Village Board - Special Meeting

Are we good to go? Are we? Is the meeting being taped? I don't think so until the TVs are on. He said just a minute.

Good morning. Yet again, Joel Geske and the other three members of the Manteno Choice Party are trying to illegally hold a meeting of the Manteno Village Board of Trustees to ram through their agenda without any oversight. Since losing to me in the race for the mayor of Manteno, Geske has repeatedly tried to rubber stamp his agenda by calling board meetings in violation of the law. This is now the second time that Joel Geske has broken Manteno law when calling a special board meeting for September the 16th, 2026 at 7 a.m. Section 1-6-3 of the Manteno Code states that special meetings may be held at any time on call of the president or any two 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. The village clerk was not involved at all in the calling of the September 16th special meeting. The law is clear and Geske is refusing to follow it. 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. But it's worse than that. Geske publicly states that he wants to work together to improve Mantino, but what did he put on the agenda for his special meeting? First, he wants to change the record of the Board of Trustees meetings. Geske put two changes to the minutes of previous board meetings to reflect his version of what happened at those meetings. Geske put an amendment to the previously approved August 3rd, 2026 regular meeting minutes of the Board of Trustees. As any observer of municipal board meetings can see, minutes of board meetings are routinely approved with no discussion. So why would Geske want to bring up minutes from over a month ago? Because at the August 3rd meeting, Geske tried to ram through the reappointment of his attorney, Joe Kankar, after the meeting had already been adjourned. Geske is literally trying to rewrite the history of what happened at the board meeting because he couldn't get his way at the meeting. Geske is then trying to approve a contract with BNF Construction Code Services. I have not seen that agreement, No attorney has reviewed that contract and there has been no discussion of the contract. Geske is trying to remove my authority as the duly elected mayor of Manteno and the executive by blocking me from appointing vital employees of the village needs. I began discussions to hire a building director code enforcement officer over a month ago. I have had multiple discussions with the board to appoint Jim Pace as building director. Jim has appeared before the board and met individually with board members. Instead of approving Mr. Pace, Geske took it upon himself with no discussion or agreement from me as mayor to put this contract together. Geske's role as a trustee is to provide oversight, not to run the day-to-day functions of the village. Geske's actions violates the separation of powers in Manteno and creates nothing but chaos and confusion. The ultimate question is, what is Geske trying to hide? Why is he even calling a special meeting? There is a regular meeting of the Board of Trustees on September 21, merely five days after this special meeting. Why can't whatever he wants to do wait five days? And why is he calling a meeting of the Board of Trustees at seven o'clock in the morning? Why can't he wait for a normal, previously scheduled meeting that everyone in the public can attend? Geske knows what he is doing. He is violating the law, violating his role as trustee, and violating the trust of the citizens of Manteno. Thank you.

Since the mayor's leaving the meeting, I guess we need to appoint pro tem. I would motion to approve CJ Boudreau as the mayor pro tem.

I'll second.

I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. I can stay here though, right?

Or do I need to go? Go wherever you'd like, sir. Sure.

All right, I'll start with roll call. Mike Berry? C.J. Boudreaux, I'm here. Peggy Vaughan? Todd Crockett? Here. Joel Geske? Here. Annette Zivelman?

Here.

Mayor Lamoure? She's left. Okay, we need to appoint a recording secretary since we do not currently have a clerk. Is anyone in favor of doing that? I'm just going to keep the minutes for this meeting.

I can do that if you'd like.

Okay. Motion for Joel Guskey to be the recording secretary. I'll make the motion. Motion by Todd.

I'll second.

Second by Zimbleman. All in favor? Aye. Anybody against? Okay, the first motion on the thing. Let me just pull it up so I have it exactly right. Sorry.

CJ, I'm sorry, before we start, can we just have a quick moment of silence for the passing of previous trustee Wendell Phillips? Absolutely. Thank you.

Okay, first motion on the agenda. A motion to re, or a motion to, nope, we did that one, sorry. A motion to approve an amendment to the previously approved August 3rd, 2026 regular meeting minutes of the Board of Trustees. Just to clarify for those that aren't there, 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. At that meeting, that 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 Cancar for village and, I'm sorry, for legal matters when it comes to lawsuits and then negotiations with the village staff. Oh, what's that? Is there any discussion needed on this? Okay, I'll take a motion. I'll make that motion. Motion by Crockett.

Second.

Second by Zimelman. Crockett? Yes. Zimelman?

Yes.

Gaffsky? Yes. Boudreaux? I vote yes too. All right, the next one is a motion to approve the August 17th, 2026 regular meeting minutes to the Board of Trustees. Is there any discussion needed on this one?

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 actually took place on the 17th.

Okay, just correcting the date. All right, I'll take a motion to approve these minutes. I'll move. Motion by Geske. I'll second. Second by Crockett. Geske? Yes. Crockett? Yes. Zimbleman?

Yes.

And I vote yes. uh... and finally a motion to approve a professional service agreement was bnf construction code service incorporated uh... this has been discussed at previous board meetings here too uh... and committee meetings i know i i know we've talked talked i think joey you talk to his uh... trustee barry he's in favor of this i'm also he said he's unfortunate i will be here today uh... for this uh... this is just for services particularly on larger non-housing kind of stuff like Goshen and other things too, correct?

