Carpentersville mayor calls for meeting boycott
Unrest over the status of a Carpentersville trustee likely will spill over from the village board to the village's finance panel.
Late last week, Village President Bill Sarto again declared Trustee Paul Humpfer's board seat vacant and recommended canceling tonight's special meeting of the audit and finance commission, which Humpfer chairs.
Sarto said Humpfer's recent conviction of domestic battery and questions over the trustee's living situation preclude him from serving on the village board.
In March Humpfer was found guilty of four counts of domestic battery stemming from a May 2007 incident in which he hit his wife in the legs with a baseball bat.
Humpfer has said he has been staying with his parents in Hammond since June of last year, when his wife was granted an emergency order of protection.
Though the emergency order was dropped, Humpfer has not moved back to the village, but has said he intends to return once the legal affairs are resolved.
"This determination is based on law. Therefore, it is my recommendation that the audit and finance commission meeting … be canceled until a new chairman is appointed, " Sarto wrote in an e-mail to commissioners and village staff Thursday.
Sarto also asked Village Manager Craig Anderson to cancel the meeting.
Three resident members of the seven-person panel have said they will not attend tonight's meeting if Humpfer remains chairman.
The two trustee appointees -- Keith Hinz and Ed Ritter -- and Humpfer said they would attend. Humpfer acknowledged the meeting would likely adjourn for lack of a quorum.
Resident member Nate Spain signified his reluctance to attend tonight's meeting a few days before Sarto's call to boycott.
Though he complimented Humpfer's leadership and vision as chairman, Spain said he would "refrain from attending tonight's meeting and all future meetings of the audit and finance commission so long as [Humpfer was] chairman."
"This is a matter of conscience and higher principle, which trumps my sincere desire to attend tonight's meeting and engage in 'business as usual,' " wrote Spain, who was appointed to the commission last July.
Sherry Dobson and Michael Sievertson offered similar sentiments.
"Until Trustee Humpfer's status on the village board and his status as chairman of the audit and finance commission have been conclusively resolved, I am in favor of suspending the audit and finance commission meeting," Sievertson said. "I will not be attending."
That's disappointing to Humpfer, who said there is village business to conduct.
"We should not be playing politics with this situation," said Humpfer, who encouraged commission members to attend. "There are important issues that will get pushed further behind the eight ball if we don't get moving.
Items on Tuesday night's agenda include a $10 million bond issuance that would pay for street and infrastructure repairs, as well as a discussion on the collection of ambulance fees.