{"id":322380,"date":"2025-10-21T23:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T23:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/322380\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T23:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T23:34:10","slug":"marseilles-residents-sue-city-for-retaliation-shaw-local","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/322380\/","title":{"rendered":"Marseilles residents sue city for retaliation \u2013 Shaw Local"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Marseilles<\/a> residents have sued the city of Marseilles in federal court in Chicago, alleging that city officials \u201cretaliated\u201d against them for exercising their rights to free speech.<\/p>\n

Melissa Pointer, Scott Damnjanovic, and Christopher McKinnon seek millions in compensation, plus assorted remedies, from the city, Mayor Jim Hollenbeck, Police Chief Todd Gordon, City Clerk Lesley Hart, and Morris<\/a> attorney Randolph Gordon, who represents Hollenbeck privately.<\/p>\n

The case is assigned to Judge Mary M. Rowland in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, based in Chicago. Court dates are pending.<\/p>\n

A written reply by the defendants to the Sept. 23 complaint was not on file as of Tuesday, at which time no attorneys had entered appearances on behalf of the defendants. <\/p>\n

Marseilles city attorney Christina Cantlin said Tuesday the matter was turned over to the city\u2019s insurers and \u201cwe are no longer involved.\u201d Hollenbeck said he and city officials would defer comment until such time as they could meet with their incoming legal counsel.<\/p>\n

Gordon said he, too, turned the matter over to his insurers and is awaiting notification on who will represent him. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point I can say I\u2019m not very concerned about this at all,\u201d Gordon said, \u201cand I look forward to it being dismissed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointer, Damnjanovic, and McKinnon filed their complaint pro se \u2013 that is, without legal counsel \u2013 and variously allege the city and the named defendants violated their First and 14th amendment rights through \u201ca sustained pattern of harassment, intimidation, and retaliation by the defendants against the plaintiffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nine-page filing cited multiple allegations of retaliation committed against the three plaintiffs. These include:<\/p>\n

\u2022 McKinnon alleged that after questioning, on Sept. 6, 2023, the city\u2019s proposed purchase of property for $1.3 million, he was issued a citation for alleged grass violations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe suspicious timing and irregularity of the citation strongly indicate it was issued in retaliation for plaintiff McKinnon\u2019s protected speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Damnjanovic submitted, in August 2024, Freedom of Information Act requests concerning sexual harassment complaints and settlements involving city officials. Hart, he alleged, \u201cconcealed responsive records\u201d and \u201cfalsely denied the existence of such records in written FOIA responses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Pointer\u2019s water was shut off without explanation on March 3.<\/p>\n

Collectively, the plaintiffs said, the city used \u201cretaliatory\u201d means intended to censor their free speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three Marseilles residents have sued the city of Marseilles in federal court in Chicago, alleging that city officials…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":322381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818,157109,75388,75389,161182,161183,161184,75391],"class_list":{"0":"post-322380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois","11":"tag-illinois-valley-front-headlines","12":"tag-la-salle-county","13":"tag-la-salle-county-court","14":"tag-marseilles","15":"tag-marseilles-city-council","16":"tag-mywebtimes","17":"tag-shaw-local-front-headlines"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115414778997078666","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}