Grayslake to discuss creating new 'senior trustee' post

What's a board of village trustees to do if the mayor doesn't show up to a meeting?

Grayslake Mayor Rhett Taylor's idea is to give one trustee the title of "senior trustee" and let that person lead meetings in the mayor's absence.

The board will discuss Taylor's plan Tuesday night.

Taylor said he thought up the senior trustee plan after family and medical reasons forced him to miss two board meetings in December 2015.

Before each meeting he missed, board members had to vote among themselves to determine who would fill in for the mayor.

"To make sure we had continuity and predictability I thought, Why not have this codified so we don't have to have that vote every time," Taylor said.

Taylor's plan is that the new senior trustee designation would go to the board member who had served on the board the longest. In the event of a tie, the title would go to the board member who won more votes in the election that put him or her on the board.

If Taylor's plan is adopted, the village's first senior trustee would be Shawn Vogel, who was first elected in 2005.

Although Taylor thought of the plan last year, he wanted to wait until the April 2017 election to bring it forward.

"At that time Bruce Bassett was the senior trustee, and I didn't know if he'd be stepping down," Taylor said.

"To me, now is the right time."

Bassett decided not to seek re-election to a fifth 4-year term.

Final approval could come at the board's Sept. 5 meeting.