A quarrel among Elmhurst City Council members has escalated, with Ald. Jane Bartmann (2d) calling Monday for investigation of an incident on Sept. 6 in which Ald. Olivia Gow (4th) castigated Ald. Charles Smith (2d) over Smith`s vote on a matter relating to relocating the police station.
During a recess in the City Council meeting, Gow allegedly used profanity and charged that Smith reneged on a promise regarding the matter.
Bartmann said the appropriate council committee should look into the incident because an alderman she didn`t name used ”abusive language against another alderman,” whom she also didn`t identify. Such action was ”a disgrace and an embarrassment, not only to me as an elected official but to all who were in attendance,” Bartmann said in a memo to Mayor Robert J. Quinn and the council.
Bartmann and Smith were on one side of the controversy over where to put a police station and Gow on the other; but all 14 aldermen voted last Saturday to accept a plan to place it at 1st Street and the Palmer Drive underpass, as recommended by a citizens committee. The council voted 8-5, with Gow absent, to refer Bartmann`s censure request to a committee.
