Manteno has no village administrator and no code enforcement officer. On Tuesday the mayor asked the board to appoint one, and lost 2 to 3, over a budget question a trustee says he emailed her about weeks ago and never got answered. Meanwhile the item that has united this board all summer went the other way entirely: two trustees and the fire chief went to the Gotion plant at 9 p.m., were stopped at the door, and the fire brigade passed. And a resident stood up to ask why license plate cameras appeared on Manteno roads with no vote.
This is the first regular meeting since August 17, the night that never reached a quorum. The August 20 special meeting sits between them. New here? Start with the Fact Check.
Five of six trustees were present. Trustee CJ Boudreau was absent; he is the high school golf coach and had a match. Before you scroll:
Corrected September 22, 2026: card 1 below used to say the appointment "would have failed 3 to 3" even if Boudreau had been there and voted yes. That was wrong on the law: a village president may vote to break a tie, so at 3 to 3 the mayor's vote would have carried it 4 to 3. Our error. Also corrected: the Oktoberfest dates (September 24 to 27, this week, not October), the "trade zone" quotation, the Bourbonnais arithmetic, and the status of our Public Access Counselor request on the license plate cameras, which had not been filed when this page said it was "pending."
Graded September 9, 2026 and corrected September 22, 2026 against the meeting recording, the Village's posted agenda and meeting index, the Illinois Municipal Code, and FOIA productions already in hand. A grade describes the state of the evidence on that date, not anyone's honesty. Quotes marked ⚠ are auto-caption transcriptions pending an audio check. Nobody named on this page is accused of any crime.
Village President's report, roughly 28:22–48:36 on the stream.
Stream, 47:28–48:20. Agenda item 8(A)(2).
The posted agenda carried a "Motion to Appoint Jim Paicz as the Director of Building and Zoning/Code Enforcement Officer to Fill an Existing Vacancy." On the roll call, Vaughn and Barry voted yes; Crockett, Gesky and Zimbelman voted no. Trustee Boudreau was absent. The mayor's response on tape: "It's very sad." ⚠
The board: The director of building and zoning is appointed by the president with the board's consent (§ 1-22-1); the board cannot self-appoint. Its stated objection was the budget line, not the candidate, and the budget is its tool: every appropriation and every bills list is four of seven votes (65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-40), so the board can put the salary line in writing and remove its own objection, or refuse to fund a hire made outside the code. The salary is set annually by the president and trustees (§ 1-19-10). The interim inspections contract the board approved 4 to 0 on September 16, then vetoed, comes back for an override on October 5.
The mayor: Nominate again, at a meeting the members can attend, with the funding line stated. She may nominate anyone, including Jim Paicz a second time, and if the trustees split 3 to 3 she breaks the tie (3.1-40-30). Posting the jobs is not required by the code, but nothing prevents it.
The Toolbox: the administrator and building director, in full →
The wrinkle: the mayor told the board Boudreau had met the candidate, approved of him and intended to vote yes, but could not attend or use Zoom from a golf course. Counted her way, the motion would have stood 3–3, and under 65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-30(i), applied to villages by 3.1-45-5, the president may vote to break a tie. The mayor wanted the appointment; her vote would have carried it 4–3. So his absence did decide it. (Corrected September 22, 2026: this card originally said "even counted his way, the motion would have failed 3–3." That was wrong on the law, and the error was ours; it also contradicted our August 20 page, which had it right.)
Updated September 10. At the committee meeting the next morning Trustee Boudreau, present, disputed the mayor's characterisation of his position: "I never said I was going to vote for him. I said I wanted to discuss, and I'm not against the guy. It was just more of the money." ⚠ Both statements are on tape. Both, side by side →
Source: September 8 agenda (PDF); meeting stream.
The mayor opened her own report by noting there was no administrator present to give one. On the code enforcement side she said the village "has been without one since Mr. LaRocque retired." ⚠ Trustee Barry counted the open work out loud: "we're going to have to put out applications for not only the building inspector, a village administrator, a records clerk, administrative assistant." ⚠ Public Works Superintendent Jim Hanley is absorbing the permit load on top of his own job, and confirmed at the table that he is not paid extra for it.
Why this is the story: two of those four are the positions that actually run a village day to day. The Village's staff directory still lists Chris LaRocque as Village Administrator as of this writing. Nothing on villageofmanteno.com announces either vacancy or invites applications.
Sources: meeting stream; Village staff directory, checked September 9, 2026.
