Last night Crystal Lake lawyer Joe Gottemoller resigned as Grafton Township attorney.
He had been selected to replace Jim Kelly, who had been chosen for the post by John Rossi, the man whom newly-elected Township Supervisor Linda Moore and her political enemies, the township trustees, agreed upon.
Gottemoller is a laid-back sort of guy whose competence has not be challenged in my experience.
As background, here are my previous articles:
Attached to Gottemoller’s letter of resignation was the following memo. I’m re-producing it in full below:
September 3, 2009
First, since the referendum is filed and will be held 14 months from now, settle the law suit (emphasis in the original).
Second, the sale of the building to the Highway District needs your attention.
A. The deed needs to be reformed in order to comply with the Township Code 1/105-10 (which Gottemoller attached).
B. You need to either unwind the transaction or amend your budget and sign a new lease. If you unwind the transaction you can save the taxpayers thousands of dollars worth of interest. If you do not unwind the transaction you need to amend the budget to pay rent for a building the taxpayers have already paid for once. You have to amend the budget because you have not made a provision for paying rent to the road district for the Supervisor’s and Assessor’s use of the space.
Third, the board needs to clarify its intent to convert the public food pantry to a private food pantry. For over twelve years the township ran a food pantry. For all but the last three of those years the pantry was fun as part of the general assistance fund with the township supervisor in charge. In 2005 the Township began paying an employee to work in the pantry. In 2006 the prior supervisor decided to create a 501(c)3 corporation in order to purchase food at a discount. Just to make it clear, there is nothing wrong with creating a not-for-profit corporation.
After the creation of the corporation, the pantry operated much as it had before. The supervisor reported at each meeting how many people were served and the board even planned on including it in future building plans. The township kept paying the employee to work there. At no time did this board ever move to donate the property it held before 2006 to a private company. After the 2009 election the supervisor announced that the township did not own the pantry. Not a single member of this board raised a concern. Last weekend the Township Pantry moved to a new location.
Without any action by the Grafton Township board, the Township is out of the food pantry business. This board donated public money and employees to a private company that is now run by the prior township supervisor. Despite my requests, no one has produced any record of a motion or board action to permit conversion of a public money to private use. To make it clear, the board has authority to donate surplus property to a non profit corporation, but they have to follow the statute and they have to take action to do it. There are ways to address this problem, but so far no one has taken those steps.
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The current Grafton Township Hall and Highway Garage is seen on the night of the annual township meeting.
The photo of the new location of the Grafton Township Food Pantry is reprinted with permission from The First Electric Newspaper.