a briefing schedule, not a decision.

Vasselli afterward said the judge is setting a course for what he called a "thorough decision," and: "The law is on our side." Nothing in the case has been decided on the merits and no allegation in it has been proven. Our running file on the litigation is here.

Sandy Chism opened public participation by directing questions at Trustee Gesky by name, prefaced with: "now we know that we can speak directly to specific trustees per the [Open Meetings Act]. And Joe really missed that one, didn't he?" ⚠

What the Open Meetings Act says is that the public must get an opportunity to address public officials, and that the opportunity may be "subject to the rules established and recorded by the public body." Manteno has recorded such rules, at 1-6-9, and subsection (F)(7) says: "Speakers shall face and direct their remarks to the public body as a whole and not to any individual board member, staff member, third party, or the audience." Subsection (F)(8) adds that speakers may ask questions "but there shall be no obligation for individual board members or staff to respond."

So the rule she describes is not the village's rule. It is possible she is referring to a Public Access Counselor opinion about public comment generally, and we would like to see it; if one exists that overrides 1-6-9(F)(7), that is genuinely newsworthy and we will publish it. Until then the village's own ordinance is what governs, and it was not enforced that night: she was not stopped, and she also offered to yield the balance of her three minutes to a trustee, which 1-6-9(F)(4) prohibits ("Proxies or the yielding or granting of time in whole or in part to another person shall not be permitted").

Enforced unevenly, a speaking rule is worse than no rule. This site's interest here is not in less public comment. It is that the same rules apply to the resident who agrees with the mayor and the resident who does not.

Source: Manteno Village Code 1-6-9.

Trustee Boudreau, in his Planning and Zoning report: "we do this because, as you will see on the agenda, we don't have a right to speak anymore. The only country I know that does that is China." ⚠

The comparison is rhetoric. The underlying fact is checkable, and it checks out. The September 21 agenda has no trustee comments item. Reports of Village Officials runs President, Administrator, then the six committee reports, and then the meeting goes to Old Business, New Business and adjournment. Trustee comments came off the agenda before the September 8 meeting and have not come back. That is why trustees are now making their points inside their committee reports, which is where most of the exchanges quoted on this page happened.

The mayor has said why, on the record, to a reporter. Per The Daily Journal, September 10, the comments item was removed with no vote and no announcement. Asked about it after the September 8 meeting she said: "I got tired of it." Asked whether she would consider reinstating it: "If a miracle happens." Trustee Crockett, who raised it at that meeting: "By you taking comments off the agenda, it won't silence us." The same paper notes that trustee comment periods are standard in Kankakee, Bradley, Bourbonnais, Momence, Aroma Park, Herscher and St. Anne.

Trustee Barry's answer is the fair one to put beside it. He told the paper that removing the section "does not mean trustees cannot speak," because they can comment after their committee report, and that is what he did. He is right, and it is exactly what happened on September 21: nearly every exchange quoted on this page occurred inside a committee report. Whether that is an adequate substitute for a comment period is a judgement, not a legal question. The village's own Rule 18 in § 1-6-5 sets the order of business and neither requires a trustee comment period nor forbids one. Putting it back is a decision.

The Minutes column on the Village's own meetings index is empty for every board meeting after June 25, 2026: nothing for July 6, July 20 or anything later. (Corrected September 22, 2026: this site had been saying "no minutes after July," which understated it.) The August 3 (amended) and August 17 minutes were approved September 16 and that approval was vetoed September 21.

5 ILCS 120/2.06 requires a public body to keep written minutes of all its meetings, and a body with a website maintained by its full-time staff to post the approved open-session minutes there within 10 days of approval. On September 21 the board approved the September 8 regular meeting minutes and the September 8 executive session minutes, so the September 8 open-session minutes are due on the website by October 1, 2026. We will check.

Trustee Boudreau abstained on both September 8 minutes votes, which is ordinary where a member was not present for the meeting being recorded.

Source: Village meetings index.

Wendell Phillips, a longtime Manteno trustee, died the previous week. The mayor asked for a moment of silence at the start of the meeting, and the September 16 meeting paused for one too, at Trustee Boudreau's request. A resident speaking on another subject stopped to say he "was one of Cute and Cute's biggest cheerleaders." ⚠

Andy Lee announced a candidacy for village trustee in public comment, describing himself as a lifelong resident and local small business owner, with three priorities: "tightening our budget and eliminating unnecessary spending," "working collaboratively with the mayor and our fellow elected officials," and "truly listening to you, the citizens of Manteno." ⚠ At the September 16 meeting another resident said the morning had decided him on running as well. Manteno's next municipal election is in April 2027.

