Creation of court latest example of Grasso enriching himself

An email that Mayor Gary Grasso inadvertently sent to me in August shows that he’s involved in an effort to win a casino license in the Village of Matteson.

That’s his business and that’s fine. Where it gets a little dicey is the connection to Matteson of the judge for our newly created local court. Denise Filan, whom the taxpayers of Burr Ridge will pay $225 an hour starting in January, is a lawyer in the law firm, Odelson & Sterk, Ltd., that serves as general counsel for Matteson. So it appears that Burr Ridge will be paying a law firm that represents a Village where Grasso has a financial interest. Not a good optic.

It’s just another example of Grasso’s governing style that rewards him and his cronies and ends up costing us more money -- and in some cases our health. The Patch just reported that some restaurants, including the Capri Ristorante run by Grasso’s good friend GiGi Rovito, are allowing indoor dining in direct defiance of the governor’s orders banning it. I’ve checked in a few times and there appears to be no social distancing or capacity constraints at Capri. It’s been packed every time I visited. Grasso told the Patch that the Village is not in a position to close restaurants offering indoor dining. Does this mean he would rather the State Police or National Guard come in and enforce the law?

It goes on. The village Board recently approved a question for the April ballot that, with voter approval, will double the mayor’s salary from $6,000 a year to 12,000 a year. Grasso had asked for a 500 percent increase, from $6,000 a year to $30,000 a year.

Cost estimates for putting the question on the ballot range from $10,000 to $15,000. This will be on top of the $5,000 Grasso spent mailing letters to residents making his case for the raise. The proposed raise is an outlier: the mayors of neighboring towns, some with much higher populations than ours, earn in the $5,000 a year to $10,000 a year range. Some mayors work for no salary at all.

And even costlier issue, on not just an economic scale but a personal one, is Grasso’s handling of employment issues surrounding the village staff. Our Finance Director, Jerry Sapp, has been on forced leave for 10 weeks over anxiety issues -- anxiety, Jerry explained to me, caused by Grasso pressuring to force him out to make way for “younger people.”

Early on, Jerry’s doctors gave him a clean bill of health and he has assured me that he wants to return to work, but he’s being told he can’t return to work. Grasso, along with our Attorney, Mike Durkin, are not being forthright with the Board either. They are controlling and filtering information. By doing so, it appears they are misleading the Board about Jerry and trying to force him out. Our police officers get three chances at an independent evaluation when there is an issue. Is it too much to ask that our long-time Finance Director get the same treatment?

It’s certainly the kind and right thing to allow him to return, but it’s also fiscally prudent. Jerry’s absence over 10 weeks has, by my estimates, cost the village over $100,000 and the meter is still running. That figure includes paying Jerry $66 an hour while he’s on leave, paying for expensive and unnecessary forensic psychological evaluations, paying for a myriad of legal work to keep Jerry away, and paying $98 an hour for the services of a temporary rent-a-finance director. Not surprisingly, the owner of the firm providing this expensive temporary help is an old friend of Grasso’s, according to what the Mayor told the Board.

But the potential big-ticket item is the liability exposure stemming from Grasso's “bring younger people in” comment, one repeated during a recent board meeting by Trustee Al Paveza. Jerry, 61, would have every right to bring not only an age discrimination lawsuit, but could cite other allegations of unfair treatment given the additional circumstances surrounding his leave. As an employer, I know how costly this could get. The village is potentially looking at a seven-figure lawsuit. I worry that Board members may even face personal liability if the Village’s corporate shield is pierced and our insurance coverages are exceeded.

The Board recently held meetings, closed to the public, to discuss Jerry’s employment future and at the same time, the futures of other Village staffers. Grasso said, “It’s a ying and yang…this for that” scenario and let the Board know we couldn’t even do these things legally next year if we wait. The recordings of those meetings, which I have recently listened to, should be made public. What I heard was horrifying and wrong in so many ways, including what seemed to me, to be illegal actions. I have requested to add an agenda item to the next meeting, so that the Board may have a discussion about releasing these recordings immediately. Grasso replied via email that “these are not agenda items,” so I guess it will not be added. Will I be allowed to discuss it anyway or will Grasso and the rubber-stamp Board prevent me from speaking about issues they don’t want discussed?

Tell your Mayor and your Board members that running our Village this way is no longer acceptable. We are hardly living up to our motto of Burr Ridge being “A Very Special Place.”