Who's in charge? Confusion in Bensenville

Voters who want change in Bensenville government may be getting it a little bit earlier than expected.

Concerned about last-minute changes to the village's budget, President-elect Frank Soto and the rest of his slate had a notary public swear them in about 4 p.m. Friday rather than wait until the scheduled start of their terms on Tuesday.

The outgoing administration, led by John Geils, has approved more than $2 million in new spending since the April 7 election during three special and one regular village board meeting, Soto and his supporters say.

A fourth special village board meeting was set for 5 p.m. Friday to consider committee appointments, an indemnification ordinance and other issues, but administrators canceled it late that afternoon.

Under the law, newly elected officials may take office during the first regular or special meeting in May. But because Friday's meeting was canceled, Geils' attorney, Phil Luetkehans, said Soto's early swearing in is a moot point.

"It's my opinion, John Geils still is the village president," Luetkehans said. "But it's kind of an academic exercise because the village president and board have no power outside of board meetings. It's a village manager form of government. He runs the village on a day-to-day basis."

Much of the recent village spending dealt with the O'Hare expansion fight.

Though village officials said it was just standard operating procedure for the April 30 fiscal year's end, Soto accused them of trying to sabotage his administration by trying to bankrupt the village. He also questioned whether Geils' administration intentionally didn't pay fourth-quarter bills until after the April 7 election to show a surplus of cash to combat the challenger's criticism of fiscal mismanagement.

"My purpose was to cancel the special meeting so we could stop the bleeding," Soto said Friday. "By statute and local ordinance, we are legally entitled to take office to stop them from spending any more of the taxpayers' money and making more appointments."

Besides Soto, new trustees Morris Bartlett, Martin O'Connell, Oronzo Peconio, Henry Wesseler and village clerk JoEllen Ridder were sworn in early Friday. A ceremony still is scheduled at Tuesday night's village board meeting.