Niles Board Meeting Starts and Abruptly Ends

When Niles trustees took their seats for a special village board meeting Tuesday, confusion erupted, and within minutes, two trustees and the mayor had walked out, according to the Journal & Topics.

Afterward, Trustee Chris Hanusiak said his interpretation was that confusion over a parliamentary procedure, and the lack of a clear explanation, caused the unusual turn of events.

Mayor Robert Callero declined to comment after the meeting. Patch left messages for Trustees Joe LoVerde and Louella Preston, but they had not returned calls by 11 p.m. Thursday.

Tuesday evening's meeting opened with LoVerde making a motion for the trustees to go into closed session to discuss a pending litigation matter.

However, Trustee Louella Preston made a motion to table (delay) that. Village Attorney Joe Annunzio said Robert's Rules of Order did not permit any discussion of the matter, only an up or down vote on Preston's motion. With five trustees present (Trustee Jim Hynes was presiding over an Ethics Committee meeting at the same hour), Trustees Preston, Hanusiak and Palicki voted in favor of Preston's motion to delay.

LoVerde decided to leave the meeting, and Trustee Andrew Przybylo did the same.

That left three trustees and the mayor, enough to constitute a quorum.  However, Callero also decided to leave.

Hanusiak said the confusion arose because the parliamentary procedure prevented the trustees from discussing the proposal to delay going into closed session.

"The information regarding the motion wasn't explained properly," he said. "I can't tell you why the trustees left. But maybe what created the frustration was the non-explanation of the procedure."

The board has a regularly scheduled monthly meeting Tuesday, Sept. 27.