More Burr Ridge Candor On 2020 Ousters Of Officials

BURR RIDGE, IL – Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso and his Village Board allies launched an effort a few years ago to dismiss both the village administrator and finance director, both longtime employees.

At the time, Grasso and six of the seven trustees kept their lips zipped on what they were doing.

To their dismay, then-Trustee Zach Mottl broke the silence and openly opposed the ousters of Village Administrator Doug Pollock and Finance Director Jerry Sapp.

At last week's Village Board meeting, though, Grasso showed perhaps the most candor publicly about those decisions in 2020. But he did not directly refer to the ousters.

He pointed to the reduction in the administration department's budget to $470,000 this year, from $813,000 in 2021.

"Remember we took significant steps to look at administration, finance and community development, and we made some significant adjustments and improved the quality of the service we now have in those areas," Grasso told the board.

He said the caliber of the people in the departments improved.

"Remember the difficult decisions we made to get to what we think is a much better administration and especially in the areas of administration, finance and community development," he said. "In my opinion as mayor, we have immensely increased the professionalism and the quality of those areas of our high-level services, and you're seeing the results of that in what's happening in the budget of the services rendered to residents."

It was unclear whether the administration budget numbers included the nearly $300,000 spent to oust Sapp, who died in 2022. Patch left an emailed message with Grasso.