With recall looming, Stone holds court at BG meeting
With the vote to recall her only weeks away, Buffalo Grove Trustee Lisa Stone made sure her presence was known Monday during what may have been one of her last village board meetings.
Stone used whatever time was available to her to talk about her pet issue, the Land and Lakes Landfill, again accusing Village President Elliott Hartstein of a cover-up involving an alleged altered e-mail by former Village Manager William Brimm concerning the site.
Stone also cast innuendo on the hiring of a trustee's child for a summer job, baited other trustees and recall supporters in the audience and stepped down from the dais to speak during the public comment period to gain extra speaking time.
Hartstein had his say on Stone earlier in the day when he released an open letter to village residents urging them to vote Nov. 2 in favor of recall measure removing the controversial trustee from office.
“When one person has distracted the community from focusing in a positive way from making a great community even greater by her relentless negative and improper conduct and approach for over a year and a half, the time has come to say enough is enough," Hartstein's letter states.
Stone made frequent references to the recall during Monday's board meeting, despite Hartstein's frequent warnings to keep politics out of the discussion. She even tried to amend the recall ordinance, but the measure died for lack of a second.
The amendment, she said, would not affect her, but would apply to future elected officials who “may one day be the target of a recall vote and that actually may have committed a crime or ethical violation."
It called for the village to use all of its communication tools, including the government cable channel, the village website and its e-newsletter, to bring an upcoming recall vote to the public's attention.
As Hartstein and Trustee Jeffrey Berman warned her she was out of order, Stone complained she was being rudely interrupted.
“I'm almost there," she said. “Would you just let me finish, for crying out loud?"
When Berman continued to object she told him, “You're being incredibly rude, Trustee Berman. Why don't you get up and leave as you have before?"
Stone made reference to comments at an earlier meeting about the landfill by Plan Commission member Matthew Cohn. In the interests of “full transparency," she said, Cohn should have mentioned he works for the law firm that employs Berman.
Both Berman and Trustee Beverly Sussman, who is the liaison to the plan commission, took issue with Stone's remarks.
“The fact that he happens to work in the same law firm that I do does not mean that he has checked his right to voice his opinion at the door," Berman said. “Nor has he, in any way, lost his objectivity simply because we both work for the same employer."
Berman said several trustees would have much to say about recall.
“But we understand that this is not the time nor the place to be discussing the political issues," he said.
Sussman called Cohn an honest, independent person.
“He's a very decent man and didn't deserve that," she said.
When Stone attempted to interject, Sussman said, “You don't always have to have the last word, Lisa. He did this because he felt this was the right thing to do. It had nothing to do with where he worked."
Cohn said Tuesday that while he and Berman work in the same law firm, he does not report to the trustee.
“My opinion is my opinion and it has nothing to do with my relationship with Berman," he said.
Stone later said she learned of a trustee's child working for the village over the summer. She did not name the trustee.
“I wouldn't mind it if it were during economic times that were healthy," she said. “I know people that are very highly educated that are out of work and could have used that thousand plus dollars."