Burr Ridge Official Accused Of Ethnic Slurs Again

BURR RIDGE, IL — For a third time, the Burr Ridge Village Board this week censured one of its members, accusing him of repeatedly using an ethnic slur that the board said referred to Italian Americans. This time, however, the mayor did not prevent the targeted trustee, Zach Mottl, from voting on the censure.

"I object to this censure. It is factually and legally baseless," Mottl said at Monday's meeting, which officials were connected to remotely. "I feel this is nothing more than an attempt to silence me and unconstitutionally obstruct me from performing my duties as trustee."

Trustee Al Paveza supported the censure resolution.

"When a trustee upsets a meeting like Truste Mottl did at the last meeting with his yelling and ranting and raging, I think this is the least we could do," Paveza said.

When the board voted on the second censure resolution two weeks ago, Mayor Gary Grasso blocked Mottl from voting. On Monday, Mottl insisted he had the right to take part.

"I do get to vote on this, and I will vote no," Mottl said.

Grasso said he wanted to make the point that he did not believe the rules allowed Mottl to vote on such an issue, "but I cannot stop you from voting. If you wish to vote, go right ahead."

"I'm voting no," Mottl responded. "You did stop me from voting at the last meeting."

The clerk counted Mottl's vote in the tally, 5-1.

Grasso was referring to a village rule that says trustees shall not vote when they are "directly or indirectly interested in the question." But the provision does not specifically delegate to the mayor or board the power to prevent a member from voting. It also does not define "interest."

After the vote, Trustee Guy Franzese asked for a written legal opinion on whether someone can vote in such matters. Grasso said he could get one from the village's attorney, Mike Durkin.

Durkin, who was taking part in the meeting, said a trustee may be prevented from voting under the local rule.

However, Ben Silver, an attorney for the Elmhurst-based Citizens Advocacy Center, told Patch two weeks ago that the mayor does not have any power to prevent an elected representative from voting. That decision rests with the elected representatives themselves, he said.

The latest resolution to censure Mottl cites his comments at the recent meeting in which he accused the village administrator and the finance director of lying and being incompetent. It also noted he uttered ethnic slurs against Mayor Gary Grasso, an Italian American, at that meeting. Mottl called Grasso a mobster several times during a discussion before the vote on his last censure, which also was for calling the mayor a mobster.

The resolution said Mottl directed an ethnic slur at Trustee Tony Schiappa, also an Italian American. Mottl called Schiappa a mobster.

The resolution also took Mottl to task for saying Trustee Al Paveza had been on the board for too long. It referred to other disparaging remarks about Paveza. During the meeting, Mottl interrupted Paveza to say, "You told me you didn't want any more blacks to come to the village. Isn't that what you told me?"

Paveza did not respond to the charge, but later told Burr Ridge Patch that he did not make such a comment.

Mottl has said before that his mobster references have nothing to do with Grasso's ethnicity. Rather, he said he was speaking about the mayor's behavior.

He was referring to an issue that came up during Grasso's unsuccessful 2018 bid for the Republican nomination for attorney general. During the campaign, Champaign CBS affiliate WCIA ran a story about Grasso titled, "Shady campaign cash flows to GOP candidate." The story detailed a donation from a person that federal authorities indicated had connections to a mobster.

The censures serve as reprimands and have no enforcement mechanisms.