The Board needs to get Hawkish....

The declaration by Village Board President Elliott Hartstein that a timer be used to keep the Village Board meetings moving along is a unique idea.


But it's only a start.


The board meetings have taken on a flair of another significant Monday night event -- Monday Night Football. If the Board wanted to attract more viewers, it should adapt to the market and make their meetings more like Monday night football.

Howard Cosell

It's too bad it can;t be done like MNF was done in its hay day with Howard, Frank and Dandy Don. Can you imagine Howard Cosell   engaging Lisa Stone? 


But we'll never know.  The reality is the Board has adopted some rules designed to keep the meetings going.  Time limits are not unusual -- many village boards, school boards, park board, etc. have time restrictions.  Given the nature of things with the Buffalo Grove Village Board, most people think they are designed to silence trustee Lisa Stone.  The bottom line is the rule applies to all trustees.


The enforcement of the time limits by appointing a time keeper (village staff member Art Malinowski) puts a new twist on Village Board meetings -- time management.  Several times during the meeting Stone was heard prompting Melanowski when to start her time and reminding Village Board President Elliott Hartstein how much time she had at any given time.  


The focus on time management  reminded me of a football game, which made me think that the Village Board meetings have become a governmental version of Monday Night Football.  


What's next?  Referees?  Video replays? Cheerleaders?  

Hawk Harrelson

How about announcers?  Since the aforementioned Howard Cosell is in the big broadcast booth in the sky, my suggestion is to have Melanowski joined in the booth by White Sox announcer Ken "the Hawk" Harrelson.


Why not?  He's used to disagreements -- just look at Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen -- that's similar to Hartstein and Stone.  He's used to incessant rants. He's used to bizarreness.  


And to make things easier, he would not have to learn any new lingo.  For example these classic "Harrelsonisms":

• At the start of a meeting:  "Time to cinch it up and hunker down"  or "Sit Back, Relax, and Strap it Down!" 
• When the exchanges between trustees gets acrimonious:   "Mercy!"
• When Hartstein tries to keep Stone in order:  "Zone 'em in, Reel 'em in, and light her up"
• When the Board tries to regain focus after a Stone tirade:  "But the damage is done"
• When someone tries to correct Stone:  "That's trouble" 
• When Stone tries to insist that she's right:  "Lookin' for it, got it, couldn't do nothing with it" 
• When trustee Steve Trilling sets the record straight:  "Give 'em a thrill"
• When Stone takes on Village Clerk Jan Sirabian: "That's trouble"
• At the end of yet another long, drawn out meeting (with one slight modification):  "And this one...is OVA!!"

So what might he say after the Nov. 2 election -- especially if Stone is recalled?  It could be...with some minor editing...

• She gone. 

or, 

• You can put her off the booooooooooooooaaaaaaard...YEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!" 

Silence on the lam

Trustee Lisa Stone revealed at  Monday's Village Board meeting that it's not only what she says that is offensive, arrogant, disrespectful and otherwise demeaning -- it's what she does not say.

In fact, her silence is perhaps most insulting to the people she should care about  -- but does not.  The men and women who work for the village.

Case in point.  Fire Chief Terry Vavra addressed the Board regarding the "ISO Rating" -- the insurance rating of the village's fire department, he detailed the success the village has had.  Buffalo Grove continues to have an ISO rating of 2 -- which is excellent. Only five departments in the state have an ISO rating of 1, so an rating of 2 is pretty damn good.

It's not, as Vavra pointed out, just a departmental rating--  three categories factor into the final rating -- the fire department, the water operation, and communications operations.  The village did exceptionally well -- Out of 50 possible points, the fire department scored 36.12 points; the water score was 39.12 out of 40 and the communications rating was an equally impressive 9.8 out of 10.

Nice numbers.  If you wondering why the fire department did not score higher, Vavra says proximity was a factor -- which means if the village had more fire stations it would likely improve out score, but not guarantee an ISO rating of 1.