Stream, 30:41–42:32.
Trustee Crockett: "I had sent you an email indicating that I wasn't necessarily for or against Mr. Paicz. My concern... was the budgeting aspect... as of today, I still don't have that answer." ⚠ The mayor first said "we're going to be talking about that in executive session," then, pressed, gave the number in open session. She later said: "I apologize to you for not answering your email, but you could have picked up the phone and called me any time." ⚠
Graded True because the mayor conceded it. The apology is on the tape. What is not settled is whether the funding answer was ever a closed-session subject at all: budget lines for a position are ordinarily public business, and the Open Meetings Act's personnel exception (5 ILCS 120/2(c)(1)) covers "specific employees," not appropriations.
That is what the mayor told the board, adding that he would want a village vehicle, that he lives in Manteno, that he has four years in code enforcement with his certificates, and that he is a military veteran. She compared it to a predecessor at roughly $80,000 without the exact figure in front of her.
The context that took twenty minutes to surface: $30,000 of the money already exists. The departing administrator was paid a $30,000 stipend on top of his administrator salary to cover code enforcement; the mayor confirmed that line runs through the fiscal year ending in May and that roughly seven twelfths of it is unspent. Trustee Barry argued the balance would be offset by permit fees and by violations "that got missed." ⚠
Open: the actual appropriation. We have requested the FY2026–27 budget line, the administrator's compensation records including the $30,000 stipend, and any amended budget.
Stream, ~34:15, and the mayor's related statement that the attorney "has reminded me that trustees don't usually vote on every single person that's hired in the village." ⚠
Both halves are partly right, and they are about two different things. Hiring ordinary employees is not normally a board roll call. Appointing an officer is: under 65 ILCS 5/3.1-30-5, a village president appoints officers "by and with the advice and consent" of the board of trustees. The village president does not hold an unshared appointment power over statutory village offices.
The strongest evidence here is the Village's own paperwork. The item reached the floor as a "Motion to Appoint... (Ord 1-22-1)," printed on the mayor's own agenda, and it was put to a roll call. If board consent were not required, there was nothing to move and nothing to vote on.
What would settle it: the text of the ordinance cited on the agenda as Ord 1-22-1, which we have requested. Whether the Director of Building and Zoning is an "office" under Manteno's code decides which rule applies.
Sources: 65 ILCS 5/3.1-30-5; September 8 agenda.
Trustee Zimbelman argued the jobs should be posted with a salary and qualifications: "If you look at Bourbonnais, they have been advertising for their village administrator. They got the salary. They got all the job qualifications. That's what you do when you hire people." ⚠ That checks out. The Village of Bourbonnais announced its administrator search on September 3, 2026, five days before this meeting, and the position is posted through the Illinois City/County Management Association's jobs board.
Sources: Kankakee County Chamber, Sept. 3, 2026; ILCMA job posting.
Trustees Barry and Gesky had a Zoom call the day of the meeting with the firm that handles Gotion's permitting, rendered on the captions as "BF Technical" and "BNF Technical" and identified in our earlier reporting as B&F Construction Code Services. The firm said it would cover Manteno's permits and inspections in the interim. Quoted numbers from the table: a midnight structural call-out runs about $660 for a four-hour minimum, call it $1,000 all in. A trustee noted in fairness that the fire chief could recall exactly one such call-out in the past year.
The conflict question nobody asked out loud: the same firm would be inspecting the Gotion plant on the Village's behalf and issuing the Village's residential permits. A fee proposal was promised to the whole board "in the morning." We have asked for it.
Public participation and the Public Works report.
Stream, 27:17–28:22 (public comment) and 1:11:01 (Trustee Crockett).
Resident Nicole Gavin raised it in public comment: "Removing trustee comments may look like a simple agenda change, but it eliminates that established opportunity for our trustees to share what's going on with their community members." ⚠ Trustee Crockett put the question directly to the mayor at the end of his report. Her answer, verbatim on the tape: "Because our meetings have been so contentious and some people want to give a lot more information at the end of the meeting and some of it is not necessary." ⚠
Crockett: "I think we've got six very bright trustees here on the board that deserve the opportunity to speak when they want to speak. And it's been a tradition for years... I don't think that by you taking the comments off the agenda that you'll silence us." The mayor: "Perhaps not." ⚠
The board: Rule 18 of § 1-6-5 sets the order of business and neither requires nor forbids a trustee comment period, and the board "shall determine its own rules of proceeding" (65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-15). The permanent fix is an ordinance amending § 1-6-5 that restores a trustee comment item to Rule 18 and says how items get on the agenda: four of seven votes, and four trustees can pass it over a veto at the next regular meeting. The one-night fix is a motion under § 1-6-7 to suspend the rules and hear trustee comments, carried by a majority of those present; it is not an ordinance and cannot be vetoed. Neither has been tried.
