COD Board Members Claim Rival Member Tried to Have Them Arrested

Photo caption: (From left to right) Erin Birt, Dianne McGuire and Deanne Mazzochi

The drama continues to find the College of DuPage Board of Trustees.

Just days after chairwoman Katherine Hamilton abruptly quit, two trustees are alleging acting chairwoman Deanne Mazzochi, their rival on the board, requested that the college president have campus police arrested them for taking copies of legal bills without permission, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Mazzochi claims this never happened.

But she does say that trustees Dianne McGuire and Erin Birt failed to follow protocol when they went to review the college’s legal bills for August, September, October and November and ended up leaving the Glen Ellyn campus with roughly 500 pages of material, according to the Daily Herald.

McGuire wanted to review the legal documents since the school’s legal bills went up significantly since April -- as the college has dealt with a series of internal investigation and the firing of three top administrators, including the former President Robert Breuder, according to the newspaper. The trustees were supposed to follow standard restrictions, which required someone watch them while they looked at the documents, they weren’t allowed to take any photographs of the documents and any hand-written notes had to be copied.

“We were preparing for the (board) meeting for Thursday, and requested copies so that we can thoroughly review invoices that must be approved by the board,” Birt told the Chicago Tribune. “(Mazzochi) attempted to order the interim president to have us arrested if we left with copies of documents, which is completely unreasonable.”

With Hamilton’s departure, the COD board is left split 3-3 as it faces several pressing issues, including the search for a new president and possible sanctions from its accrediting agency, the newspaper reports.

Read more on the Chicago Tribune.