Village Board - Special Meeting

good evening and welcome to a special meeting of the village of mantino board of directors and trustees on thursday august the 20th of 2026 which i'm calling the meeting to order would you please rise the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all And now Reverend Don Lesher will lead the invocation. He is the village chaplain.

Thank you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you tonight and just say thank you again for being here. We acknowledge that. And I ask, Lord, that you would watch over each one of the families and board members represented here tonight and village workers. Thank you for their service. I pray for protection for them. Thank you, too, for the first responders that we have in this community, and just ask that you would give them safety and their families the same. And, Lord, for each of us, that we would be quick to turn to you, to follow you, and to do your will, Lord, as residents here. Thanks again for your protection. Watch over this meeting tonight. Give us the direction that you would have for us. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Roll call, please.

Berry. Yes. Boudreaux. Here. Bond. Here. Crockett. Here. Geske. Here. Zimbleman.

Here. Thank you. Public participation. The first speaker tonight is Emily Herman.

Hi community, I come in good spirits. Thank you for all the well wishes and prayers on my recovery from my last round. I'm taking it day by day. That is just the raw reality of cancer and that is part of what my organization does. disabilities, recovery scars, and health issues shouldn't have to be shameful. Everyone deserves grace, including my new pal John. It was bad timing, a coincidence, and something that we both admit could have been phrased more clearly because it appeared personal after fitting exactly what I had previously talked about. Please put the social media rumors and unkind words to rest. He did the right thing following his speech. No one would have known that, so here we are to clear the air. I think it's perfectly okay to have a human moment and step out for fresh air instead of using harsh words, scoffing, or discouraging one another in this room. Anger is a huge waste of time. I would also like to clear up rumors that have been started about my family and I. It affects my job, family life, and friends. One, I am not dying. It's kind of weird to say that about someone in front of their face or online. It makes me feel really weird. My leukemia is responding to treatment. Two, I am not a teenager. I'm a wife, mom, and homeowner. I'm 25. Thank you for inspiring me to cancel my Botox appointment. And three, my parents do sit with me. Yes, my dad has to attend because of his volunteer position. On top of him and my mom not ever missing one of my softball games, musicals, or JROTC award ceremonies. They are supportive and I can't stop them. I get my empathy, resilience, and respect for others from them. They are not here to defend me or solve my problems. They have enough on their plates. Don't put that on them too. They are here because we are family. Going forward, I will use my time for raising awareness when needed to make a change within the community. I would rather focus on one-on-one conversations at events where I am invited to have a tent table or booth. This isn't because of anything anyone has said to me on Facebook. I just don't have the energy to compete with the chaos sandwiching my efforts to make other young adults with cancer's day a little brighter. Public participation time should be a neutral time to share events, information, ask questions, and make suggestions on how to improve our lives together. What a privilege we have that has been wrongfully taken advantage of and disrespected. I will wait until this time is protected once again. As always, thank you to the donors who make the Cute and Acute Snail Mail Club possible for young adults with cancer. You are amazing, and I thank you for welcoming us to the community. Any other unkind words about me or John?

It's time.

Thank you. Consider it old news, and I don't want to see that on social media anymore.

Thank you, Emily. Our next speaker is Jake Smith.

Good evening. I know I spoke about my walk on Monday, but since we're here again, I guess I'll talk a bit more about it. On Sunday, September 6th, myself and my team will walk through the streets in the neighborhoods of Manteno. The walk is for 30 miles total to promote mental health and suicide awareness and a life loss to suicide with each mile. Anyone can join us at any point for as little or as much as they would like. I try my best to post updates on my Facebook page on what particular area, neighborhood, subdivision we're in or headed to next each year the walk has grown last year there were three of us who walked the entire 30 miles we've made many great memories over the years and i couldn't think of a better people better group of people to do it with That's my damn team. I'll go to war for them. I'll fight tooth and nail for those people. They all have their own personal reasons for why they walk. I couldn't be more proud of all of them. Emily joined us last year and walked all 30 miles while she was in the midst of chemo. That was truly inspiring. I couldn't be more proud to have joined forces and formed a partnership with her because she is a huge inspiration and a great role model and a huge asset to the community. And I hope that we can provide hope and inspiration to the younger generation with our advocacy efforts for our respective causes. It's very easy to get discouraged when going on social media and feeling like this community is a lost cause. But I'm here because I believe in Mantena. I have never felt more loved and supported in my life. And that's a testament to this great community. Because there are things that can bring us together no matter which side we're on, I want to thank members of the board whom have supported my cause. I want to thank local business owners. And I want to thank the Manteno Police Department for the support they have shown for my cause and everyone else in between. All are so appreciated. Thank you all for the great years of support. Here's to another exciting day on September 6th. Thank you, Manteno.