Perhaps the most telling remark Vavra made was that it was "not the fire department that got the rating, it was the village."  Great job, chief.

The village -- as in the staff working together to keep the excellence associated with the village in tact.  Granted, it's not perfect, but comments by several trustees expressed interest in what it would take to improve the rating to a 1 and improve things for the entire village.

What we did not hear were any comments from Stone.  No questions, no praise, no interest.  Nothing. Nada. Zippo.

Ask yourself why.  The answer, as shown by what transpired at the meeting is simple -- there was nothing "in it" for her.  It seems as though Stone cannot stand when someone else -- staff, residents, colleagues on the board makes a positive contribution to the community.

That may be why she rips the B.G. Days Committee (aside the fact that she doesn't like many of the members), or the efforts of the Fire Department's "Pink  Heals" effort, or the efforts of the schools to put on drug awareness program (she was, however, quick to rip their efforts to promote them).

The silence is, in this case, not deafening.  It's as loud as can be.  It's loud enough to tell everyone that Stone is only interested in her agenda and if you don't bow down and embrace it, she unleashes her venomous verbiage.

She continues to say that the "whole community" wants to know why the board didn't do what she wanted them to do.

Whole community following Lisa Stone? Watch the video and maybe you'll find out why the "Whole Community" is not following Lisa Stone.

You may wonder why Village President Elliott Hartstein has become curt.  To every action, there's a reaction and Stone's actions have done little, correction, nothing, to foster any positive reactions by other board members.

What her actions have done is given the village a black eye.

What her actions have done is made a mockery of municipal government.

What her actions have done has raised the ire of the community.   Whether it's the whole community or not remains to be seen.

We'll know by Nov. 2.

And Lisa Stone won't have anything constructive to say.  Which wouldn't be the first time.

Daily Oral Language -- Part II

No one likes disappointment.

So I had to feel sorry for Gus Portokalos when he found out that two words being bantered around at Village Board meetings did not, in fact, come from Greek.

"You know, I thought the word community came from the work meaning common, as in what we all had together," he said.  But no.  It's from the Latin.

The meaning, however, doesn't change.  Check it out and you'll find that a key component in the definition is unified or common.


So when Lisa Stone rants on about how the "community wants to know" or how the "I think the community needs to know" she should consider the meaning -- unified.   It's amazing to me how she carries on about the needs of the community, yet she does little to work on behalf of the entire community.  Nor, as a matter of fact, does she check the pulse of the community.  It's as though she is a community of one.  This has been evident in how she works with her colleagues on the Board who, as she was, elected by the community.  Stone portrays herself as knowing the pulse of the community.

Listening to her at the last Board meeting, which was Sept. 13, you'd think the community is unified over the Land and Lakes landfill and the executive session from 2005. How does she know?  Has she surveyed the community?  Of course not.  She is so bent on her personal attacks on village staff and colleagues that she sees little in the benefits of a unified effort.


"So, it's one word, what other word do you want to know," Portokalos  asked.  "Citizen," I said.  "Ach, I believe the word citizen comes from the Greek..."  Sorry, I informed him, it does not.

But it's one of Stoney's favorite words.  You know, how she's heard from citizens about just about everything, well, everything that's on her personal agenda.  Like the Invisible Children group, which contacted her. They wanted to have a fund raiser at the Village Rotary Green.  No one knew about it until the Recall Committee had a rally there -- then, and only then, did Stone bring it to the Board.

Was this working in the best interest of the citizens?  Was it a way to work for the community?

Nope.

Portokalos shook his head.  "You know, I don't think the word stone comes from the Greek, so, there you go."

Gus, I told him, it's not me who has to go.

The Daily Oral Language

It took a while -- a long while -- but I finally finished reviewing the video of the Sept. 13 meeting.

Once again, the reality, make that the unfortunate reality, is that there is more material than I can fit in one blog.

As I perused my notes taken from the video, I realized there were some key words that emerged.  So taking a cue from the world of English teaching, let's embark on a vocabulary lesson -- or our Daily Oral Language.