Oktoberfest runs October 24 to 27, with the carnival and food trucks from Thursday, street vendors and three stages of live music from Friday, a lighted parade Saturday at 7:00 p.m. from Manteno Middle School, and a new American Legion tractor show Sunday at Legion Park from 11 to 3. Officer Jeremy Mrazek gave a child-safety briefing for the crowds: photograph your children before you arrive so you have a current picture and a record of what they are wearing, agree a meeting point, and teach children to find a uniformed officer or event staff rather than wander.

An unresolved Oktoberfest tent: Emily Herman told the board she was offered a tent space by a board member on August 17, bought marketing materials and tent supplies on the strength of it, followed up on August 20 and had heard nothing since, with the festival that week. The village no longer has a village tent; a 10 by 10 space and a certificate of insurance were discussed at the table and she was asked to sort it out after the meeting.

County Highway 9 continues, with the eastbound lanes at subgrade and paving to come, and the MFT work has wrapped up with restoration and landscaping done.

The Village's meetings index lists both September 21 committee rows, Public Safety and Finance, each with an Agenda link and an empty Video column. The stream exists: it ran on the Village's own Manteno Village View channel from 4:37 p.m. to 5:37 p.m. and runs 59 minutes and 52 seconds.

A practical warning for anyone following this village. The index's Video column is not a reliable guide to what was recorded. We had checked the index for coverage gaps and would have missed this meeting entirely; a reader sent us the link. If you are looking for a Manteno meeting, check the channel as well as the index. We have asked the Village to add the link.

Sources: the recording; the posted agenda.

Trustee Mike Barry, opening the Finance committee's business: "I think we should, without a village administrator right now, there's one person that's verifying payroll in the village. I just think that it'd be good to have two eyes, another set of eyes onto that, just to double check, just to make sure everything's on the up and up, because we have had some people leave. We have some people that are owed vacation time, and so on and so forth. And I don't think anybody in this room knows how much vacation time someone's owed, how much pay they're owed, or how that process works. And I get concerned when one person's doing it. Not that there's anything going wrong, but I think two eyes on top of that is something that would help everybody in this room." ⚠

He described the chain as it stands: a police sergeant administers the time-clock system and hands the printouts to the treasurer, who works from them, and the administrative assistant is also involved. Barry asked for copies to go to trustees "until we get a village administrator in place, to kind of verify that. It's just a checks and balance system." ⚠

This is the most consequential thing said in either meeting that nobody argued about. The finance chair of a village that has just been through a forensic audit of a prior administration stated, in an open meeting, that there is currently no second review of payroll, that staff have left with vacation and pay owed, and that no one on the board knows how the process works. He said it carefully and without accusing anyone, and he is right to have raised it. Separation of duties in payroll is the most basic internal control a municipality has, and the village administrator who normally provides it is the office that has been vacant since the summer.

What we are asking for: the payroll verification procedure as it currently operates, the accrued leave balances owed to departed employees, and any written internal control policy. Added to the request list above.

Barry again: "I just would like to see, since we don't have a village administrator, if there's a big purchase that an email gets sent out that, hey, I got to spend x amount of money on something, so we all know what's going on. There is no right now, there is no checks and balance system on that stuff." ⚠ Asked for a number: "I know Chris had up to 15,000 bucks, but I think that over a certain amount of money we all should know what's going on with it." ⚠ The committee landed on public works emailing the whole board on anything over about $5,000.

The village code already sets a number, and it is lower. Section 1-19-5(O) makes the village administrator responsible for purchases of materials and supplies, "provided, that on purchases of more than three thousand dollars ($3,000.00), he/she shall first procure the approval of the trustees before making such purchases, and in all cases he/she shall comply with the statutory provisions as to solicitations of bids." Section 1-19-5(P) covers the emergency case: for an urgent purchase over $3,000 but under $10,000, the administrator "with the written approval of the president, may make such purchase without waiting for formal approval of the specific purchase by the board as a whole."

So the code's threshold is $3,000 and the remedy is board approval, not a courtesy email. A committee cannot lower that by consensus at a table, and to be fair to Barry he was not trying to: he was trying to create some visibility where the officer the ordinance relies on does not exist. But the gap he is filling informally is one the ordinance already fills formally, and the honest fix is either to follow 1-19-5(O) as written or to amend it.

The $15,000 figure is a separate question and we are chasing it. If the former administrator held purchasing authority up to $15,000, that is five times the number in 1-19-5(O), and we would like to see the instrument that granted it. Requested.

Source: Manteno Village Code 1-19-5.

