Village Council To Consider Changes To Mayor Pro Tem Appointments

DOWNERS GROVE, IL — The Downers Grove Village Council will consider an ordinance amendment Tuesday that would change the provisions for how the council's mayor pro tem is appointed.

The proposed amendment requires the mayor to appoint an alternative nominee for mayor pro tem within 21 calendar days if their first appointment does not get approval from commissioners. Should the second nomination fail to be confirmed, the council member who has the longest continuous tenure would be appointed mayor pro tem by default.

Also included in the amendment are provisions in the event that two commissioners have served for the same length of time.

The proposed changes come after Mayor Bob Barnett was challenged by council members in May who asserted he did not give them enough advance notice of plans to appoint Commissioner Martin Tully after former Mayor Pro Tem Greg Hose left the village board earlier this year.

The ordinance amendment had its first reading on Aug. 12. At the meeting, Commissioner Chris Gilmartin said, "I am bringing this amendment forward because I think we've experienced something we hadn't experienced before, a bit of a breakdown in the appointment process, one that has left us without a confirmed mayor pro tem for nearly two months...maybe even over two months."

Since the current ordinance does not provide guidance for what happens if the mayor's appointment is not confirmed by village commissioners, "the seat can remain vacant indefinitely," Gilmartin said.

"Leaving that positions vacant puts us at risk," Gilmartin said, whether that's in the event of an emergency, a mayoral absence or even in day-to-day gonvernance, when continuity matters."

He added, "There's no valid reason to put this off any longer," Gilmartin said, encouraging commissioners to change the effectie date language in the proposed ordinance amendment to make the new provisions effective immediately.

Commissioner Tully said, "I have to say that I'm dissapointed this issue is in front of us in the first place."

"In my opinion, it was a problem that never should have risen in the first place," Tully said. "And I think it stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what 'appoint with consent' is."

Tully said he considered the mayor's appointment of mayor pro tem a "rebuttable presumption," in which "the mayor gets to pick."

He added, "And while the pick may not be our pick, or everyone's choice, you go along with that unless you have basis to rebut that presumption."

"In my opinion, no legitimate basis was brought forward to rebut the mayor pro tem nomination by the mayor in the first place."

He commented that the proposed ordinance amendment gives the mayor "two strikes" and "ultimately, the mayor's gotta put somebody up that the council picks."

"I just think this is a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place," Tully said. "It could have been avoided...should have been avoided...and there wouldn't be anything to clean up, there wouldn't be anything to fix. There wouldn't be any reason for the drama that we experienced the last couple of months. And that would be that because that would be that because that's the way it's always been."

He added, "So I'm not in favor of changing the rules to fix a problem that wasn't a problem in the firest place."

Commissioner Sadowski-Fugitt said she agreed with "kind of the sentiment" of what Tully had been saying. She said, "My goal, by changing it, is to hope that there will be a lot more conversation and camaraderie on the front end...before the pick is made."

Mayor Barnett said, "We are here, not because of some dereliction of duty by the mayor or because there is some cleanup needed in our code. We are here because some people have decided that they would prefer to have someone else in a position that's been appointed by the mayor."

"It is not because there's a code problem," Barnett said. "That's bulls**t; that's just not the case."

"Advice and consent is a shared power," he added. "It's an attempt to control power. It's not a directive. This is now a directive."

"This is being used as a partisan tool, just like what's going on elsewhere in the country," Barnett said.

"There has been no valid reason that's been given for the lack of approving the previous one," Barnett said. "What we've said is 'let's change the rules so we don't have to do that again.'"

Commissioner Tammy Sarver said, "As a new member of this council, I find all of this appalling and embarrassing and uncomfortable."

"There's got to be an easier way to solve this than waste hours and hours and hours hearing the same thing over and over again. And that's why I've been silent and that's why I didn't want to go on the record with anger, but I'm going on the record with anger."

Commissioner Rob Roe said, "I'd like to find a way to get past all this stuff."

To this, Barnett said, "There's an easy way to get past: select the most qualified, experienced individual to fit in that fole if it becomes necessary because that's what the village deserves."

Commissioner Gilmartin said, "That is certainly one way, mayor. Another way is to nominate somebody else. Another way is to change the code so that we aren't in this situation again."

"This code does not limit any mayor's selection process," Gilmartin said. "What it does is it provides a fallback when someone doesn't fulfill the appointment."

Gilmartin said he agreed with Sarver in wanting to move on. He said that was why he presented the ordinance amendment.

"I was hoping that the mayor would make another appointment so that we could move on," Gilmartin said. "He chose not to. That, in my view, is holding the process hostage and we're all supposed to sit and watch this super important position that requires the most qualified person sit vacant."

"If I hadn't brought this ordinance forward, we would have no mayor pro tem," he added. "The idea to suggest that this is somehow a political move is ridiculous."

The item is on the active agenda for Tuesday's village council meeting, which starts at 7 p.m.