Maine Township trustees appointed one of their own to serve as the municipality’s new highway commissioner.
Robert Provenzano had served as Maine Township’s highway commissioner since Jan. 1, 1998. He officially resigned from the elected position on July 31. His term was to end in the spring of 2017.
The special meeting to appoint Provenzano’s replacement happened within 48 hours of his resignation going into effect. The process of selecting the new highway commissioner involved the board going into closed session for 22 minutes during the middle of the Aug. 1 meeting. When the board resumed open session, members unanimously accepted Walter Kazmierczak’s resignation as a trustee from the board and then appointed him to the highway commissioner role.
“Why is there such a rush to fill this job?” asked Joan Sandrik, a Maine Township resident who attended the board’s meeting. “Why wouldn’t you go out and do a search and see if there is somebody with the kind of experience you need for this job?”
Kazmierczak was first elected to the township board in 2001 and has served as the manager of community relations with the Illinois Council of Banks and Real Estate. His experience and interest in the allocation of social agency grant money is the reason board members gave for choosing him to serve as the new highway commissioner. Also, he was the only member of the board available around the clock for a role officials said requires 24/7 availability.
As Pioneer Press reported in June, Kazmierczak, a Park Ridge resident, expressed interest in submitting his name for appointment to the highway commissioner seat. During the public comment portion of the meeting before the closed session, Sandrik said the speed with which the board moved to appoint one of their own to the position reeks of “cronyism.”
Township Supervisor Carol Teschky defended the board’s swiftness in appointing Kazmierczak, arguing that appointing someone to the position from within their ranks ensured continuity of service and the retention of institutional knowledge.
“The feeling of this particular board is that there needs to be someone familiar with our operations,” said Teschky. “Right now, we have the superintendent … of the highway department, and he is without a boss, along with six or seven of the employees there. There is no boss there to instruct them to do anything. That’s one of the reasons we needed to fill the vacancy now.”
The highway commissioner’s responsibilities include overseeing a department of six paid, nonelected employees who are responsible for maintaining streets, sidewalks and storm sewers within the unincorporated area of the township that shares borders with Des Plaines, Niles, Park Ridge and Glenview.
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Provenzano was appointed to the highway commissioner position in 1998 after the resignation of Bill Fraser, who had just been re-elected to a four-year term. Before he was appointed highway commissioner, Provenzano had served as township collector in 1993 and as trustee from 1994 to 1998.
For most of the meeting, trustees defended the practice in Maine Township of appointing internal candidates to elected positions when whoever is in the role steps down before the term is up.
Maine Township Clerk Gary K. Warner chimed in with his take on village appointments.
“This is the way it goes,” Warner said. He gave an example of someone being first being appointed a collector, and then a trustee and then next an assessor or a township supervisor. He pointed out that this hypothetical person would be creating new vacancies that need new appointments as they fill positions made vacant by elected officials who step down before their term is up.
“In other words, [critics] don’t understand what we’re doing here,” Warner said. “You just don’t walk your way up the ladder. This is what we do; this is our life.”
Also during the Aug. 1 meeting, board members expressed their frustration with newspaper coverage of Provenzano’s resignation, as well as residents who took to social media and community message forums to criticize how the board was handling the appointment process.
“I am disturbed by the discourse that has been put out there over newspaper articles,” Trustee Laura Morask said. “I’d like to speak for myself when I say there is no preconceived notion, there is no preconceived end result because a newspaper and a person said they were interested [in the highway commissioner position] doesn’t speak for me as a trustee … as to who or what person I’m going to appoint or vote for.”
Kazmierczak also said he avoids online discussions regarding the board’s actions “like the plague.”
“It’s just, on both sides, prejudicial commentary and biased. So why watch it, why look at it?” he said.
As for the outgoing highway commissioner, Provenzano’s annual salary was set by the board in 2012 at an amount of $89,952. According to a village spokesperson on Aug. 2, the municipality is unclear on how Provenzano’s pension will be handled since he didn’t serve his full term. The reason given for this uncertainty is that the pension is handled by the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, which is still processing Provenzano’s resignation.
Kazmierczak said he was going to decline a pension in his new role as highway commissioner.
Alex V. Hernandez is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.