Another Problem With Clarendon Hills Story

CLARENDON HILLS, IL – Clarendon Hills' story on what happened to its village manager crumbled a bit more Tuesday.

In January, the village said its manager, Kevin Barr, was on personal leave and doing some work from home.

Over the last month, Patch has discovered that the village's version of events was false. Patch obtained documents showing that Barr was on administrative leave – in other words, suspended with pay. Other records show the village cut off Barr's access to its computer network.

Asked to explain the computer situation earlier this month, Assistant Village Manager Zach Creer said in an email that the village suffered a "potential security breach" on Jan. 21, three days after Barr's user status was removed. It was investigated by the village's information technology consultant, Creer said.

That problem caused access issues for Barr, Creer said.

"At that point, Kevin was out of town anyways," Creer said. "Kevin and I corresponded throughout his leave on work issues to make sure that the Village still functioned in his absence, which I at least partially count as 'working from home.'"

Last week, Patch submitted a public records request for any emails or other correspondence about a security breach of the computer system on Jan. 21.

On Tuesday, the village's public records officer, Vicki Pries, responded, "We have conducted a search of our records and found no responsive records to this request."

Patch left messages Tuesday morning with Creer, Barr and Village President Les Austin. They were not returned.

Austin and Barr have not responded to any of Patch's messages since January.

On Jan. 17, Austin ordered Barr to take personal leave, to which the manager objected. On Feb. 4, Barr returned to work, with Creer having his boss' network access restored.

On Feb. 7, the Village Board approved a new contract for Barr, making it easier to fire him.