Mundelein trustee apologizes over meeting on high Jewish holiday

Irked when the Mundelein Village Board met on a significant Jewish holiday last month, Trustee Terri Voss on Wednesday said she's ready to move on now that a fellow trustee has apologized.

"I feel that I made the point that I was trying to make, which is that, as a board and as a community, we need to be sensitive to diversity," said Voss, the board's lone Jewish member.

Trustee Ray Semple apologized to Voss during Monday's meeting after Voss read a statement about the controversy, which arose when the board met Sept. 28 on Yom Kippur.

The holiday is the holiest of the Jewish faith. Observant Jews fast, spend the day in temple and then enjoy a celebratory family meal.

Some suburban governments, including the Lincolnshire and Wheeling village boards, shifted meetings to other evenings because of the holiday. Others did not.

The week before the meeting, Voss asked Village Administrator John Lobaito to move the session to a different day because of the holiday. The meeting was postponed 30 minutes instead, a change Voss didn't find suitable.

Voss skipped the meeting and complained to the Daily Herald a few days later, calling the administration's decision discriminatory. A lively debate on dailyherald.com followed.

Semple believes Voss should shoulder some of the blame for the mix up because she could've raised her concern sooner. Regardless, he said village leaders should have been more aware of the holiday's importance.

"We all felt kind of bad about it," Semple said Wednesday. "It was an oversight, and hopefully it won't happen again."

Voss said it would've been more appropriate for Lobaito or Mayor Kenneth H. Kessler to apologize because her comments - and anger - were aimed at them more than the other trustees.

Unrepentant, Kessler said the Yom Kippur conflict wasn't deliberate. He said he will ask the trustees to write down their religious holidays to avoid future problems.

"That way it puts the responsibility on each person to help us understand what their beliefs are," Kessler said.

Kessler blamed Voss for the controversy, saying she should've spoken up sooner. He criticized her for "raising a big fuss" about the situation.

"When you need something, you've got to open your mouth," he said. "Somewhere along the line, everyone has to take responsibility and not point at the other person and say 'It's your fault.'"

Lobaito declined to comment.

At Monday's meeting, Voss gave Lobaito a list of Jewish holidays for the rest of this year and for 2010.

"I'm not happy that this whole incident took place," she said afterward. "But now that we've had this conversation and I'm told that this won't happen again, I believe that's the case and I believe it's time for the board to move on and conduct village business."