Old divisions resurface at Winfield board meeting

No sooner did the Winfield village board unite to pass an ordinance than the divisions that have hamstrung the town since the April election returned.

Shortly after a near-unanimous vote to repeal a measure that limits contact between trustees and developers, village President Deb Birutis scolded Trustee Tony Reyes for what she called “misleading statements” and “false accusations” he has made recently.

Birutis said Reyes’ contention that the Riverwalk has become the village’s top priority and that $3.7 million of the money for the project would come from the public, both accusations made in an email to supporters and posted on a local blog, were false.

“The Riverwalk is not the No. 1 priority but it could well be a key to developing our town center and having the Riverwalk running through our downtown will attract businesses and visitors,” she said.

Reyes tried to respond after several points were made by Birutis but she moved the meeting forward, using a “point of order,” which indicates that rules have been broken and that the meeting should return to order.

The “point of order” was based on the timing of Reyes’ attempted rebuttals, which came after he gave his final comments.

During the committee of the whole meeting, which follows the regular meetings, Reyes said that he merely repeated points he heard at previous public meetings.

The exchange came after the village board eliminated a portion of its ethics ordinance that required any communication between a trustee and developer be reported to the village clerk and the village president.

Trustee Erik Spande was the lone dissenting vote, saying that he had not reached a comfortable level of trust with other trustees.

“You bring up the issue of trust as if you have trust and we don’t,” Reyes said. “For whatever reason, you think that. You’re wrong.”

“I feel we must have a board that can be trusted and we have to carry out that expressed trust for our residents and our village,” Trustee Jim Hughes said. “If it becomes that there is a trustee that breaks that trust ... that trustee will have to face the voters of Winfield.”

The measure was at first combined with another that would have axed a portion of the ethics code that trustees seemed to agree was already covered by the state code.

But in what one trustee said was an example of the problems that have hindered work in Winfield, a roughly 30-minute discussion resulted in no action on it after it was first split from the developer contact measure and then a previously undiscussed item was added onto it. It was tabled.

During the debate, Trustee Jay Olson said the board had become distracted.

“We have very quickly gotten off task here,” he said. “We had an original motion that may be deemed somewhat reasonable to separate into two motions but now we are picking apart some other portions of the code we have not invested enough time into understanding.”