The mayor: She presides and prepares the agenda in practice. She can put trustee comments back herself, or adopt a written agenda procedure with the board.
The legal frame is the one already on this site. Under 65 ILCS 5/3.1-40-15 the board "shall determine its own rules of proceeding"; the president presides (3.1-40-30). The Open Meetings Act guarantees the public a chance to address the body (5 ILCS 120/2.06(g)); it says nothing about members of the body, whose speaking rights come from the board's own rules. So the fight over who sets the agenda is the same fight as in August, now with a concrete casualty. The full legal analysis →
Public participation, 14:49–16:38.
Resident Mara Kapka, first speaker of the night.
The speaker described roughly ten automated license plate readers that she says appeared about three weeks ago: two on Route 50, five near the interstate ramps, one by Maple Ridge Park, one on North E Road, one near Duncan. She described them accurately: oval black housings on thin black poles, some mounted on existing village light poles.
What is already established: Manteno's police department has been an ALPR agency for years, not three weeks. In response to our FOIA 26-163, the department produced its ALPR policy (Lexipol Policy 434) and a 24-page sharing roster showing hundreds of agency relationships, including agencies outside Illinois. So "these are new to Manteno" is not right as a blanket statement.
What is not established, and matters more: nobody has produced a board vote authorizing any of it. We have found no agenda item, no ordinance and no recorded roll call adopting ALPR use, and the department's own production contained no written approvals for network sharing. Whether the specific poles she counted are the Village's, the county's, or the State's is also open; Route 50 and the I-57 ramps are state right-of-way, where IDOT and the Illinois State Police, not the Village, control installations.
The board: State law does not require a board vote to install the cameras, and a services contract can be signed within the administrator's discretionary authority under § 1-21-6 without the board ever seeing it. That is the gap. The fix is an ordinance under the Village's general ordinance and police powers (65 ILCS 5/1-2-1, 11-1-1) that requires board authorization before any surveillance technology is acquired or renewed, sets retention, sharing and audit rules at least as strict as 625 ILCS 5/2-130, and requires the annual audit Policy 434 already promises: four of seven, vetoable, overridable. The board can also lower the § 1-21-6 contract threshold to zero for surveillance systems, and put the chief's offered public session on an agenda.
The mayor: Bring the existing contract and policy to the board for ratification, a majority of those voting. It costs nothing and answers the question residents asked.
Where this stands: a Request for Review under 5 ILCS 140/9.5 is being filed with the Illinois Attorney General's Public Access Counselor this week on this department's withholding of ALPR audit logs (FOIA 26-163, denied July 27). Corrected September 22, 2026: this card said the request was "pending" and "filed." It was not; the packet was prepared in August and had not been sent. We say so plainly because the mistake was ours. We are separately requesting the installation permits and the authorization record for every camera she listed.
Sources: meeting stream; Manteno PD response to FOIA 26-163 (July 27 and July 31, 2026 productions), on file.
Trustee Barry's report, 53:51–1:02:23. The longest single stretch of the meeting.
Trustee Barry described it plainly: he, Trustee Gesky and Fire Chief Rick Petersen went to the plant the previous Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. to see the fire brigade on shift. "We were stopped at the door." ⚠ The brigade captain came out with a sheet listing six members on staff and handed it to the chief; the chief said he wanted to see the six people. "We were there at least an hour and they brought out all six members." ⚠
Why it counts: Barry said the memorandum of understanding the board ratified 6–0 on August 3 allows the Village to enter at any time, and it requires the company to show who is on shift. (Clarified September 22, 2026: an earlier version said "unannounced"; what Barry described is that they were stopped at the door and that the MOU allows entry at any time.) This is the first time that clause has been exercised in public view, and it worked.
As reported to the board: all six on shift that night were Level 1 certified. The company now has 19 firefighters on staff, all at minimum Level 1, with three holding higher certifications for safety manager and battalion-chief-equivalent roles. Shifts run 24 hours on, 48 off. Two more hires were in progress, which would put seven per shift against a required six. Chief Petersen holds copies of all 19 certifications at the fire department.
