Island Lake Mayor Tom Hyde said Thursday he expects to select a new trustee from a list of candidates submitted by members of the Village Board, but he’s also exploring other options in the event the board refuses to confirm his appointment to replace an outgoing member.
“For me to recommend a person they won’t approve is kind of useless, so I think we need to think about other possible options,” said Hyde, whose administration has been marked by infighting among Village Board members since he took office in 2005.
Trustee Fran Sadoski announced her resignation last week, saying in a prepared statement that she could no longer “stomach” what she perceived as personal attacks by fellow board members.
Efforts Thursday to reach Sadoski were unsuccessful. The longtime resident won election to the Village Board last April.
“I think she had a lot of personal anguish with respect to several trustees on the board,” said Hyde, a former longtime trustee who ran for the mayor’s office on a reform platform after 20-year incumbent Mayor Charles R. Amrich decided not to seek re-election.
Dissension among the board’s six members has largely hamstrung Hyde’s administration from moving forward on his agenda, including forming a more “transparent” government.
It also has left the village in a stalemate on otherwise routine business, including approval of a new police contract and installation of a water tower in a fast-growing area of town.
Strong opposition to Hyde’s administration surfaced shortly after the June indictment of Amrich on charges that he had pocketed thousands of dollars by ordering all village-owned vehicles to be serviced and fueled at a gas station he owned.
Former Clerk Christine Becker was charged separately with official misconduct and computer tampering after she allegedly deleted financial records from a village-owned computer after she lost her re-election bid in April 2005.
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