Corrected September 22, 2026. An earlier version of this card said the "Purchasing from Village Employees" half of this agenda item "was never discussed," and framed it as a conflict-of-interest question, buying goods or services from staff. That was our misreading, and we withdraw it. The item was discussed for about two minutes (51:19 to 53:32), and it is about purchases by staff: with no village administrator, the finance chair wants an email to the whole board when a project runs over or a big purchase is made, "so we all know what's going on… there is no checks and balance system on that stuff." ⚠ The number floated was $5,000: "if it's over $5,000 or just shoot an email." ⚠

What is still worth chasing is the point made in the card above: the former administrator was said to have had purchasing authority "up to 15,000 bucks," and we would like to see the instrument that granted it.

Related, and worth watching rather than grading: during the Public Safety half, a committee member suggested getting a competing price for a fence from a named local contractor, and another immediately raised prevailing wage. The instinct to check the wage rules before a small job is the right one.

Residents had asked for the merry-go-round to be moved to where parents can see it. Moving it into the artificial turf area would mean cutting the turf, excavating, and laying the poured fall protection used under the zip line. The ballpark quoted was $20,000. Moving it to the other end of the park, where rubber mulch already provides a fall zone, was put at roughly $2,000 including a border, with the existing turf piece reusable to patch a separate worn section. ⚠ One member: "I know it's a pain in the butt, but $18,000 difference right now, the way our budget looks." ⚠ Public works was asked to price the rubber mulch option.

We put this on the page deliberately. This is the same six people, in the same room, an hour before the meeting that produced everything in sections one through eight, doing careful and frugal work on a playground. Both meetings are Manteno. A reader who only ever sees the veto fight is getting an incomplete picture of this board.

CeraPro quoted $11,156.25 to stain or paint the pavilion, with a second estimate from another painter outstanding. A committee member questioned the price ("It just seems astronomical to me") and another made the case for waiting: new cedar should weather and dry before it is sealed, or "that sealer could bubble up." The committee agreed to let it go until spring and to get at least one more price. ⚠

Two related items: $3,284 of additional turf work at the southwest corner of the square, where a section was damaged during the pavilion work and "you can just pick it right off the ground"; and a decision to rebuild the brickwork at the pavilion pillars with an extra course of brick rather than leave the exposed wood, which one member called on the record "terrible." ⚠

The restroom privacy fence was also priced: $325 for materials, $2,219 if the supplier installs it, or $650 plus shipping for a matching stone panel and two posts. Public works was asked to get a local price as well.

The diagnosis from the table: the cutouts are too small, and with gravel and turf packed around them the trees are "not getting enough nutrients, water, fertilizer," so they "become root bound." ⚠ The plan agreed was to start with the block of seven or eight trees rather than the whole street, take one out after Oktoberfest with the vac truck to see what is under it, and use what they find to pick varieties and sizes before the spring budget. The dead trees are staying up through Christmas because they hold the lights.

The tree nursery idea from the September 9 meeting has moved. A trustee has approached a member of the township board about it, and the township will discuss it. The candidate sites are ground by the public works building, where a police range was once contemplated, and possibly Legacy Park, with a note of caution that the triangle north of the tennis courts may not be village land. ⚠

This is the same Main Street tree programme that was deferred to spring on September 9, when HR Green's $22,000 quote to facilitate the three-phase RFP was discussed. The committee is now proposing to do the first block itself instead. We are still asking whether the HR Green proposal was ever board-approved.

Public works reported a new arrangement with a landscaping firm east of town at $25 a load. The previous route, shared with Bourbonnais and Bradley and some townships, ran down by Acme at "$1,000 or more a month, not to mention, you know, round trip an hour and a half for guys driving down there." ⚠

The old site at the former golf course is gone. The owner asked the village to clean up illegal dumping there, the crew did it once, and it started again, so the village has withdrawn. Residents dumping yard waste on private land is the reason the village lost a free site.

With about 25 minutes before the 6:00 board meeting (57:25 on the committee stream), Trustee Barry raised the village staff contract: "we have village negotiations with the village staff contract. I'm going to ask if we can move into executive session to talk about the agreed upon contract." ⚠ There was a short discussion about waiting for the attorney, who then arrived, a motion, and a roll call in which every member voted yes. The room was cleared: "we have to ask everyone to leave. So, thank you. You can come back for the six o'clock meeting if you like." ⚠ The mayor confirmed it at the board meeting: "We did speak about unionization in our executive board meeting tonight." ⚠

The subject is a proper one for a closed session. 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(2) allows closing a meeting for "Collective negotiating matters between the public body and its employees or their representatives, or deliberations concerning salary schedules for one or more classes of employees." The village staff contract with LIUNA fits squarely. It also did not need to be on the agenda: 5 ILCS 120/2a says a properly noticed open meeting "may, without additional notice under Section 2.02, hold a closed meeting."