Thank you, Jake. Our next speaker is David Bergdahl.

Good evening. I have to say after what I saw Monday night that This has become by far the most intentionally dysfunctional community I've ever seen. The mayor has often suggested that you go and you watch other communities' meetings and see how they work. Our young man from Eastern Illinois, who spoke in the last couple of meetings, has talked about cooperation and working together. But in 32 years of attending various meetings, professionally and as an individual, I've seen boards with a mayor who was hated by all six trustees that worked just fine. I've also seen boards, where they had an election for five trustees, mayor and clerk, and they had three independents, one from each of three parties win, which basically put you on a six-trustee split. That board couldn't vote on paying the electric bill without having an argument. The intentional disagreement between this board is completely unnecessary. You put employees and other officials in horrible positions. You wonder why the clerk position has been difficult to deal with. It's because the clerk is the person who takes the brunt of all of your inability to agree. Also would be the attorney, except for the fact Four of you are spending more time protecting the former attorney, current attorney, whatever his status is now, than dealing with the realities of village issues. Some of these issues can be easily resolved. Look at other municipalities. I said from day one, I don't understand why. You didn't allow the mayor to appoint her own attorney, and you do the Bradley system of the trustees taking Mr. Cancar as the board attorney. You guys can't agree to disagree, but just have two attorneys. You'd just rather fight. As a former professional in this community, whatever. That's time. As a resident, I'm really getting tired of this stupidity. Thank you.

Thank you, David. The next name, does this say CJ Boudreaux?

Yeah, we don't have comments for us, so I just wanted to use my time that way. Hello, CJ Boudreaux, trustee of Manteno. Again, I apologize, as the mayor stated. I was gone on Monday. I had open house. That's my job. Obviously, I couldn't leave that. And I'll even say it now, if you did not know, I am the golf coach for the boys and girls team. So September 8th, which is our next village board meeting, I have a golf match at Reed Custer. So I will not be able to make that one either. Again, August and September are very busy for me with my job and responsibilities with that. But tonight, again, I feel like I watched the meeting, I saw all the noise, and I feel like we need to just not even talk about that and just move forward. So I just want to talk about some pilot things that are going on in our community with it. So it was mentioned once, but Paul then organized a community day a couple weeks ago. It was an awesome turnout. We had 41 people there. I was there. Trustee Dillman was there. A lot of people like to say words. It's showing up that kind of shows the true character. So those 40 people that showed up really showed to me that there is community that cares about our town. I know there's another one coming up in a couple weeks too. Lush Vineyards just opened up another new restaurant. It's a unique new thing for our town, something we don't have. I would check it out. I know it just had its grand opening. So there's new restaurants coming to town, which is great to see. There's opportunity involved. Sports season's kicked off. My golf teams are one-on-one, humble brag. I feel really good about that. Football kicks off Friday. All the other sports kick off. Go support your community that way, whether you do support Manteno, which I would favor, or if you support Mac, which is a private school, but again, I favor Manteno, so make sure you do that kind of stuff. I just want everyone to kind of know again, it is dysfunctional. I just heard that we had about 6,000 views on our last meeting and to me that's an embarrassment. Those views are not for support, those views are for entertainment. So we can all do better, we should do better. I even apologize for having that special meeting at 8 AM last week. I know that was unformed timing for Peggy and Mike, and I apologize for that. We need to communicate better. We need to do better. And that all needs to be kind of part of it. So we need to start working together. And then finally, as this will hopefully be his last meeting, I want to thank Chris LaRock for his 14 years of service to our village. um i want to thank our village clerk too chris you've done so much for us and it's kind of set up up on the pathway forward obviously big shoes to fill we appreciate you and that's all i have thank you so much thank you our next speaker is bob foresight

It was really nice to see how four trustees couldn't show up. And I'm sure that two of you run businesses and there's protocol when you call off. You don't call the city worker to tell him you're gonna be off. You don't call, it's like when I was working, I wouldn't call a salesman to tell him I wasn't coming in. I would call my boss, and I think here we have protocol too. You might want to call the clerk or you might want to call the mayor. And CJ, you made a comment to Peggy and Mike, and maybe you ought to apologize to them now, that if they can't be here, maybe they shouldn't be a trustee. Do you remember that at your committee meeting? Go back and listen to it. So if you can't be here, maybe you should resign. Because you're certainly not a role model for your children, for the students that you teach. And Joel, you can smile too. Where were you at Monday night? Was it sausage and pepperoni? I mean, really, last Monday, that was embarrassing here. You knew, you guys knew better. I can only see how the votes go tonight.

