Smarting from two veto overrides Monday, Steger Village President Lou Sherman said he may take legal action to prevent trustees from managing the village’s staff and departments.
Sherman’s remarks followed 4-2 override votes reinstating two of three resolutions related to the Police Department. One requires Police Chief Richard Stultz to wear a uniform while on duty. The other requires Stultz to give the village clerk’s office the police car he uses while on duty.
A 3-3 vote left the third veto intact. That resolution had called on the Police Department to give the village clerk the laptop computer used for the village’s compliance ticket program.
Sherman said he will consider hiring a private attorney to “bring an injunction against the board to retain the mayor’s power.”
The three resolutions were passed 4-2 in February.
Trustee Clarence Helsel, who serves as board liaison to the Police Department, voted against both overrides.
Stultz, who typically wears blue jeans and cowboy boots on duty, has said he is willing to wear a uniform occasionally. But Stultz said, “People relate more to people who dress like them. That authority figure scaring people is long gone.”
A poll of police departments in Chicago Heights, Crete, Ford Heights, Monee, Park Forest and South Chicago Heights found most chiefs wear uniforms no more than half the time. The exceptions were Chicago Heights Police Chief Gerry Billups and Monee Police Chief Russel Caruso, who said they wear uniforms most of the time while on duty.
Before Monday’s meeting, Helsel said he was caught by surprise when the three resolutions were introduced by Trustee Robert Joyce, the board’s liaison to the Recreation Department.
“I didn’t know a thing about it,” Helsel said. Referring to the bid to take away the laptop computer, he said, “All it is is harassment. They (other trustees) are nit-picking.”
Stultz said trustees decided in closed session to take the 1997 Ford Explorer. But he said he is more concerned that the memo he received from Village Clerk Carmen Recupito requires the Police Department to leave “all radios and lights intact.”
Stultz charged that the motivation behind the three resolutions, along with a requirement that he provide a list of the phone numbers he calls, is to “keep track of” him and Officer Greg Rambo.
