Burr Ridge Official Wants Colleagues Reprimanded

BURR RIDGE, IL — This week, the Burr Ridge Village Board voted for a resolution asking Trustee Zach Mottl to resign and reprimanding him for the fourth time.

The censure resolution was adopted without any debate — no zingers, no flashes of anger, no condemnations. That was likely because Trustee Zach Mottl wasn't at the meeting — either remotely or in person — to speak out against the resolution.

"I had a personal issue that I needed to deal with," Mottl said in an email to Patch. "I was sorry I couldn't make the meeting."

This time, the censure was for his public suggestions that the local police force may be corrupt and that the village attorney wanted a local court so that he could increase his legal fees.

Mottl has been censured before for repeatedly calling Mayor Gary Grasso a "mobster," with the board saying it was an ethnic slur against the Italian American leader. Mottl was first reprimanded because trustees said he had disparaged village employees. The board does not have the power to remove Mottl.

In the second censure vote, Grasso barred Mottl from voting, citing a rule in the village code that says members "shall not vote" when they are "directly or indirectly interested in the question."

Afterward, Patch ran a story quoting Ben Silver, an attorney with the Elmhurst-based Citizens Advocacy Center, who said the mayor did not have the power to prevent elected representatives from voting.

In the same story, Grasso, a lawyer, defended his decision. The next time around, he allowed Mottl's vote to be recorded, but did not concede the legal point. Mike Durkin, the village's attorney, said a trustee could be prevented from voting.

In a twist Friday, Mottl said Grasso should stick with his policy of not allowing trustees to vote on issues that involve themselves. And he had a reason. He is asking Village Administrator Doug Pollock to place a resolution of censure for the mayor and the other five trustees on the next meeting agenda.

"The censure vote will be for their gross incompetence, lying, deceit and ad hominem attacks on their fellow trustee, me, who is just trying to do his job and improve the village," Mottl said in an email to Patch. "Please make sure that they are reminded that, according to Grasso‘s rules, none of them are allowed to vote because the censure is about them. It seems I will be the only one who will be voting on the censure. I expect the vote will be unanimous."

The one catch is whether Pollock or Grasso would allow such a resolution on the meeting agenda. But if they did and the mayor stuck to his interpretation of the village code, Mottl would be the only one voting.

Grasso could not be reached for immediate comment.