Mysterious village spending spiraling out of control

Burr Ridge IL

04 January, 2021

11:48 AM

Description

This is an urgent plea to Burr Ridge residents to pay close attention to our upcoming village board meetings. I'm going to be asking a lot of questions about personnel issues and undocumented spending by Mayor Gary Grasso, spending that seems to always win approval from Grasso's rubber-stamp board. Is the spending part of a cruel scheme to force out senior workers at the peak of their career? If so, why? Is it to make way for less experienced staff that may be less judicious and selective, staff that can perhaps be better influenced and controlled? If the December 14 board meeting is any indication, I won't be getting many answers. That's where you, the taxpayers, come in – demand that board members and Grasso explain how your money is being spent. At the December meeting, I asked about $46,000 in approved payments to cover legal expenses, approved even though no one knew what services were provided. More than half of the expense, $26,000, went to satisfy a single November 19 bill from the village solicitor, Mike Durkin's firm. At the meeting, I asked Durkin, and one of his attorneys, how they justified the bill. They couldn't provide an answer. Let me repeat: the law firm, specifically the two attorneys, Durkin and Wolf, who billed the village for thousands in legal services could not, or would not, tell the Board what the billing was for. Recent legal bills stand out because legal work in earlier bills was adequately documented. Per a December 18 Patch story, for instance, the board in "November approved $25,000 in spending for (Durkin's firm), but the village's vendor list divided the expenditures into categories such as Sterigenics, public records requests, investigation of complaints and property condemnations, among others." This is a large and growing issue. When I asked about the startling increase in Burr Ridge legal spending back in February, I was brushed off and even blamed for asking too many questions about it. And the problem has gotten worse. Burr Ridge is now on a trajectory to spend much more per resident on legal fees than nearby Elmhurst, a much larger town. Again per the more recent Patch article: "If current rates continue, Burr Ridge is set to spend $27 per resident on legal spending in the next year, compared with $19 in Elmhurst." It almost seems like the Mayor and his rubber-stamp board are trying to spend as much money on lawyers as possible. Adding to the fiscal mystery was another spending discrepancy which appeared in the accounts payable report for the two-week period starting on November 14 and ending November 28. In it is a $93,000 line item under "Administration," which the board approved without understanding how that large and unusual lump of money was being spent. I objected, demanding an explanation, but none was given. I'm guessing that some of the money went towards Administrator Doug Pollock's termination agreement, but that was only $38,000. Where did the rest of it go? No one would say. Finally, the mystery continues around the ongoing suspension of Finance Director Jerry Sapp. It makes no sense. Grasso recently noted that Jerry deserves some of the credit for a budget award the village received. But it was Grasso who suspended Jerry to make way for "younger qualified candidates." The "younger people" comment along with other circumstances involved in this mistreatment of our long-time staff members exposes the village to a seven-figure lawsuit suit, which we may be able to avert if we bring Jerry back. It's also simply the right thing to do to bring him back. Please join me in demanding full transparency of where and why your tax money is being spent. Help me demand fair and right treatment of our award-winning staff member before it's too late. Failure to do so could leave Burr Ridge stuck in a fiscal and legal mess so deep that vital services, roads, and sidewalks will be sacrificed to get us out.