The first word (why do I feel like Fred Rogers) boys and girls is "unbelievable."  Can you say that boys and girls?  I thought you could.

Now, do you know what it means?  Why yes, something that is not to be believed.  Which something that Lisa Stone said regarding her perceptions of how she was being treated.  But  is that what's unbelievable?

The late Nat King Cole

When I heard this, I resorted back to an old Nat King Cole song, "Unforgettable" --- and quickly found the melody to be compatible with Unbelievable.
 
So hum along...

• Unbelievable -- How  she can miss so many facts.  For example, that Lake County gave approval to the BG Days parade on Bernard.  Thanks to Trustee Steve Trilling who pointed out that Bernard is in Cook County and that it was a village controlled street.  What made that so much more unbelievable  is that it was Stone who wanted a stop sign installed on Bernard-- by the village.  

• Unbelievable -- How she can ridicule Board President Elliott Hartstein about how he treats her, but does not follow the same decorum she wants.

• Unbelievable -- How she thinks nothing of confusing the facts.  The tapes of the infamous 2005 executive session were not destroyed.  They were lost, something that Village Clerk Jan Sirabian admitted to several months ago.  While it is bothersome that they are missing, the accusation that they were willing destroyed is not the case.

• Unbelievable -- That she wants undue attention when she speaks, but thinks nothing of interrupting anyone else.

• Unbelievable -- That she challenges Village Attorney William Raysa, but yet does not reveal her sources.  She says she's not an attorney and portends to know more than the attorneys on the Board, but wait, where does she get her legal background?  Maybe someone at home?

• Unbelievable -- That she focuses on an odor from compost site from an office building that backs up to the facility.  The reality is compost can smell.

• Unbelievable -- That she challenges village finances, but doesn't think twice about absorbing staff time for her personal vendettas.

• Unbelievable --  that the village, which she insinuates is not well run, has AAA bond ratings from Standard and Poors and Moody's.

• Unbelievable - -How Hartstein has maintained, or tried to, professional decorum at the meetings, albeit terse and blunt at times. But can you blame him?  One political type who has followed the BG Board said he would have thrown the gavel at Stone by now and that Hartstein has been far too patient with Stone.

• Unbelievable -- that she claims village residents are intimidated to speak at a Board meeting, but yet if someone is vociferous in remarks to her, she cries scared and files a police report and then requests a police presence at the next meeting.

• Unbelievable -- That it appears people who voted for her have seemingly been mislead. 

What? A hand in the cookie jar?

There's no doubt about it -- $11,000 is a lot of money.

In fact, if you use the 2000 census, which found 42,909 resident in Big Animal Grove, that would come out to 26 cents per resident.

That's too much for Lisa Stone who takes exception with 11 grand being spent on the recent hearing during which she challenged some of the signatures on the petitions submitted by the committee that is seeking to have Stone sent over the rainbow or sent  somewhere in Kansas where she can live peacefully with the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion.  Toto has been deemed dangerous and cannot be on public land.

Stone has voiced (this is news?) her objection to the amount because she has no idea why so much research had to be done by the attorneys.

Interesting, isn't it, that she was not concerned about the cost  before she challenged the signatures.  Once he dust settled and reality set in that the challenged signatures would have no impact as to whether the question to recall her or not is placed on the Nov. 2 ballot, Stone decided to complain about its cost.

What would have happened had she won?

Odds are the cost would not have been an issue.  That's because Lisa Stone thinks nothing about spending village money when it's for her.

We're not talking fancy cars or jewelry, we're talking "personal" staff. Stone apparently does not realize the hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars in village funds she has used through her incessant emailing of village staff.  Email obtained by through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal that Stone seemed to contact whomever she wanted about her own pet causes.

One of the most striking examples is an email sent to the village manager's office in which Stone wanted staff to text or call her husband if a certain person was in attendance at the March 22 meeting.

