Telling The Truth In Clarendon Hills?

CLARENDON HILLS, IL – Clarendon Hills officials last week ordered the village's fire chief to stay away from work.

But if you say Chief Brian Leahy was suspended, you'll find disagreement with Village Manager Zach Creer.

In a memo and at Monday's Village Board meeting, Creer said Leahy has not been suspended. He said the chief is on paid administrative leave and is not subject to any discipline.

Last Tuesday, Creer informed the fire department that Leahy and administrative Lt. Jim Weil were on paid administrative leave.

At Monday's meeting, a resident said he was told that Leahy was suspended because of an investigation. Afterward, Patch asked Creer whether an inquiry was taking place. He declined to say.

Typically, employees are put on paid administrative leave during an investigation.

In early 2022, Creer, then the assistant village manager, provided wrong information to Patch about why then-Village Manager Kevin Barr was away from the office.

He was put in the awkward position of having to explain his boss' situation because then-Village President Len Austin did not return Patch's messages.

In an interview in January 2022, Creer told Patch that Barr was on personal leave and doing some work from home.

The problem: None of that was true.

Through public records requests, Patch discovered Austin had ordered Barr to go on paid administrative leave – in everyday language, suspended with pay.

The records also showed that one day after Barr's suspension, Creer asked the village's information technology vendor to cut off Barr's computer network access.

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

It would have been hard for Barr to do village work after he was removed from the network.

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

Barr's suspension began after a controversy associated with comments he made at a public meeting about Fire Chief Leahy's age.

When he returned, the Village Board amended his contract to make it easier to fire him if he made inappropriate jokes.

Barr left a few months ago, with Creer promoted to his job.

Austin did not seek re-election. Eric Tech ran unopposed for the position.

Tech did not return a message for comment last week, perhaps indicating he is following his predecessor's media-shy policy.