Thank you. We almost had a teenager that was gonna speak tonight, but he decided to leave, so he's not here. The final speaker is Karen Brzecki.

The only thing I wanted to point out, because there was some comments on Facebook that I responded to, everyone keeps saying four trustees, four trustees, four trustees. I would like to remind you that Mr. Boudreau did put in in advance that he was not going to be at the meeting and he was at work. So whether or not he showed up, he followed protocol. He did what he was supposed to do. And if I'm not mistaken, the person that made the comment about they shouldn't be a trustee was not Mr. Boudreau either. So. I just wanted to point that out. I'm not going to name names because that's inappropriate. I just want to say that it wasn't him.

Thank you.

Okay? But not showing up, everyone else, or not giving any kind of notice or letting people know, that was actually pretty rude.

Okay, that is the end of public participation. And at this time, I would like to ask for a motion to go into executive session. because we have to have a discussion about hiring and it's an important one before we vote on whether or not we're going to accept our two appointees.

I'll make the motion. Sorry. Oh, there it is. Sorry. For the record, I just want to put it out there. So pursuant to 5 ILCS 120 slash 2 of the Open Meetings Act, basically this is the public body may hold closed meetings to consider the following subjects, the appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees. So we just have to put that on the record before the vote, too. OK.

There's a motion by Berry, second by Vaughn. Roll call, please.

Berry? Yes. Bonn? Yes. Boudreaux? Yes. Crockett? Yes. Geske? Yes. Zimbleman?

Yes.

All right. At this time, I'm going to ask the public to step outside. Hopefully, it won't take more than 10 or 15 minutes. We'll call you back in when we're done.

I'll make that motion.

I'll second. Boudreaux? Yes. Crockett? Yes. Berry? Yes. Vaughn? Yes. Geske? Yes. Zimbelman?

Yes.

All right. We are here to make a motion.

I'll make that motion. I'll second.

Barry? Yes. Boudreaux? Yes. Vaughn? Yes. Crockett? Yes. Geske? Yes. Zimbleman?

Yes.

Wow, look at that.

Wow, it could actually happen, can't it?

The next motion to appoint Jim Bays is being tabled because there are trustees.

we need to make a motion for that i'll make a motion to table second yes i guess good woodrow yes geske yes barry yes vaughn yes crockett zimbal yes there are a couple things yes thank you

A motion carries. Thank you, everybody. Now, because they want the motion for Jim Pays, now we have, I've been asked to have a special meeting, another special meeting on Tuesday, August the 25th at 6 p.m. where we will handle this motion.

So do I have a motion to do that? Okay, so...

You will get notice that there will be a special meeting on August 25th at 6 o'clock here. All right, new business. Consideration, a motion to make payment of the bills in the amount of $123,948.81, including TIF number three at zero dollars.

I have a question about that. On the HR Green Bill, Chris, when do they, do we submit that bill to Goshen, or how do they pay the $3,500? $3,500.

Yeah, anything that comes through that they've done work for Goshen, we invoice Goshen, and then they send us a check.

Okay, and then on this thing, too, is the MSA general contract engineering services. I know that was some of the stuff for the parking lot on there. You had to add some time into the parking lot that we're looking at? Potentially, yeah. Most likely, yes. Okay. I'll make a motion.

Motion by Berry. Second. Second by Boudreau.

Berry. Yes. Boudreau. Yes. Vaughn. Yes. Crockett. Yes. Geske. Yes. Zimbleman.

Yes. Motion carries. All right. The only other thing I'm going to say is that school is in session. Be careful. Watch out for the kids on the roads. And thanks again to Paul Zenz for volunteering. And he had 47 people, I think, that showed up. and they filled 100 bags with garbage, and guess what? They're going to do it again on September 13th. So that's a Sunday. Anybody who wants to join them is welcome. I think they meet over here at the square. Is that right?

I think they usually start there, yeah.

All right. And the other thing that I tried to announce at the last meeting is the Knights of Columbus Tootsie Roll Drive that's going to take place September 18 and 19 at designated locations in Manteno, which we've done every year for the last probably 15 or 20 years. With that, I'm going to ask for an adjournment. I need a motion.

Make the motion.

Motion by Berry. Second. Second by Geske.

Berry. Yes. Geske. Yes. Boudreaux. Yes. Vaughn.

Yes.

Crockett. Yes. Zimpleman.

Yes.

Thank you.

Meeting is adjourned.