A husband and wife who serve together on a Calumet City school board do not live within the district’s boundaries, a complaint filed by the Cook County State’s Attorney Office alleges.
Lincoln Elementary School District 156 Board President Kieta McCloskey and her board member husband, Sean McCloskey, have continued to vote on board measures, authorize the spending of district funds and travel to out-of-state conferences on the district’s dime while living in Olympia Fields, about 15 miles from the District 156 office, according to the complaint and a review of meeting minutes.
The McCloskeys have a Feb. 27 hearing date on quo warranto complaints against each of them, filed Oct. 30 by the state’s attorney’s office. Such complaints, by statute, may be brought when “any person usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or executes any office, or franchise, or any office in any corporation created by authority of this State.”
A state’s attorney’s office investigation determined that Kieta and Sean McCloskey did not live within District 156’s boundaries and were therefore ineligible to hold positions on the school board, spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said.
When the McCloskeys refused a formal written request to provide proof of residency or resign, the state’s attorney’s office filed the complaints to remove them from the board, Simonton said.
When reached for comment Wednesday, Kieta McCloskey said she wouldn’t be able to comment immediately due to a death in the family.
It’s not clear when exactly the McCloskeys are alleged to have moved out of the district, but a judicial sales deed shows their Waltham Street home in Calumet City was foreclosed on in 2015 and conveyed to U.S. Bank — which held their mortgage — on Sept. 26, 2018.
No one answered the door at their former Calumet City home Wednesday.
Property records show that Sean McCloskey closed on a five-bedroom, 4 1/2-bathroom home on Cumnock Road in Olympia Fields in mid-April, just weeks before he was administered his oath of office and took a seat on the District 156 Board.
Kieta McCloskey, a board member since 2017, was chosen to lead the board at the May 3 organizational meeting where her newly elected husband was seated, minutes show.
It wasn’t until August or September that board member Henry Moore said he first heard the McCloskeys had moved out of the district and their daughter, a former District 156 student, was now attending school in Matteson Elementary School District 162.
Moore said he, Vanessa Hatcher and Rosalyn Hathorn contacted the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in September to request they investigate the McCloskeys’ residency.
At the board’s following meeting, Moore said Kieta McCloskey addressed the issue of her family’s residency and claimed a flood had displaced them temporarily.
Hatcher then asked the interim superintendents to have the district’s attorney investigate the matter and for a special meeting to be convened, meeting minutes show.
McCloskey agreed to a special meeting and an investigation of her residency, according to the minutes.
The board was set to discuss the attorney’s investigation into the McCloskeys at its next regular meeting in October until four members — including both McCloskeys — voted to remove that item from the agenda, minutes show.
Board Vice President Valencia Ross, who made the motion to remove the item from the Oct. 21 agenda, declined Wednesday to explain her decision.
She said she didn’t know anything about where the McCloskeys lived and that she told the board members who wanted to investigate their colleagues that she just wanted to stay out it.
Without a majority of the board to approve an inquiry into the McCloskeys’ residency, the issue languished locally and has not been discussed at subsequent meetings, Moore said.
In the mean time, the board has approved members’ attendance at conferences in Miami, Chicago and Washington, D.C., minutes show.
Moore said he was concerned by the McCloskeys’ attendance at the conferences in Miami and Chicago earlier this year and their registration to attend the one in Washington in February.
“If you don’t live in a district, why are you still wanting to serve on the board and spend taxpayer money?” he said. “You shouldn’t be here if you don’t live in the district. Let someone else in who lives in the district sit on the board.”
Moore said he’d been voting down most resolutions in recent months because of the McCloskeys’ continued presence on the board.
“I vote ‘No’ because the McCloskeys are not in compliance, the board is not in compliance,” he said.
Moore said he did not expect the McCloskeys to resign their seats unless forced to by the court because they maintain the support of the board majority.
Twitter @ZakKoeske