\n Daniel Bovey\n <\/p>\n
A sharp maneuver by a pair of aldermen in Monday\u2019s city council meeting saved West Chicago leadership from further acrimony.<\/p>\n
Mayor Daniel Bovey smiled at the dais as city aldermen approved things he\u2019d sought since being sworn into office on May 5.<\/p>\n
They approved an agreement with former City Administrator Michael Guttman to retain him through Jan. 31, 2026, in a newly created role as executive director of special projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemotely available to serve as needed,\u201d said Bovey, whose first acts as mayor included vacating Guttman\u2019s position to the opposition of the council.<\/p>\n
Having accrued enough paid time through sick leave and vacation time, after Jan. 31 the city also would pay Guttman $60,000 and he would retire. The city will save $15,000 from his accrued total.<\/p>\n
With that agreement, Bovey intended to withdraw a Thursday\u2019s court date seeking a declaratory judgment on his appointment powers.<\/p>\n
The 14-member council passed the Guttman agreement unanimously, as it did with Colin Fleury\u2019s approval to remain chief of police and Tia Messino as interim city administrator.<\/p>\n
However, momentum slowed and the room grew quiet when it came to the city\u2019s legal representation. Two items were tabled.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to throw a wrench into things if we don\u2019t have a comprehensive agreement,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n
Part of the discussion over the next 30 minutes pertained to attorney Patrick Bond maintaining his position as city counsel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is not going to happen,\u201d said Bovey, who noted he would then continue to seek the declaratory judgment and remove Bond anyway, countered only by a supermajority vote of 10 aldermen.<\/p>\n
Newly elected Alderman Matthew Myers then suggested two weeks with an interim counsel, followed by veteran Alderwoman Melissa Birch Ferguson\u2019s proposal for the firm of Ancel Glink as interim counsel. The Naperville firm, represented by Keri-Lyn Krafthefer, previously had been brought in as a consultant.<\/p>\n
After a brief break, Bovey restated his case, and Myers moved to appoint Ancel Glink interim counsel until the next council meeting on July 21.<\/p>\n
Bovey suggested a longer term, through Aug. 5. Myers restated the motion, which passed 14-0.<\/p>\n
The city council also approved city representation in Bovey\u2019s ongoing case about the greenhouse on his property, and also a search firm for the city administrator position.<\/p>\n
Bovey thanked the people who attended Monday\u2019s meeting, and those who had been there throughout often turbulent meetings since May 5.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate that we have a community that really cares about what is going on here,\u201d he said, \u201cthat we have people that will actually sit here for how many hours this has been and listen to us talk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Bovey A sharp maneuver by a pair of aldermen in Monday\u2019s city council meeting saved West Chicago…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":50492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,1109,5386,1818,38113,38114,50,9280],"class_list":{"0":"post-50491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-communities","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-mayor-president","13":"tag-municipal-elections","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-west-chicago"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114821411920612095","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50491","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=50491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}