It seems as though this person, whose name is redacted  (removed) from the email was at the previous Village Board meeting at had the nerve to ruffle Stone's perm during heated exchange.  Mind you, this took place after a nearly five-hour board meeting.

Stone took offense to this, claiming, according to an email, that someone demonstrated  "unusual  and frightening episode and anger towards me" at the previous Board meeting, which happened to be March 8.

The information, including the name of the evil person who rattled Liza, is  redacted in the FOIA'ed email, so I will not reveal the name.  But here's a hint-- watch the meeting she is upset about and you may just find out.

So how does this cost the village money?  Stone file a police report against the redacted individual and then proceeded to contact the Village Manager's asking for a  "police presence" at the next meeting.  Oh, by the way, she also wanted to have someone contact her husband if the evil redacted one should be there.  

Why?  Because in the email, Stone says, and as Dave Barry would write, I am not making this up -- "I stated in the report that the community has expressed concern and worry for me, given this  this man's anger towards me after viewing the meeting on channel 6.They only know what they witnessed watching the meeting, without any further background or detail.  That alone scared them."

The community?  Which community?  Probably the community in her mind.  If she thinks the community as a whole is worried sick about her, she is, to coin a phrase, delusional.   Perhaps the community that may be concerned about her safety is, as noted before,  the community in her mind.

Stone claims to be concerned about the safety and well being of the community -- but aside from trying to milk the video taping of Village Board meetings for her own personal gain, Lisa Stone has done nothing to gauge the pulse of "the community" -- the village of Buffalo Grove as a whole.

Instead she cries foul whenever someone disagrees with her.  What?  Signatures I don't like --  I want a hearing -- What?  I didn't get my way?  Then it's way too expensive.

What? Someone dare to yell at me at a Village Board meeting?  I'm filing a police report, I want to take up an officer's time, I want to talk to the chief, I want a police presence.  

And who pays for this, Lisa?  We do -- the community.  Not only is the "community" paying for your personal favors, you are taking valuable time of the Police Department from crime prevention and investigations and, who knows, fighting drug dealings.  Oh, wait, you forgot how important that is, didn't you?

And a police presence?  Wait -- wasn't Stone the one who admonished the Village Board because she said people did not want to come to the Board meetings because of the way they were treated?

But when someone is upset at her, it's OK for her to file a police report, spend village money on police reports, village staff time because she doesn't like, or agree with some one?

This is concern for the community?  What concern?  Stone's concern is there only if the village pays for it.  If it's not on her agenda, well, by gosh, it's too expensive.

Yes, $11,000 is a lot of money.  But it was money that came from the village's budget for legal costs for village operations.  Village -- as a community of a whole.

Not for some public official operates on a double standard.

When actions speak louder than words

It's hard to believe that something can override Lisa Stone's incessant rants.

Believe it.  Or maybe the word should be disbelief.

During the Aug. 30 Board meeting, the Board heard an update about Buffalo Grove Days from co-chairs J.V. Springman and Paulette Greenberg.  Nothing unusual.  Sort of pregame pep talk about an event that has been a village staple for more than 50 years.  Yes 50.

The Village Board was excited and pleased by the plans and when J.V. and Paulette finished, applauded their efforts, as did most of the people in attendance.

Keyword here is most.  One did not.  Lisa Stone.  If she did it was well hidden out of site.  But other people who were at the meeting noticed the same thing.

There's no better word for her actions then classless.  It's no secret that Stone does not like many, if not all, members of the Buffalo Days Committee as she contends there were improprieties with how money was handled last year.

That's nothing new.  Stone contends improprieties with just about everything in the village if it involves someone she doesn't like.

But to chide people who work feverishly on an event that spans five decades is just plain wrong.  As I've mentioned before, I know J.V., having lived in the same development before moving into the village.  Until June I had not seen J.V. for more than 10 years.  I have never met Paulette, so this is not a rant (a phrase I often save for Miz Quixote) saying "oh my gosh she was so mean to my friends."

That's not it.

