'I Just Overreacted': Clarendon Hills Official

CLARENDON HILLS, IL — The fire chief of Clarendon Hills sought at this week's Village Board meeting to clarify the cost of a ladder truck, a long-running controversy.

After the chief spoke, a trustee said he didn't appreciate the clarification.

During the meeting, Fire Chief Brian Leahy said he wanted to make sure everyone understood the history of the price of a new ladder truck. That's a piece of equipment that the fire department wants but village officials are questioning.

Leahy said the clarification was coming in response to questions Trustee Greg Jordan asked two weeks earlier.

The chief said the truck had been priced at $1.2 million in village documents. But last August, Village Manager Kevin Barr issued a memo for a board meeting that stated the vehicle would cost $1 million.

Leahy said he figured Barr got the number from a consultant's study. Because of cost hikes for materials, the village later discovered the truck's price had risen to about $1.4 million.

The village's expectation on the cost of the truck went up by $200,000, not $400,000, the chief said.

"The study didn't show any data about how the ($1 million) estimate was determined," Leahy said. "I hope this information can clarify all the prices that have been floating around there and all this confusion about what a ladder truck costs and what a ladder truck doesn't cost."

In response, Jordan expressed unhappiness with Leahy's comments.

"I respectfully don't appreciate that Chief Leahy is calling me out for accurately reciting what happened at that meeting and what was in the report and what Chief Leahy said following the issuance of the report," Jordan said.

Leahy said, "I would say that I wasn't the guy who reported it."

In an interview Friday, Jordan, a lawyer, said he was coming off long days of a trial when he reacted to Leahy.

"I mistook his comment saying to me that I was the one who misunderstood the situation," Jordan said. "He was trying to explain that the $1 million came from the fire study. At the time, he didn't make that clear. I thought he was calling me out."

He continued, "I just overreacted. There's no excuse for me overreacting. He was not wrong. I take full responsibility."