This first appeared in the Northwest Herald and is reprinted here with permission of its author, Lakewood Village Trustee Ryan Berman’s permission:

Berman: Village of Lakewood falling victim to one rogue trustee

A little more than a year ago, I was honored when the residents of the Village of Lakewood elected me to represent them as a village trustee.

The position carried with it no pay, but I leaned into this opportunity because I wanted to be a good neighbor and help the residents of the place that I call home.

Over this past year, we have accomplished so much.

The village inked a deal to build a travel center at the intersection of Route 47 and Route 176 that is the largest investment in Lakewood in my lifetime.

President Phil Stephan came up with an ingenious method to move stormwater by inverting the pitch of Hampshire Lane in the Gates.

And we are moving forward with the Crystal Lake Park District to build a playground and splash pad off Haligus Road that includes a nature walk.

This last one will be truly amazing when completed.

Right now, however, this village is under siege.

It all started on May 4, when a single trustee decided he was going to unlawfully terminate the village’s chief administrative officer and force the village president to resign.

First, he tried forcefully to expel the CAO from Village Hall.

When that didn’t work, he laid out a suggested roadmap that included threats, intimidation and harassment.

Then, he made lists, lots of lists.

He claimed that there were 27 past and present employees who came forward.

He claimed that they filed more than 100 complaints.

This is complete fiction.

I can count the number of current employees that detailed their concerns in writing on one hand.

We, the Board of Trustees, took these accusations seriously.

We condensed the list of complaints into a discrete set of allegations, any one of which could be a terminable offense if found to be true.

We crafted questions that were tough but fair, and gave room for explanation.

We also provided the opportunity to those making these allegations to supply us with proof of their veracity – whether this proof be documents or even something as simple as a sworn statement.

The accused answered every question presented to them and provided documentation to support their answers.

Not one of the accusers bothered to respond.

And the trustee that started all of this? He didn’t bother to show up.

As a board, we agreed that the allegations were baseless and that there was nothing that would require either the CAO to be terminated or the president to resign.

That should have been the end of the story. Unfortunately, it was not.

Over the past two months, this trustee has enlisted the help of a small group of disaffected residents and has ramped up his siege on the village.

Together, they openly plotted on social media to weaponize the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process and bring village business to a halt – he has submitted 16 FOIA requests this week alone.

Together, they filed a complaint with the Attorney General because the village did not foresee the spike in online attendance at a board meeting and ran out of Zoom seats.

For the record, when the AG tried to contact the requestors who filed this complaint, they didn’t bother to respond.

These actions have cost the village thousands of dollars in legal expenses as well as hundreds of hours of lost time.

It matters that the Attorney General ruled that the village did not violate the Open Meetings Act, and it matters that the village has willingly complied with every FOIA request that it has received.

What matters most, however, is that these costs are real, and the loss in employee productivity is real.

When I ran for office, I never in my wildest dreams expected that I would end up in a situation like this.

This trustee has incited employees to act insubordinately using his village email account.

This trustee has encouraged his followers to investigate trustees that do not agree with him.

This trustee has sent profane text messages to his fellow board members in the middle of the night.

This trustee is, on a daily basis, actively sabotaging the government that he is supposed to be a part of.

Prior to the appointment of this trustee, we had a cohesive board.

Prior to the appointment of this trustee, we were doing great things for this village and its residents.

All I can do is keep my head up, do what I think is right, and continue to try and make a better Lakewood.

I will not let a single rogue trustee keep me from doing the job that the people of this village elected me to do.

I am thankful that a majority of the board feels the same way that I do, and I trust that the majority of the residents do as well.