Carpentersville trustee left off finance panel

As expected, new Carpentersville Trustee Doug Marks had something to say about not being named to the audit and finance commission.

Tuesday night, Village President Ed Ritter announced his picks for the commission that makes recommendations to the village board about anything that has to do with money. Marks, who centered his Carpentersville campaign on the promise to watch every dollar, had his heart set on joining the commission.

But it was not to be.

Ritter instead chose Trustee Don Burroway for the commission's lone trustee seat. Marks, joined by Trustees Paul Humpfer and Pat Schultz, voted against the appointment, forcing Ritter to cast the deciding vote.

“I am quite disappointed to be excluded from the finance committee,” Marks said at the meeting. “I feel like I've been cast to the side for making too much noise.”

Marks, who ran as a Libertarian candidate for the 14th Congressional District before his Carpentersville campaign, has spent plenty of time scrutinizing the village finances.

Last month, he questioned a water rate study that recommended higher water rates to help pay for the water infrastructure. Most recently, he's demanded to know why a waste water treatment plant upgrade costs $2 million.

On Tuesday, he said he was wary of the village using the same engineering firm for some of its water work, a proposal that costs $43,000 and that the board ended up delaying. Marks also voted against increasing several parking and traffic fees.

Humpfer, chairman of the audit and finance commission and Marks' partner in the last campaign, personally asked Ritter to appoint Marks.

“I thought (Marks) really brought some good analysis to our discussions and I was really looking forward to having him on there to help with setting a financial plan for the village over the next several years,” Humpfer said at the meeting.

A Friday Facebook message Marks posted to his trustee page likely didn't help his cause.

In it, Marks accused Ritter of keeping him off the committee for asking too many questions and said Ritter would rather keep “a front of peace and harmony” than participate in meaningful debate. Marks said he took the post down Friday night at the urging of his own wife.

Ritter has said his decision was not about politics.

Burroway, a member of the village's planning and zoning commission, was simply a better fit for the audit and finance commission, he said.

The meetings are open to the public and Ritter encourages Marks to attend.

“I hope he continues to look diligently at the finances at the village and the expenditures,” Ritter said last week. “I'm sure he may be able to discover things that somebody else has overlooked.”