College of DuPage board to make final attempt to fill vacancy

With time running out for College of DuPage trustees to act on their own to fill a vacant board seat, the panel's vice chairwoman is planning to make a final effort to get three boycotting members to attend a meeting and fill the seventh trustee spot.

Trustees Erin Birt, Dianne McGuire and Joseph Wozniak on Thursday night skipped their seventh meeting since mid-December.

Once again, their absence left the three other members of the board - Vice Chairwoman Deanne Mazzochi, Charles Bernstein and Frank Napolitano - unable to take action on various issues.

"It's unfortunate that certain trustees have tried to take the position that there's an irreconcilable divide," Mazzochi said. "I think if we all got in a room together, we might be able to try to find ways to overcome it."

One issue the board hasn't been to address is the selection of someone to replace former board Chairwoman Kathy Hamilton, who stepped down on Dec. 13 for unspecified personal reasons.

Before Hamilton resigned, she and her allies - Mazzochi, Bernstein and Napolitano - controlled a four-person majority on the seven-member panel.

Now the board has a 3-3 split.

That's what led to the boycott.

The two sides have vastly differing views on whether Mazzochi should assume the chairman's role vacated by Hamilton or if an organizational meeting should be held to allow the six trustees to try to come to a consensus on who should lead them.

Last month, Birt, McGuire and Wozniak sent a letter to COD's acting interim President Joseph Collins saying they won't attend any meetings until an organizational meeting is held.

That hasn't happened.

So the three boycotting trustees have missed seven meetings, including two sessions they scheduled.

Now a Feb. 11 deadline is looming for the board to appoint a trustee to replace Hamilton.

The new trustee would serve until the next consolidated election in April 2017 - and likely wind up serving as the tiebreaking vote on many issues.

If the six remaining trustees can't agree on someone by the Feb. 11, the chairman of the Illinois Community College Board - Lazaro Lopez - will pick the new trustee.

Mazzochi said Lopez told her that he would "make a decision as quickly as possible."

But, she said, Lopez is encouraging COD trustees to "work it out ourselves."

So Mazzochi said she's planning to schedule a special meeting before the deadline to give the board a final opportunity to meet and pick Hamilton's replacement.

"We should at least try to do that," Mazzochi said. "If we try and we can't be successful, that's one thing. What's very disappointing to me is that we have three trustees apparently unwilling to even sit together and try."