‘Hijacked’ Buffalo Grove meeting prompts rules aimed at Lisa Stone
Former Trustee Lisa Stone did not show up for Monday’s Buffalo Grove Village Board meeting. But the impact from her appearance two weeks earlier was felt in the form of procedural changes that place new restrictions on all residents wanting to comment at meetings.
Village President Jeffrey Braiman told the audience that from now on, comments will come at the end of the meeting, rather than the beginning, and those who plan to speak will need to put their names on a signup sheet.
In addition, using language from an ordinance from 2010, speakers will be required to maintain proper decorum and refrain from making disrespectful remarks.
At the board’s previous meeting, Stone stepped up to the podium after the public comment period had been closed and addressed the village board for around 20 minutes, 10 minutes more than allowed, as she talked about her new Lake County-Vernon Township Coalition for Safe Drinking Water and her concerns about the water from wells owned by Lake County that serve the Pekara subdivision in a nearby unincorporated area.
Her address was punctuated by frequent sharp exchanges between her and Braiman.
Braiman explained after this week’s meeting that, “If somebody comes in and hijacks the meeting (for) 15, 20 minutes, it disrupts everything else. It disrupts people who are sitting here waiting for the business of the village. This way, we can get done with the business of the village.”
When asked what happens if a meeting runs late into the evening, he said, “We always have the right to change that (the public comment time). At my discretion, I can move anything up and down (on the meeting agenda).”
Braiman defended the quality of the water in both Buffalo Grove and Lake County. He said the water in both is tested on a routine basis “and meets or exceeds the standards of the EPA.”
He said he has asked Lake County Board Chairman David Stolman about the quality of the water at the Lake County wells. “He has assured me that not only does he have those records, but those records have also been given to Ms. Stone as well.”
In response, Stone said the new rules on comments are just the latest move by the village board “to silence my voice,” referring to an ordinance passed before she was ousted as a trustee in a recall election that set out rules and procedures for running meetings in an organized fashion that were adopted because trustees found her meeting behavior disruptive.
Stone also said she is requesting that officials from Buffalo Grove, Lake County, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. EPA hold a public forum “to discuss these (water) issues with our coalition. This type of venue is critical when matters arise that impact the health of our society. This topic should not be subject to arbitrary time limits such as the board dictates at their Monday meetings.”
Such a forum, she said, would allow for the full exposure of the facts, including critical documents that “reveal serious inconsistencies that call in to question the assertions made by various government officials.”