Buffalo Grove puts Stone vote to public

In a move not surprising to anyone following recent news from the Buffalo Grove village board, trustees voted to put the recall of Trustee Lisa Stone on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Stone was the only trustee who voted against the measure.

It was the culmination of long-standing dissension between Stone, her fellow trustees and Village President Elliott Hartstein. Last week a special electoral board upheld nearly all of the more than 2,000 signatures on a recall petition turned in by resident David Wells - twice the number needed to get the measure on the ballot.

Before the board's vote, Stone addressed the audience for several minutes to defend her actions.

She has been a watchdog, Stone said.

"Boys' clubs don't like that," she said.

Stone believes in recall, she said, but only in cases where there is criminal or highly unethical behavior - "neither of which I violated."

She said while she has been reprimanded by the board for her behavior, she has been vindicated in the media.

Stone's remarks also attacked the board.

She accused the board of forgetting the rules when it lost an executive-session tape of a discussion about a report on Land and Lakes Landfill by Shaw Environmental, and said the board has looked the other way on the community's heroin epidemic and the possible environmental hazard at the landfill.

She questioned why no permit was required for a recall rally at the Village Green, while a group from Stevenson High School needed a permit to use the Village Green to raise awareness of a charitable cause.

"I would rather have a trustee that is 100 percent trustworthy," she said. "I'm witnessing something in government that I thought only happened in Washington, and it appalls me."

Hartstein told Stone that her comments did not apply to the recall ordinance.

She replied: "Hopefully you'll get your way. You'll be rid of me."

She said it is hard for an independent voice to break into a board that has been together for a number of years, and that recall makes it more difficult. She never would have run if the recall ordinance already had been on the books, Stone said.

Board members took umbrage with Stone's remarks. Trustees Steven Trilling and Beverly Sussman each said they consider themselves independent.

The ordinance was unanimously passed and allows residents the ability to decide "who they want to stay on this dais," regardless of "any circular argument," Trilling said.

"You want to talk about reform and integrity and openness. We place ourselves in your (the people's) hands, not every four years ... but every day," said Trustee Jeffrey Berman, who wrote the recall ordinance.

The ordinance obligates trustees to act if a resident presents a valid petition to the board, Berman added.

The matter didn't come up until late in the meeting, but that didn't prevent fireworks from erupting between Stone, Hartstein, board members and Wells, the man who filed the petition.

What sparked those fireworks was the Land and Lakes landfill. Stone has expressed concern that she would like to see Shaw's 2005 environmental report on the site completed.

Wells spoke during the public comment period. While addressing the issue of the Land and Lakes landfill, he referred to Stone's depiction of herself as a watchdog.

"When the watchdog refuses to release its grasp on the neck of the community, it becomes self evident that it is time for a new watchdog," Wells said.

Stone pointed out Wells was the citizen who submitted the recall petition.

She also defended her dogged pursuit of information about the impact of the landfill on groundwater.

"For me just to turn a blind eye, it would have been much easier to," because Buffalo Grove residents drink Lake Michigan water, Stone said.

But she expressed her concern for neighboring towns on private wells.

The discussion soon drifted into a verbal battle over e-mails Stone exchanged with an agent with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Berman and Trustee Jeffrey Braiman openly wondered why Stone did not share the e-mails - which addressed the landfill receiving a clean bill of health - with her fellow village board members.

Stone shared the e-mails with a Lake County official, Rep. Mark Kirk and the media, but did not share them with the trustees.

"She hid it from you, she hid it from us and she hid it from the village staff," Berman said.

Stone said the board had been informed by e-mail about the landfill's clean bill of health by former Village Manager William Brimm, who had forwarded an e-mail from the owners of the landfill.

She added that Hartstein has spoken publicly about the finding and had been quoted in the press. She said that to suggest she was withholding information was, at the very least, disingenuous - and perhaps deceptive.

But Braiman said: "If you didn't want to share it with the board, you could have shared it with staff. You keep on talking about people not letting you do your job. You're not letting us do our job."

Stone, however, said she was reprimanded for reaching out to non-village officials.