Grafton supervisor sues township board

Grafton Township's ongoing political drama spilled into the courts yet again on Wednesday as Grafton Township Supervisor Linda Moore filed a lawsuit against the township board.

The suit, which also names the township itself and township attorney Keri-Lyn Krafthefer, accuses the four trustees of preventing Moore from doing her job and seeks an injunction to get them to stop.

"There is a concerted effort to keep my client from doing her duties," said Rockford attorney John Nelson, who is representing Moore. "The township board has clearly overstepped their bounds as a legislative body. It's like the aldermen telling the mayor how to run the city."

Moore's dispute with the trustees dates to her election as supervisor in spring 2009 and her successful effort to stop construction of a new township hall, which the trustees support.

The complaint filed Wednesday alleges the trustees kicked Moore out of her office, changed the locks on that office and prevented her from using township computers, making it difficult for her to do her job as supervisor.

The suit further charges that the trustees compromised computer files and hired township Administrator Pam Fender, also a Huntley village trustee, to do Moore's duties.

Finally, the complaint essentially asks the court to assert that Moore has the right to fire Krafthefer as village attorney and admits past attempts to do so.

"I'd like to do the job the electors elected me to do," Moore said Wednesday, deferring to her attorney for further comment.

The trustees, who are being represented by Krafthefer, denied Moore's claims.

"And the adventures continue," Trustee Rob Laporta said Wednesday. "She is stating that we are preventing her from doing her job. That is not the truth."

"The office that we moved her to, even though it does not have any windows, is physically bigger than the office she was in," Laporta explained. "The only thing she doesn't have is a fax machine. That was on order and should be there today."

As for the computer tampering allegations, Laporta said all of the township's financial records went missing sometime in the last week and said "we're 99-percent sure" neither the trustees nor Fender were responsible.

Laporta added that he plans to recommend hiring a forensic auditor to determine how the records disappeared and who removed or deleted them.

Trustees have said they did hire Fender essentially to circumvent Moore and run township programs but that she has been specifically directed not to infringe on Moore's legal rights as elected supervisor.

A McHenry County judge on Wednesday denied Moore an emergency restraining order she was seeking against the trustees. A hearing on the case is set for Monday.