Gurnee trustee still in legal fight for memorial

Gurnee Trustee Kirk Morris is appealing a judge's decision to dismiss his lawsuit against the village and mayor for preventing his private foundation from developing a memorial on public land for troops who died in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In her order, Lake County Circuit Judge Margaret Mullen stated she agreed with most of the reasons for the complaint's dismissal outlined by Gurnee's lawyers.

Chief among the arguments was a private foundation had no right to complete Heroes of Freedom Memorial Park on publicly-owned land. Mullen ruled in favor of the village late last month by dismissing the suit “with prejudice.”

Morris said Thursday his lawyers have filed a notice to challenge Mullen's decision in 2nd District Appellate Court in Elgin.

Mayor Kristina Kovarik and the village were named in the complaint filed Feb. 11 by Morris and his Pfc. Geoffrey Morris Foundation. The foundation is named for his Marine son who died in the Iraq war in 2004.

Morris and Kovarik began feuding in October 2009 when she said the foundation accomplished little in the five years it was unofficially in charge of building the memorial on the former Gurnee police station site on Old Grand Avenue.

Controversy over Heroes of Freedom boiled over in January when village trustees voted 3-2 against overriding Kovarik's veto of an agreement that officially named the foundation to raise private cash and develop the project.

Kovarik said village insurance covered attorneys' fees for the litigation with Morris, but it will run out at some point and force payments to come from the budget. She said she was notified of her political foe's appeal this week.

“I'm not surprised,” she said, “because it's never been about the memorial. It's not about the veterans. It's about Kirk Morris.”

Morris argued he has wanted a proper memorial to the soldiers who perished in Iraq and Afghanistan. He added he believes the project will be built somewhere other than Gurnee, but could not release specifics.

“We were approached by no less than a dozen villages locally in Lake County,” he said.

Morris was not a trustee when he began the memorial effort. His suit attempted to show he had an informal agreement to take on the project at the request of village officials in 2005 and created the foundation.

Unspecified damages were demanded from the village for work the foundation performed to improve the 1-acre site. The foundation claimed it spent at least $200,000 on the park money Morris said he wants from village government even if the memorial is built elsewhere.

“They can't take all of the work we did on that site and not pay for it,” he said.

Court documents filed by Gurnee attorneys state there never was a formal contract for the project. They wrote Morris would be “egregiously, unjustly enriched” if he received damages because the foundation had no right to complete a volunteer project on public property.

“Plaintiffs have now had more than ample opportunity to state a viable claim and have been unable to do so,” village lawyer Julie A. Tappendorf wrote.

Nine flags representing every military branch and lights were the most visible work done on the memorial since March 2005. All of the poles are now bare and Morris said he does not know where the village stored the flags.

Bronze statues projected to cost $250,000, a garden, walkway and benches were part of the Heroes of Freedom Memorial plan.

More than 100 people attended a memorial dedication ceremony in April 2005. Featured speakers were Pat Quinn when he was lieutenant governor and several military officials.