It’s not easy to sit through a lecture titled “Oviposition Responses of Aedes albopictus to Bacterial Isolates,” even if the session lasts only 10 minutes.
So top officials of the North Shore Mosquito Abatement District attending last week’s American Mosquito Control Association annual meeting in New Jersey didn’t.
In fact, despite making a four-day, taxpayer-funded trip from Chicago to New Jersey, two of the three district officials attending the annual conference barely poked their heads into any of the sessions Tuesday or Wednesday.
Such conferences long have been viewed by agency trustees as little more than a vacation, earned for every year’s worth of unpaid service overseeing the tiny and ignored taxing district. Top employees, too, have been allowed to attend the all-expenses-paid excursions.
But the district has come under scrutiny in recent months amid allegations of waste, sexual harassment, inappropriate travel expenses and political patronage. The New Jersey trip came just four weeks after federal authorities started an investigation into possible ghost payrolling in various outposts of Cook County government, including the North Shore mosquito district.
“Frankly, this is a perfect example of why government is so wasteful,” said Evelyn Raden, one of the five trustees who oversee the agency charged with controlling insects in the northern suburbs.
“When individuals are chosen because of patronage instead of qualifications, this is what you get,” said Raden, who joined the board last year. “Some of the individuals who work at the district are, in fact, quite qualified. Others, unfortunately, are not.”
Veterans of past conferences say privately that most North Shore district officials would spend little time attending seminars, many of which are highly scientific. Indeed, distractions such as slot machines and nightclub entertainers compete for attention.
Raden was the only trustee who never planned to attend the conference, saying she didn’t see the need for so many officials to go.
Three of her fellow trustees–two of whom were to be accompanied by their wives–canceled just days before the conference started, citing various illnesses. The fourth, Donald Israel, who also had intended to go, canceled several weeks earlier “because of pressing matters at my business.”
“I guess maybe it didn’t sound as though they were going to have as much fun,” Raden said, noting the recent scrutiny.
Those who attended last week’s gathering at Bally’s Park Place Casino and Resort included district Supt. William Henry and his nephew Marlon Henry, the agency’s field supervisor. District entomologist George Xamplas also made the trip and was spotted darting in and out of informational sessions.
The conferences often are held in second-tier gambling cities, and district trustees are given $1,500 cash advances, which they have been free to spend as they wish. Rarely is any leftover cash returned, and trustees and employees often use creative expensing to keep the entire amount.
At last year’s annual meeting, for example, William and Marlon Henry and Xamplas listed combined expenses of $165 in dry cleaning, $150 in snacks and $1,100 in “misc. entertainment.”
The four trustees who canceled this year’s trip have yet to return their $1,500 cash advances received in January. Trustee Otto Cesario said they have 90 days from the conference date to do so, and each indicated he would.
Contacted in his Bally’s hotel room Wednesday morning, William Henry said he had attended every conference session Tuesday.
But when asked to describe the general topic of any session he attended, Henry snapped before hanging up: “Listen, I’m not going to talk to you anymore.”
He was spotted briefly wandering through the exhibit room Wednesday morning. Otherwise, Henry was not seen at any seminars Tuesday or Wednesday by a Tribune reporter in attendance.
Marlon Henry also could be found in his room Wednesday morning after briefly attending one seminar. He declined to comment.
All three officials arrived Sunday and returned to Chicago midday Wednesday. The conference began Monday and ended Thursday.
Though the district won’t be stuck with hotel charges from the canceled trips, it probably will have to absorb the trustees’ $272 airfares.
“I wasn’t feeling too well,” Cesario said. “I had several operations last year, you know, and on the advice of my lawyer, I mean my doctor, I didn’t go.”
Cesario, however, worked last week at his job as head of maintenance at the Cook County Circuit Courthouse in Skokie.
Dennis Hartnett and his wife, Helen, have been attending the annual conferences for the past 35 years, she said, but both canceled because she recently had to be hospitalized for a stroke.
“In all the years I’ve gone to a convention, it’s not fun; it’s just an excuse for me to go with my husband,” Helen Hartnett said. “But they enjoy it. They learn different things that they can come back with.”