This answers the August 31 deadline we have been tracking. The MOU required six certified members per shift across three shifts, eighteen in all, by August 31. On the Village's own account, the company cleared it. Barry's caveat, on tape: "Just because they had six last Tuesday doesn't mean they have six today." ⚠ He also said call-offs must now be reported to the fire chief and that the company will provide its shift schedules.
The certifications are public records held by the Manteno Community Fire Protection District. We have requested all 19, plus the shift schedules and any call-off notices.
Barry said it, and immediately flagged his own sourcing: "I've been told, and I don't know this for a fact, so I'm not going to lie, I've been told that there is a lot of people that are shocked that everything went followed through with this agreement." ⚠ He attributed the superlative to three people with more firefighting knowledge than anyone in the room.
Not gradeable as stated. There is no published inventory of Illinois industrial fire brigade agreements to rank this one against. It is a real and unusually specific agreement; whether it is the strongest in the state is an opinion nobody can currently check, and he said as much.
Resident Ann Gates raised it in public comment (18:47), saying "federal trade zone" as captioned, twice, and adding "I know our legislation just passed a bill concerning that" with China "pointed out." The federal program she appears to mean is the Foreign-Trade Zone program. We have not verified the signage, its removal, or the site's foreign-trade-zone status, and we are not reporting any of it as fact on a single unphotographed observation.
Checkable: FTZ designations are federal and public; a subzone or usage-driven site appears in the Foreign-Trade Zones Board's records for the Illinois grantee. We are pulling that record. Signage is a village permit question.
The law is real. Illinois enacted the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act (CRGA), signed by Gov. Pritzker, which lifts the state's nuclear moratorium and directs large-scale energy storage procurement through the Illinois Power Agency. A resident who follows this closely is not inventing the statute.
The specifics as stated do not track. The claim that the act procures storage "within 150 feet of a residential area" inverts how siting works (setbacks are limits on how close a facility may be, not a mandate to build there), and we can find no $8 billion tax figure attached to CRGA. Those two numbers need a source before anyone repeats them.
The local hook is real, though, and it is on a village agenda. Manteno's Plan Commission was scheduled to take up "Clean Energy Design Group, Inc. — Discussion of Zoning for Battery Energy Storage Systems" on the evening of September 9. That meeting was cancelled. Battery storage zoning is now a live Manteno question with no scheduled hearing.
Sources: Illinois Power Agency, CRGA; Plan Commission agenda, Sept. 9, 2026 (PDF); Village meeting index, which lists the meeting as cancelled.
Minutes, bills, the Chamber, and the meeting that never happened.
On tape: "I apologize for having to cancel a special meeting two weeks ago. We had a family emergency. On the advice of our village attorney, I cancelled the meeting." ⚠ The Village's meeting index confirms three cancellations that day: the Village Board special meeting, the Public Works Committee and General Government.
What was lost: the August 25 special meeting was called on August 20 for one purpose, the code enforcement appointment. Cancelling it moved the vote to September 8, the night the trustee who had committed to voting yes had a golf match. The appointment has now been pending since August 20.
Sources: meeting stream; Village meeting index; August 25 committee agenda marked "Cancelled" (PDF).
Stream, 11:26–14:11. The board voted on each set separately at a trustee's request.
Four sets were up. August 3 minutes carried. "August 7" minutes failed. August 20 special meeting minutes carried 4–1. August 20 executive session minutes carried unanimously, the only unanimous vote of the night on anything contested.
Two problems on the record. First, the agenda lists "Regular Meeting Minutes: August 7, 2026," and the Village's own meeting index shows no meeting of any kind on August 7. Second, when the August 20 minutes came up, a voice at the table asked "Was this the meeting that we cancelled? Then there was no meeting. Why are there minutes?" before being corrected; the August 20 special meeting did happen, and it was August 25 that was cancelled.
The board: Minutes are approved within 30 days or by the second regular meeting after, whichever is later, and a body with a website posts them within 10 days of approval (5 ILCS 120/2.06(b)). Approving minutes spends nothing and cannot be vetoed. The board can approve any outstanding set, under its correct date, at a regular meeting and direct the clerk, or in the clerk's absence the recording secretary, to post them. Any person may take a violation to the Attorney General's Public Access Counselor within 60 days (5 ILCS 120/3.5).
The mayor: Place the minutes on the agenda, sign them, and see that they are posted. The Village had someone doing this through June 25.