She was mean to the whole committee, the Village Board and when all was said and done -- the whole village.  Who knows, maybe she was jealous because someone was getting more face time on Ch. 6 than her.

Yes, the applause was directed toward J.V. and Paulette -- but not because of who they are or what political beliefs they may have.  The applause was for their efforts -- and those of the entire committee for what they have done behalf of the entire village.

That seems to be a foreign concept to Stoney...it's my meeting and I'll do what I want under the ruse of "..my only concern..."  Her only concern should be one thing -- the entire village of Buffalo Grove.  

Instead her only concern appears to be her self-centered vindictive attacks on people who are making a difference.  Maybe they've stumbled, everyone does.  But once they pick themselves up they learn from their mistakes.

As noted in previous blogs, the Wednesday night "Pink Heals" event was a fabulous display of community unity and concern for cancer awareness.

But Stone seemingly was nowhere to be found.  After all, there was no forum and after all, she doesn't like the Committee  or many of the Board members. 

Guess she doesn't like cancer awareness either.

A charitable kickoff...

It seems as though when residents go by Village Hall -- they're seeing red.  Village Board meetings will do that to you.

Wednesday night was different.

It was a sea of pink. Not that the Board is a kindlier, gentler group -- but a charitable group.

Wednesday was 'Pink Heals" night in the village and parked along Lake-Cook Road were the bright -- very bright -- pink fire trucks.

Coordinated by Buffalo Grove fire fighter Steve Rusin, several hundred residents -- many decked out in pink, watched the annual softball game that included teams made up of village business leaders and village staff. 

Despite the fine play on sandlot, the stars were the pink fire trucks that grabbed the attention of young and old alike.  Granted it's a cliche, but that's what happens when you mix softball and fire trucks -- and fund raising for a good cause.  Among the village officials in attendance were Village President Elliott Hartstein, trustee Jeff Braiman, Beverly Sussman, DeAnn Glover, and despite being on the disabled list, Steve Trilling.  Village Clerk Jan Sirabian was also there.  Jeff Berman was attending the open house at Stevenson High School where his daughter is a student.

Buffalo Grove Fire fighter Steve Rusin (far right) with some residents and fellow Pink Heals supporters

 Perhaps the most gratifying aspect of the event wasn't the game, or who was there, but the fact that fire fighters from around the country volunteer their time to call attention to cancer.  Locally, it's a tribute to the dedication of Rusin and many of his colleagues who not only coordinated the event, but spearheaded the fund raising effort.

Members of the Pink Heals team and the traditional fire dog, which was allowed on public property.

Needless to say, it was  great way to kickoff Buffalo Grove Days.

Village Board Members Beverly Sussman (seated left) and Deann Glover.  Trustee Jeff Braiman  (left) is standing

By the way, the thud you may have heard around 7:15 p.m. was not an earthquake -- It was Harry Caray rolling over in his grave during the 7th inning of the softball game when Hartstein sang "Take Me Out To The Ball Game."

Let's just say that if Hartstein sang the national anthem he's probably get a call from Homeland Security.  Off tune?  You'd almost think he was sto-- aww, hell, let's not even go there.

The Charity Continues...

Wednesday's "Pink Heals" was not the only fund raising event that is a part of Buffalo Grove Days -- The Buffalo Grove Area Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring a food drive "Feed the Hungry..fill the Pantry.""  volunteers will have paper shopping bags available for residents to fill with a variety of items  -- including Peanut butter, tuna, canned fruit, toilet paper, jell and jam, salmon, canned vegetables, shampoo, soup, chicken, coffee, soap, chili, canned meals, tea, toothpaste and kitchen and laundry detergents.  Please note all food items should be in cans.  The chamber is asking residents not to use glass.

Volunteers will be pushing shopping carts along the parade route to collect donations.

Can't make the parade?  you can bring donations to the Chamber's office at  501/2 Raupp Boulevard...can't make that either?  Call the the Chamber's office at (847) 541-7799 and they'll pick up your donation.

Nice village, isn't it?