Oak Brook Village Board member Michael Manzo has sent a letter to former village attorney, Stewart Diamond, asking for the return of just over $100,000 paid by the village for billed work between November 2016 and July 2017 on the village’s 2017 lawsuit to have the red-light cameras removed at Route 83 and 22nd Street in Oakbrook Terrace.
Dated July 19 and sent to Diamond at his law firm Ancel Glink, P.C., in Chicago, the letter accuses Diamond of not representing Oak Brook’s best interest in the red-light camera lawsuit.
“From the beginning, it appeared that you were focused on undermining the village’s desired goal, which was to prevent the (red-light cameras) on the corner of Route 83 and 22nd Street,” Manzo wrote.
“It is completely unacceptable to me that individuals representing the village, like village attorney, Diamond, were working internally against the village’s own best interests,” Manzo said Thursday July 28.
Manzo said it was Diamond’s recommendation to drop the red-light camera lawsuit, something the Village Board voted to do in closed session and for which no real explanation was given.
Diamond said Tuesday July 26 that he had not, yet, seen Manzo’s letter, but rejected his request to return the money paid by the village for work on the lawsuit.
“The work was done,” Diamond said. “The decision to give the permit was made by the Illinois Department of Transportation, and it didn’t appear to us there was a way to overturn that decision because it was theirs to make.”
Diamond said it was on that basis that he recommended that Oak Brook drop the lawsuit.
“It likely would have been a very expensive lawsuit not benefiting the community,” he said. “We didn’t think there was any way to change that through discovery, and that was our recommendation that was accepted by Oak Brook.
“I and my law firm are proud of the advice that we gave to Oak Brook. We believe that the Village Board made the right decision to allow for the dismissal of the lawsuit at that time.”
Diamond disputed Manzo’s claim that the attorney told the board it was appropriate to vote in closed session on dropping the lawsuit, saying a vote would have to be taken in public.
“I said at that time that we voted in public to go ahead with the lawsuit, so why wouldn’t we have to also vote in public to drop it,” Manzo said. “I was very much against taking that vote in closed session, and why would we have done that, without Stewart saying it was appropriate?”
Diamond said Manzo turned out to be right about the corruption involved in the permit being issued to operate the red-light cameras.
“But at that point, there was no way to know that,” Diamond said. “It took years for this information to come to light.”
Manzo said July 26 that he believes sending the letter to Diamond was important, even though the Illinois Department of Transportation ordered Oakbrook Terrace in May to deactivate and then remove the cameras on southbound Route 83 and eastbound 22nd Street.
Prior to that happening, former State Sen. Martin Sandoval, who was chairman of the state’s Transportation Committee, pleaded guilty in January 2020 to bribery and tax charges. Sandoval died in December 2020.
He admitted in federal court to taking more than a combined quarter of a million dollars in bribes in exchange for his political influence or official action, including at least $70,000 in from a SafeSpeed representative who was working with authorities. SafeSpeed is the red-light camera company with which Oakbrook Terrace contracted.
“Even though the lights are being removed, which is what we wanted all along, I want people to know the complete story before the book is closed on this,” Manzo said.
He said that during the course of the litigation preparation and initiation, Diamond continuously refused to focus on the process itself being corrupted and instead told board members in a March 2017 memorandum that he was “convinced that this is not a case that Oak Brook should pursue and that it has dramatic dangers” because of the potential loss of Oakbrook Center.”
Diamond’s comments at the time about potentially losing Oakbrook Center had to do with his research into the possibility that the mall actually was within the boundaries of Oakbrook Terrace and not Oak Brook.
“Despite knowing that this pursuit was contradictory to the direction of the Village Board, your efforts to study prior annexations continued for an extended period of months,” Manzo said in his letter to Diamond.
Manzo and former Village Board member Don Adler voted in February 2017 (bancodeprofissionais.com/suburbs/oak-brook/ct-dob-legal-bills-tl-0309-20170301-story,amp.html) against paying a legal bill of $22,870 to Diamond’s law firm after Adler said the attorney had not completed a legal analysis on which municipality controlled the Route 83/22nd Street intersection.
“The problem is what we don’t have in our hands is a comprehensive legal analysis, which I have asked for,” Adler said at the time. “We have received emails, but I don’t believe the work is done on this until we actually receive a comprehensive legal analysis. Mr. Diamond has a habit of giving shoot from the hip memos. I have expectations of what legal work looks like, and it should be organized, not ping-ponging around.”
Another claim Manzo stated in his letter is that Diamond refused to depose any witnesses when the board advised him it still wanted him to proceed with the litigation.
“In fact, you were so opposed to such depositions that you then stated that you quit and would no longer represent the village in this matter,” Manzo wrote in his letter to Diamond.
Manzo said Diamond then showed up at the next board meeting, despite “quitting,” denied he had quit and redoubled his efforts to proceed with withdrawing the case.
Manzo claimed that Diamond had a conflict of interest while representing Oak Brook in the red-light camera lawsuit because the attorney was acutely aware of Sandoval’s involvement in the placement of the red-light cameras, information that Diamond never disclosed to the Village Board and which materially impacted Diamond’s judgment as it related to Oak Brook’s best interests.
Village President Gopal Lalmalani and board member Ed Tiesenga each said they had no comment on Manzo’s letter. Tiesenga said he had not, yet, seen the letter.
Board member Asif Yusuf spoke out strongly against the letter, after initially saying it would be difficult for him to comment, given the possibility that the matter could lead to litigation.
After being asked again if he agreed or disagreed with the claims Manzo made in the letter and by whom litigation would be filed, Yusuf did comment.
“What I can tell you is that we were kept informed regularly on steps being taken, but to demand a refund after the fact is the typical theatrics Manzo is well known,” he said. “All show and no substance.”
Board member Jim Nagle, elected in 2021, said he strongly supports Manzo sending the letter to Diamond.
“Not only does he have the right to question the attorney’s $100,000 bill, he has an obligation,” Nagle said. “If we find something that needs to be questioned now, it’s the right thing to do, even if these are from old attorney’s bills.”
Larry Herman, who also was elected to the board in 2021, said he had no comment, specifically, on Manzo’s letter, but did not have an issue with it being sent.
“I understand that Mike Manzo was the trustee most engaged in advocating for the village on the red-light camera matter, and his instincts on the political and criminal shenanigans surrounding the red light camera installation at Route 83 and 22nd street have proven to be spot on,” Herman said. “Mike has been tireless in his pursuit of the truth on this matter, and I respect his judgment on getting to the bottom of it all.”
Village Manager Greg Summers, who also was not around when the red-light camera lawsuit was dropped, as he started working in Oak Brook in January, had a similar, but even stronger, take.
“Trustee Manzo has always been at the epicenter of leading the village’s opposition to red-light cameras, making him the best equipped elected official to express the village’s concerns with our prior legal counsel,” Summers said. “With everything that we know today surrounding the matter of the City of Oakbrook Terrace’s red light camera, including the corruption involved in its initial approval and the resulting decrease in intersection safety, it is clear that the village’s prior counsel relied upon a misguided legal strategy and potentially had conflicts of interests in the matter.”
Board member Suresh Reddy, elected in 2021, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Chuck Fieldman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
