Trustee Shared Confidential Info With Opposing Lawyer: Complaint

TINLEY PARK, IL — Residents and board members are calling for the resignation of a Tinley Park village trustee after an independent review of an ethics complaint found she provided confidential information to a lawyer who was suing the village. Diane Galante's name was taken off the Steve Eberhardt's lawsuit the day after village officials said she sent him closed session notes.

The ethics complaint is the latest in a series of complaints and lawsuits within Village Hall, though its findings are among the first in recent history to be substantiated. According to Tim Janecyk, who filed the complaint, the ordeal began when Galante was first elected to office in March 2019.

"I voted for her, I volunteered and knocked on doors for her campaign," Janecyk said. "She seemed like a person who wasn't afraid to ask tough questions and she ran as a reformer. She even criticized prior board members for their lack of transparency."

But Janecyk said he started to grow suspicious of the south suburban accountant due to her behavior during board meetings. He told Patch that Galante would ask multiple questions, grandstand and act blindsided by information coming forth in board meetings, despite being given preparation materials beforehand.

Following his gut, Janecyk filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Galante's emails and other records. Janecyk did not remember what caused him to formally request the public documents in the summer of 2021, but he told Patch he started to feel like Galante was "lying to the residents of [Tinley Park]."

Upon reviewing the results of the FOIA request, Janecyck said he found Galante had forwarded multiple hundreds of emails from her village email account to her personal server, which is against village guidelines. A prior statement from Galante that she did not conduct village business on her personal accounts. The most shocking part to the long-time resident, however, were emails sent from Galante to Steve Eberhardt, the lawyer who had filed over ten lawsuits against the village for a range of offenses, most of which have been dismissed.

Within the emails were three signed affidavits from Galante. In a court of law, affidavits act as statements which witnesses sign to confirm they are true to the best of their knowledge. Each affidavit, dating from March 2021 to April 2021, detailed parts of Galante's experience at Village Hall.

"I just wanted to document what was happening," Galante told Patch. "I'm getting my name on these things and I don't even know what they're about. I am way over my head in a political war here. It wasn't until I started disagreeing with the board that I started to get retaliation but I have to vote the way I believe."

While Galante was entitled to seek legal counsel, Mayor Mike Glotz told Patch, two things caused him to take pause: the affidavits contained information that was discussed in closed-session board meetings, and they were given only to Eberhardt.

In the first affidavit, Galante signed a statement that said village attorneys instructed her to ignore FOIA requests in order to mislead residents and hide information from them. Specifically, she details an interaction with attorney Thomas Condon Jr., who she said told her to ignore requests so that there would be "nothing to hold against [her]."

An independent investigation conducted by Patrick W. Walsh, a lawyer based in Hinsdale, found Galante was wrong to disclose details about a private conversation with the village attorney and also stated that all those involved denied Galante's allegations that they instructed her to ignore FOIA requests.

The second affidavit defended the trustee's decision to vote against current village attorney Patrick J. Walsh. According to Galante, the village attorney attended a public board meeting in November 2019 and spoke to the board about filing a state-level complaint to stop Eberhardt from filing any more lawsuits against the village. Galante told Patch she considered this to be suspicious. The ethics complaint found writing about the conversation violated the village's ethics ordinance because the village attorney did not speak publicly at any village board meeting.

The comments, the report concluded, must have been made during a closed session conversation in which the board speaks separately and privately on legal and human resource matters. When asked, a representative from the board said they were not immediately sure which closed meeting the legal defense strategy was discussed in, but Patch's review of past board meetings concluded the village attorney never spoke publicly on the Eberhardt lawsuit.

Galante's third affidavit stated she heard Glotz admit to making up a false accusation at a board meeting in January 2020. According to the document, Eberhardt had finished addressing the board on his latest FOIA concern when he turned and walked away. Glotz then yelled after the man that he should stop taking pictures and following the mayor's wife. When Galante later asked Glotz if that was true, the trustee said Glotz laughed and admitted to making the accusation up.

Glotz told Patch he did not make the accusation up and, with no supporting evidence, Galante was found to have shared confidential materials and information by discussing the conversation with Eberhardt.

For Galante, the affidavits served as a way to get her statements in writing in case the village was named in any later, and more serious, lawsuits. She told Patch she wasn't aware affidavits could be used as evidence in court cases and said she only sought to record her allegations for future use.

"They're making it like I snuck away, but I went up the vine," she said. "I had meetings with the village manager, the village attorneys, because I wanted to fix our issues because we were being sued over and over for things I felt we could prevent. Eventually I started to read some of Eberhardt's lawsuits and thought, 'Huh, we are doing that.'"

Galante, however, later told Patch she didn't have access to the affidavits after she signed and filed them. When asked why she chose to file the affidavits with Eberhardt, Galante said she could not find another lawyer to represent her for a reasonable price or on her timeline. According to the Galante, she did not want to spend excess funds to record concerns she believed the village should have taken note of in the first place.

"I do not believe Trustee Galante unilaterally made the decision to submit three separate affidavits to Eberhardt after seeing the amount of legal terminology utilized including specific statutory references," Walsh wrote in his findings on the ethics complaint. "The timing and content of the affidavits coupled with Trustee Galante's dismissal as a defendant provide compelling circumstantial evidence of collusion with Mr. Eberhardt."

Eberhardt used Galante's third affidavit in his latest case against the village. Galante told Patch she wasn't aware he had used them but said he should be able to if they exposed the truth. She also said she did not ask Eberhardt to remove her name from a village lawsuit since she is not personally at stake for village legal matters and did not pay him to retain him as her own legal counsel.

She said the complaint, in which she claims to have responded to pages of questions the independent lawyer said she ignored, is a way for other board members to push her out.

"I'm a numbers person and if what you tell me doesn't tie out to the numbers then I've got to ask questions," Galante said. "If I believe there's misconduct or questionable stuff then I'm not going to close my eyes."

Galante believes that's why she is unpopular among the board's other members.

At a special board meeting last week, village trustees, with the exception of Galante, passed a resolution calling for the first term trustee to be publicly reprimanded in light of the ethics violations.

"The Village of Tinley Park will issue a public reprimand of Trustee Diane Galante for the improper disclosure of confidential information and will require additional ethics training, under the direction of the Village Attorney," according to a statement.

Galante, however, told Patch she is "absolutely not" resigning. At Tuesday's board meeting, she said she plans to address the board and residents in a plea for increased public involvement in order to catch any "illegal" activity conducted by the board.

"The word trustee certainly implies trust and if you can't be trusted you shouldn't hold that role," Janecyk said. "I think she's made a mockery of a process."

Patch was unable to find any current village trustees who shared in Galante's concerns. The ethics complaint did not uphold accusations that Galante violated FOIA procedures.