Open: what meeting the "August 7" minutes actually record. The likeliest explanation is a typo for August 17, the meeting that failed for want of a quorum, but a typo on a posted agenda is still a defect in the public record, and the failed vote leaves those minutes unapproved either way. One more clue, added September 22: the Village hosts the notice for the August 12 special meeting under the filename "August-7-2026-Special-Meeting.pdf," so "August 7" has appeared in the Village's own filing before. As of September 22, the last board minutes posted on the Village's website are for June 25, 2026. The August 3 (amended) and August 17 minutes were approved September 16, and the mayor vetoed that approval September 21.
Sources: September 8 agenda; Village meeting index, checked September 9, 2026.
The bills were approved on a roll call with no audible dissent, plus $56,456.84 in bills authorized and paid between board cycles. The posted agenda states the payment amount as $309,689.86, including TIF #3 at $0. The stream's auto-captions render the figure read aloud as $39,689.86, twice.
We are publishing the agenda figure and flagging the gap rather than picking one. The between-cycle number matches the agenda exactly, which argues the captions are reliable here and the discrepancy is real, not a transcription artifact. The warrant list and the approved minutes will settle it. Requested.
Village services already provided to Oktoberfest (public works, police) are being counted as a $5,000 in-kind sponsorship, co-sponsoring the Second Street stage with the Manteno American Legion, in exchange for signage, radio advertising and marketing materials. Presented by Trustee Barry and Ashley Peterson, who is both the Chamber's President and CEO and the Village's own Marketing and Community Relations Director, so a Village employee presented the Chamber's ask to the Village board. Passed with all five trustees present voting yes. Oktoberfest runs Thursday, September 24 through Sunday, September 27, 2026, this week; the mayor said "Thursday until Sunday" and "the 24th to the 27th" on tape. (Corrected September 22, 2026: this card said "October 24 to 27." Wrong month; our error.)
Officer Zack Boeringa gave the public safety report: effective January 1, 2027, riders of Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes (up to 20 mph) must be at least 15; Class 3 e-bike riders (up to 28 mph) and e-scooter riders must be at least 16; higher-speed devices pick up licensing, registration and insurance requirements in some circumstances; and e-bikes and e-scooters will no longer be allowed on sidewalks statewide. That is a fair summary of the micromobility legislation that moved through the General Assembly this spring with the Secretary of State's backing.
His practical point is the useful one: think before buying one of these for a child at Christmas, because a rider under the legal age will not be able to use it lawfully in the spring. The department says it will publish device-by-device guidance before January.
Sources: meeting stream; Illinois Secretary of State, Micromobility in Illinois.
Not everything at this meeting was a fight. Superintendent Hanley reported the MFT program winding down with landscape restoration pending cooler weather, a lane shift underway on County Highway 9, downtown streets power-washed and sealed for Oktoberfest, and the winter salt contract fulfilled through Morton with 350 tons in the bin. The salt contract mattered because, as Trustee Crockett noted, some Illinois towns have not had theirs filled.
Filed or being filed this week. Productions will be published here.
On the vacancies: the separation, retirement or resignation record for the village administrator, including effective date and any separation agreement; the $30,000 code-enforcement stipend authorization and payment records; the FY2026–27 budget lines for both positions and any amended budget; and every job posting the Village has published in 2026.
On the appointment: the text of the ordinance cited on the agenda as "Ord 1-22-1"; the candidate's application and certifications as submitted to the Village; and the email exchange between Trustee Crockett and the mayor referenced at the table.
On the interim inspector: the fee proposal from B&F Construction Code Services promised "in the morning," and any existing agreement between the Village and that firm covering the Gotion site.
On Gotion: the fire brigade certifications for all 19 members held by the fire chief, the shift schedules, the call-off notification protocol, and the inspection record for the September 1 visit.
On the cameras: installation permits and right-of-way authorizations for every ALPR location named in public comment, from the Village, Kankakee County Highway and IDOT District 3; plus any board authorization, contract or ordinance for ALPR use. This runs alongside the Request for Review on Manteno's ALPR audit logs, which is being filed with the Public Access Counselor this week.
On the record itself: minutes for every 2026 board meeting after June 25, none of which are posted, and the warrant list behind the September 8 bills.
If you were at the meeting, photographed one of the cameras, or hold any of the documents above, the form below reaches us directly.
If a verdict here is wrong, if you photographed one of the license plate cameras, or if you hold any document referenced at the meeting, we want to see it. Name and email are optional.