Yes. The purpose behind us wanting this is there are regular inspections that are required out at Goshen and part of Trustee Berry and myself's conversation along with Chief Peterson was that we need to continue that and we need to have people who are qualified to do those inspections. That's why both myself and Trustee Berry were in favor of having BNF Technical do it. 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 And I think we were pretty favorable I think Mike me when we discussed it and I heard Todd kind of discussing it too that the rates are very competitive compared to most Okay, I'll take a motion to approve this agreement with B and F. I'll make that motion. Motion by Crockett.

I'll second.

Second by Zimbleman. Crockett? Yes. Zimbleman?

Yes.

Geske? Yes. And I vote yes. All right, public participation. We just have two. First up is George Reichardt.

So first of all, is this on? First of all, I come in here, there's no agenda at the door for the public, so it makes me feel like we're not wanted here. And there was no sign-up sheet for participation for the public here. Joel got me a sign-up sheet, but I didn't realize that's the way we conduct things here. Also... I looked at the way the agenda's written up. It looks like a five-year-old wrote it up. There's no heading on it or anything. It looks horrible the way it's written up. That's not the way we do things here. And I don't understand why we have to have a meeting the half a week before we have the normal board meeting, because you're getting paid, you're getting paid, you're getting paid, and you're getting paid. And it's ridiculous. We're worried about money with the village, and you guys are just having these special meetings when it's not necessary. We had a guy for a code enforcement officer lined up. I don't know. He seemed okay to me. He only wanted $60,000 a year. He didn't want any health insurance, and he wanted a vehicle. What were we paying Ryan Marion? I heard we were paying him like $70,000, $80,000 a year. So just the way this whole meeting is going down, it doesn't look good for the village. You know, I just can't believe what you guys are doing is destroying this village. I'm sorry, but that's what you're doing. I just don't see no rhyme or reason to the way you're doing this. Thank you. Thank you, George.

All right, and then the last speaker is John Martin. John Martin, Antino.

Every meeting I come to, the mayor talks, voice their opinion. I want to hear Mike's opinion, CJ, Peggy, Todd, Joel, and Annette's opinion. We might not agree with everybody, but I still want to hear it. That's all I have to say.

All right. Thank you, John. Very briefly.

Okay, very briefly, based on what here, you know what, I've been on the fence whether or not I actually want to run for trustee. Actually, what happens here, I got to tell you, I'm doing it. This is, you don't represent me, you don't represent my interest, you don't represent, you have not. Hiring a firm when you're telling us we can't afford it, have we seen the numbers? Has anyone run the numbers? Have we seen them? Has the public seen them? We haven't seen them. That's a FOIA request. It's a simple FOIA request. We're allowed to see those numbers. You're telling us we can't afford a full-time code inspector, yet we can afford to hire subcontractors. We paid the previous administrator $20,000. Did we get our money's worth? I don't think so. So, no. I don't think you're representing me. I don't think you're representing our interests. 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. I second it.

All right. We got to sign up, guys, in time with that stuff, too. I appreciate your comments. I know you came in late. All right. I will take a motion to adjourn.

Hey, he's up. I'm out.

Bill. OK, it's fine. You're fine. We are running an official meeting today. Well, is it?

So I have a question. Todd, Joel, what is your end game? What's your purpose? you lost sight of like the entire village are you just doing it for your select few or is it an ego thing i mean really what is the purpose of you guys always fighting with the mayor and not moving forward this is so unproductive such a waste of time it's it's just a joke i mean you guys know right i hope that you're in tune with what's being said out in the community out in other communities about mantino and the way things are run It's really sad. I mean, you know, for whatever, all the nice stuff that's happened in Manteno, and again, that's why I moved here, because, you know, it's a nice village, but you guys are single-handedly destroying it. So the question is, and I'd love to, you know, I think maybe there should be a debate as to what you guys are doing. Actually, answer the question. But you guys, you know, you sit there and smile, smirk, and you say nothing, like that. I mean, yeah, and you nod your head. So you think you're mayor, you nod. You lost. But I think your ego can't handle the fact that you lost to a woman. That's pretty clear. Thanks.

Thank you. All right, I will take a motion to adjourn this special meeting.

Before we do that, can we have some comments?

Oh, sure, yeah. Todd, do you have any comments?

I have nothing. Joel? I'd like to address some of the allegations made by the mayor today. One, in regards to this meeting being illegal, 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 or five clerks in the last year. That being said, we took every process that we wanted to. or that was necessary to make this meeting legal. Why did we have a special meeting instead of waiting for next Monday? Well, as the mayor's told us, she controls the agenda on Mondays and will not allow us to put on the agenda anything that we wish to discuss. So the only way for us to get those through is through calling a special meeting. That's exactly what we did. As far as allegations that Mr. Reichert made that we're doing this simply to get paid, I would ask you to take a look at how our payment is.

We get paid a limited number of years. We get paid up to...

I see what's going on.

George, I'm going to ask you to leave if you cannot behave yourself.

I don't care. It's a legal meeting. I'll go. Then please leave. You want me to go? Take a vote on it.

Please leave, George, if you're going to disrupt.

You guys all lost my respect.

So that's the reason why we had to have the special meeting. And the other trustees were all advised. And yes, they had work obligations. It's unfortunate, but they were not opposed either. So those are the only comments I have. Thank you.

Zimbleman?

No, none.

I don't have any comments for today. So I will take a motion to adjourn. I'll make the motion. Motion by Crockett. Second. Second by Geske. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. All right, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you guys so much for watching.