Carpentersville trustees say conspiracy theory unfounded

Carpentersville village President Bill Sarto says a village board decision this week denying a trustee the chance to change a previous vote was the result of strong-arm tactics by a local property manager.

Sarto said Don Rage, of Rage Property in Elgin, influenced trustee votes in approving $178,000 in improvements to the Kimball Farms subdivision.

"Trustees claim they are not controlled by Don Rage, but he is the puppet master," Sarto said. "He controls the strings to benefit himself financially since he is the manager of these subdivisions."

Rage, a former Kane County Board member and now property manager of several subdivisions in the village, including Kimball Farms, did not return calls Friday.

Trustees, however, say the mayor's conspiracy theory is unfounded. They say the exhaustive discussion the board held the week before led to their decision to first OK the spending and then to deny a revote.

The village board at the Sept. 18 board meeting approved a $178,000 contract with Lamp Concrete Contractors to repair cracked curbs and sidewalks, items residents had long complained about. The contract also included items such as tree replacement.

While about $135,000 would be covered by a settlement with developer Kimball Hill Homes, the village would be responsible for more than $40,000.

Initially, Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski -- along with Trustees Paul Humpfer, Judy Sigwalt and Keith Hinz -- voted in favor of completing all the work.

Trustees Ed Ritter and Kay Teeter and Sarto voted against the contract, arguing the village should wait until the next budget year to complete the extra work.

"Why are we going above and beyond what we had agreed to do with the homeowners association?" Sarto said. "It is because Don Rage has his tentacles wrapped around some board members in a lot of ways."

Sarto said that since there were four votes in favor of the contract, Ritter and Teeter were free to vote "no" -- making it seem like they are not controlled by Rage.

At Tuesday's board meeting, Ramirez-Sliwinski asked to reconsider her vote, which would have reversed the decision.

"I thought about this and thought about what Trustee Ritter said, and I do not think it is fair to do the complete package," Ramirez-Sliwinski told the board Tuesday. "I am not sure we need to take money away from other budgets to finance this."

The motion was denied by a 4-3 vote when Teeter voted against it, leaving the contract to stand.

"We had haggled it all out for an hour, and I was not willing to spend another hour talking about it," Teeter said. "Bill has to call foul play because he didn't did get what he wanted. There is no conspiracy."