More Doubt On Clarendon Hills' Explanation

CLARENDON HILLS, IL — Another part of Clarendon Hills' explanation about Village Manager Kevin Barr's situation earlier this year has come under doubt.

In late January, Assistant Village Manager Zach Creer told Patch that Barr was on personal leave, doing some work from home.

Patch has already obtained village emails showing that Village President Len Austin placed Barr on administrative leave, not personal. Creer was copied on the messages.

On Monday, Patch received village emails through a public records request that indicate Barr would have had trouble doing work while he was ordered to stay away.

On Jan. 18, one day after Barr's leave began, Creer asked the village's information technology vendor to cut off Barr's network access.

"Please remove user Kevin Barr," Creer said in an email. "Please see President Austin's email placing him on administrative leave."

More than two weeks later, on Feb. 4, Creer requested the vendor re-activate Barr's user status.

In an email to Patch on Monday, Creer said the village suffered a "potential security breach" that was investigated by its IT consultant on Jan. 21, three days after Barr's user status was removed. That problem caused access issues for Barr, he 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.'"

Creer also defended his statement in January that Barr was on personal leave. He pointed to an entry on the Business & Learning Resources website about personal leave.

The website states that personal leave is a "catch-all term" used to describe any form of employee leave. The term, according to the website, is commonly used to describe short-term absences that don't full under defined sick, medical and vacation leave policies.

Such leave can involve school appointments and bereavement leave, the website states.

"I never said he was never on administrative leave, but have just stated that personal leave is a catch-all term that includes any employee leave," Creer said.

Creer did not explain why he said internally that Barr was on administrative leave, but told the public it was personal. He also has not answered whether Austin ordered him to give the explanation in January.

In an email to Patch a couple of weeks ago, Creer also said "personal leave" was a catch-all term.

"Vagueness is not mischaracterization," he said at the time.

Since January, Patch has left repeated messages with Austin about Barr's status. At one point, Patch asked whether Barr's personal leave was actually "backdoor administrative leave."

Austin returned none of the messages. Austin said at a recent meeting that Barr has his complete support.