What 2a also requires is a citation. "The vote of each member on the question of holding a meeting closed to the public and a citation to the specific exception contained in Section 2 of this Act which authorizes the closing of the meeting to the public shall be publicly disclosed at the time of the vote and shall be recorded and entered into the minutes of the meeting."

We are not calling this a violation and here is why. No citation is audible in the captions at the point of the vote, but the captions are automated and drop words, the subject was stated in open session minutes earlier, and the Act's requirement is also satisfied by the minutes. The minutes will settle it, and the last board minutes Manteno has posted are for June 25. We will check when they appear. If the citation is there, this card comes down.

Sources: 5 ILCS 120/2a; 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(2).

David Bergdall spoke at both meetings. At the board meeting he described his own interview for the village planner job on the evening of September 10, 2001: "The board went into executive session and interviewed me. They didn't have surprise, oh, we want to appoint somebody on the agenda. They actually put a scheduled executive session and did interviews." ⚠ His advice: "You guys don't need to fight about this. You want to know your candidates, people that are being appointed, do interviews, do them in executive session, and don't take it out on poor people in the public." ⚠

He is describing a procedure the Open Meetings Act expressly authorizes. 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(3) permits a closed session for "The selection of a person to fill a public office, as defined in this Act, including a vacancy in a public office, when the public body is given power to appoint under law or ordinance." Manteno has three appointments in dispute or pending right now: the clerk, the director of building and zoning, and the village administrator. The board is given the power to appoint all three, with the president, by ordinance. It could interview all three in closed session and vote in open session, and the argument that has consumed two meetings would largely disappear.

At the committee meeting he made a different point, about Main Street: "back when I was actively involved with the village, we had administrations that thought that overdevelopment of Main Street would potentially be a bad thing… over decoration, overly fancy parking, blocks and curbs, putting trees in the parking lot. And the reason and the thinking back then was, at some point the maintenance of those issues is going to become a massive question and issue… What we have out there is very pretty. But now we're paying the piper." ⚠ He said it twenty minutes before the committee worked through root-bound trees in undersized cutouts, damaged turf and a pavilion that needs its brickwork rebuilt.

He also opened by wishing the village a good Oktoberfest, noting he ran the first one as chamber president 29 years ago and that "most of the problems we had that first year was because we didn't know what we were doing." ⚠

Source: 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(3).

1. The signed call for the September 16 special meeting, with the four signatures and the date, and proof of service on each official.
2. The email transmitting the B&F proposal and its full distribution list. This settles claim 20 one way or the other.
3. Every payment to B&F Construction Code Services since 2018, plus any prior written agreement and the fee schedule now proposed.
4. The personnel action appointing Jim Paicz, his title, rate of pay and the appropriation line it is drawn against.
5. The written notice appointing Allen Pickrel as temporary clerk, and any legal opinion the village relied on.
6. Crystal Wolfe's resignation letter and the written terms of her appointment, including anything about payment for FOIA work.
7. Any record supporting the claim that the former administrator obstructed the clerk's FOIA duties.
8. The warrant list behind the $118,472.98 approved on September 21, and every legal invoice submitted to the Village in 2026 with its payment status.
9. Ordinance 24-18, passed February 3, 2025 under the Nugent board and prepared by Louis F. Cainkar, Ltd. (13 pages, 27 sections, posted on the Village's site). It amended, among others, 1-5-5 (appointed officers), 1-7-2 (bonds), the deputy-clerk paragraph of 1-8-4, 1-9-2 (village attorney, including the language allowing a law firm to hold the office) and 2-2-2 (fire prevention bureau). It did not amend the clerk's own $4,000 salary paragraph. (Corrected September 22, 2026: this line had said it amended "the clerk" section and left out the village-attorney section.) What we still want is the transmittal and any memo behind it.
10. The Public Access Counselor opinion said to permit the public to address individual trustees, if one exists.

Partly answered since publication, from the newspaper record (September 22): item 4 now has a number, the $60,000 salary the mayor stated in open session on September 8 and the newspaper repeated; item 6 now has Crystal Wolfe's own account and the $4,000 statutory salary, though the letter itself is still outstanding; and the November 12 hearing is confirmed along with the 14-day and 7-day briefing schedule behind it. The documents are still worth having, because a newspaper account is not a record.

As always: if you hold any of these, or you were in the room and we have something wrong, the form below goes straight to the reporter. Corrections are published on the change log with the date and what changed.