Burr Ridge Mayor And Rival Battle Over Chair: Trustee

Burr Ridge IL

12 February, 2021

1:39 PM

Description

BURR RIDGE, IL — At this week's Burr Ridge Village Board meeting, Trustee Zach Mottl sat in Mayor Gary Grasso's seat in the boardroom, while Grasso presided over the meeting remotely. When Grasso saw Mottl was sitting in the chair before the meeting Monday, he ordered the trustee to move, Mottl told Patch in an interview Friday. "He got mad. I told him that it was the people's chair," Mottl said. The trustee stayed in the mayor's chair, and Grasso ordered village staff to cut the video in the boardroom, Mottl said. So no one in the room could be seen on camera during the meeting, including the mayor's trustee allies, Guy Franzese and Joe Snyder, who, like Mottl, attended in person. Those connected remotely, including Grasso, were in the meeting video. Mottl said he was only following the mayor's advice. Last year, the mayor and the trustees barred Mottl from taking part in meetings by telephone, saying he must attend in person or through Zoom. However, Mottl refused to use Zoom, saying the program was compromised by the Chinese Communist Party. He started showing up in person. At recent meetings, though, Mottl noticed the camera only focused on the officials in the front — the mayor, the village attorney and the village administrator — not any of the trustees. So Mottl said he put his nameplate on the dais in front of the mayor's chair and sat there. "The mayor said the people have a right to see us," Mottl said. Grasso, who is running unopposed for re-election in the April 6 election, appeared to address the chair controversy in an email exchange with Mottl on Thursday about the trustee's public records requests. "I will be repurposing your Board Room chair since you refused to sit in it at the last meeting," Grasso said. In an email to Patch on Friday, Grasso said, "If he so wants to sit in the Mayor's chair he could have run again for Mayor this April — and again be badly beaten. He chose to run instead for Trustee and since he did and would not move to his chair which was in the video viewing frame, I would not facilitate his immaturity." In the 2019 mayor's election, Grasso defeated Mottl with a two-thirds majority. Mottl and Grasso have tangled about a number of issues ever since.