Trustees say this southwest IL mayor has locked them and the public out of village hall
Washington Park’s elected village trustees have been standing at the corner of Kingshighway and North Park drive for weeks hoisting signs demanding their recently elected mayor allow them to do the jobs voters sent them to village hall to do.
They say Mayor Leonard Moore hasn’t held a public meeting since he defeated Rickie Thomas in April’s municipal election and that he’s made appointments to key village staff positions without approval of the village board, including elevating his wife to chairman of the village finance and personnel committees.
The trustees also allege the mayor has made discretionary payments to employees that the village can’t afford, including an $1,800 check to Thomas after Moore had assumed the office.
Trustee Ferris Williams said his constituents deserve transparency and representation from their local government, but that Moore is preventing that.
“We are elected officials. We want to do the job the people elected us to do, but the mayor is not letting us,” he said. “This has to stop.”
Williams and other village trustees have been picketing across the street from village hall demanding a change. They carry signs with such slogans as “Change Silly Hall back to Village Hall,” “Did U run for the people, or your wife?” and “Stop the abuse of power.”
Moore says the complaints are part of a “crusade” launched against him by current and former village officials who want to control him. And the protests don’t bother him in the least bit.
“I ran for mayor because I was tired of business as usual,” Moore said. “And, they are not going to make me do what they want me to do. I am going to do what is right.”
Not all the members of the board of trustees have given up on Moore.
Trustee Clyde “Stonewall” Jackson said there’s still time to give the new mayor some benefit of the doubt and room to let him learn the intricacies of the job.
“The mayor was elected by the people,” Jackson said. “He’s brand new at the job and he deserves a chance.”
Staff appointments, no open meetings
The village board is scheduled to meet on the third Tuesday of each month. Individual committees meet regularly on other scheduled days. Since Moore’s first meeting on May 18, no public meeting has been held.
That meeting was abruptly ended because items brought up for discussion by Williams and fellow trustees Herrod Hill, Carlene Tucker and Geneva Dotson were not included on the agenda.
“We just opened the floor for public comments then we adjourned the meeting,” Williams said. “The mayor and two trustees remained. The mayor went on and appointed his people for 30 days.”
Moore’s administrative appointments have since become permanent, he confirmed Tuesday, despite the lack of a vote by the village trustees.
Among his appointments were Fire Chief Preston Green, Police Chief Allen Bonds, Village Clerk Anthony Nesbit and Treasurer Dawanda Crockwell.
Moore said the meetings remain closed to the public because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but that he’s invited the trustees by mail to meet with him individually in person. They declined.
He continues to hold meetings through Zoom, too, though they have not been opened for public participation, the trustees complain.
In the meantime, Moore says he can make whatever staff appointments he wants.
“I can make appointments and they are fighting against it,” he said of the four protesting trustees. “They show up and disrupt the meeting. They have been rude, disrespectful and after the meeting they put up an agenda like they are directing me to have a meeting their way.”
As to the appointment of his wife, Debbie Moore, to head the finance and personnel committees, the mayor would not comment other than to say generally that committee is advisory only and, again, that the appointments are his to make.
“That’s flat out wrong,” Williams said.
Moore’s wife — not the same Debra Moore that serves as St. Clair County administrator — said she has served on the village finance and finance committees for six years, including the last four as chairman.
She said the complaining trustees are “just jealous.”
“They only want to put out their complaints, which are not factual,” she said.
Williams also says the village issued a check for $1,800 to former mayor Thomas after Moore had already taken office. He said he wants to know why and wants the money returned to the village. Both Moore and Thomas deny that the checks were issued.
‘The citizens are upset’
None of these issues or actions have been discussed with oversight of the community, said Tucker, one of the village’s six elected trustees. She said the people deserve to be able to attend a public meeting, discuss their issues, and see the board take actions on the things that matter to them as residents.
“It is the people’s right to come to meetings and participate,” said Tucker, who also charges that Moore is trying illegally to replace her on the village board. “They have the right to talk about their issues and they have the right to see the actions on village matters.”
Moore says he was elected to “make a change in Washington Park” and insisted he’ll continue to act on behalf of the village’s citizens with or without the approval of trustees. The complaints, he says, are “a bunch of foolishness.”
“They want to have meetings to open up city hall and come in and do what they want with none of the city benefiting,” he said. “You have ex-officials trying to lead a crusade. ... They want me to sit here and just hold the title as mayor. They don’t want me to do the mayor’s job.”
Williams said that is not the issue at all.
“He could have held a closed meeting with the trustees and not discussed any city business,” he said. “That would not have been a violation of the Open Meetings Act. ...
“The governor opened things up and said a certain number of people could be allowed inside. We are no different from other cities and villages. He just doesn’t want to face the citizens because he made so many promises and nothing is being done. The citizens are very upset.”
