Public Watchdog.org

The Maine Township Stupid Party Players Present: “Assgate” (Act 1)

09.24.18

Anybody who has observed Illinois politics with any degree of objectivity over the past few decades can be justified in concluding, sadly, that Illinois Democrats are the corrupt party while Illinois Republicans are the stupid party.

If additional proof of that second point were needed, the folks running Maine Township government have provided it with the theatrical goat rodeo production we will call “Assgate” – based on Trustee Kim Jones’ claim, in a “Formal Complaint”, that Trustee Dave Carrabotta “touched my ass” during photo ops at two or three Township events during the past year.

We begin with a little background for context.

Jones and Carrabotta are both nominally “Republicans,” although Jones – along with Supervisor Laura Morask, Clerk Peter Gialamas, Non-Assessor Susan Moylan-Krey and Highway Commissioner Wally Kazmierczak – are more aptly described as “RINOs”: Republicans In Name Only. Over the years they have demonstrated that their philosophy of Township government closely mirrors  that of Illinois Democrats’: Make it bigger and more expensive while minimizing transparency and accountability so that the taxpayers don’t realize what’s actually going on.

SIDEBAR: Morask was elected Trustee in 2001 as a Democrat, but she promptly learned how to go along to get along with a Republican (albeit RINO) majority; and she ran for re-election in 2005 as a Republican.

That difference in philosophy pitted Jones and the other RINOs against the more conservative views of Carrabotta and fellow Republican Trustee Susan Sweeney, and even those of Democrat Claire McKenzie, the three of whom we dubbed “The Reformers” following their election in April 2017 because they tried to bring transparency and accountability to a previously opaque and irresponsible Township Hall. More importantly, The Reformers comprised a majority of that 5-member Board and started regularly criticizing and out-voting the Morask/Jones minority.

That proved to be a rude awakening for Morask and Jones because, as best as we can tell, they never were on the losing side of any Township Board vote during their respective tenures of 17 years (Morask) and 5 years (Jones). But the most jarring wake-up call for them may have come when The Reformers refused to certify Moylan-Krey’s Non-Assessor position as requiring at least 1000 hours/year of her services, the bare minimum requirement to entitle her to one of those sweetheart public pensions.

Although Morask and Moylan-Krey got The Reformers’ non-certification overturned by a kinky secret appeal to the state pension fund’s retiring general counsel (which you can read about in our February 13, 2018 post), Carrabotta, McKenzie and Sweeney finally found out about it and are now in the process of attempting to reinstate the non-certification.

But that non-certification vote and other 3-2 votes by The Reformers made destroying their majority Job One for the RINOs. And it’s against that backdrop that, as the curtain rises on Act I of “Assgate,” we find Jones – reportedly on the boneheaded (and arguably conflict-of-interest) advice of Township attorney Keri-Lynn Krafthefer – stupidly inviting Carrabotta to a “private” one-on-one discussion during the “bill pay” portion of the May 22, 2018, Board meeting.

During that private meeting Jones accused Carrabotta of brushing/touching her “butt” and put him on notice that she would not tolerate further instances of such touching.

As we see it, at that point Carrabotta had four reasonable options.

1. He could have admitted it (assuming it were true) privately to Jones, apologized, and asked for Jones’ forgiveness while promising not to do it again;

2. He could have admitted it (assuming it were true) publicly, apologized to Jones and the assembled multitude, and asked for forgiveness while promising not to do it again;

3. He could have denied it to Jones privately (assuming it were not true) and just let the matter drop; or

4. He could have come out of that private meeting with Jones and (assuming her accusations were not true): (a) identified for the record, with the videotape running, the specific conduct of which Jones had just accused him; (b) categorically denied those charges; and (c) challenged Jones to file whatever claims she believes she has with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the “EEOC”), or the Illinois Department of Human Rights (“IDHR”) for investigation.

But apparently that was asking too much of Carrabotta, Jones, and the rest of the “Assgate” cast.

Using a poker metaphor, Carrabotta “saw” Jones’ stupidity (of holding a one-on-one “private” meeting with her alleged harasser) with stupidity of his own: He emerged from that private meeting and stupidly demanded an immediate closed session discussion of a potential “discipline” matter, even though it’s unclear whether Jones’ accusations could even support a closed session under the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”).

Carrabotta then “raised” Jones with a second stupidity of his own making: Once they got into closed session he reportedly requested a formal investigation – a request that at least a majority of the trustees stupidly approved, perhaps also in violation of IOMA. And McKenzie and Sweeney unfortunately appear to have chosen to indulge both Carrabotta’s wrongheaded closed session request and his wrongheaded request for the investigation.

Not to be outdone by the stupidity of the Township’s elected officials, however, Attorney Krafthefer stupidly advised Jones to file the formal complaint against her fellow Trustee – which apparently was necessary to initiate an investigation – even though Jones later told investigators she “didn’t really want to.”

That’s right, folks: The Township’s attorney compounded her initial arguably conflict-of-interest personal legal advice to Trustee Jones (to hold a private meeting with Trustee Carrabotta) by giving Jones more personal conflict-of-interest legal advice, this time to file a Formal Complaint against Carrabotta which, just coincidentally, was likely to generate some nifty investigation fees for Krafthefer’s law firm, Ancel Glink.

The curtain closes on Act 1 with Jones – who could have let the matter drop then and there, and might well have done so were it not for Krafthefer’s advice – submitting the Formal Complaint against Carrabotta.

In our next post we will present Act 2 of “Assgate.”

To read or post comments, click on title.

9 comments so far

‘Dog, you killed it!

“Assgate” by the “Maine Township Stupid Party Players” is awesome. I consider myself a Republican but the MT RINOs (MT RINOs = Empty RINOs) are an embarrassment to real Republicans. I still feel sorry for how Carrabotta has been railroaded in the press and on social media but as you point out he did bring on some of this himself by how he reacted. He should have done it all out in the open.

I will look forward to seeing what, if anything, comes out of her EEOC and IDHR complaints. I’m betting nothing for the same reasons that nothing came out of the Ancel Glink investigation.

This was a political hit job by the RINOs because they started losing all the important votes to the Reformers. THey couldn’t make a #MeToo charge stick against McKenzie or Sweeney so Carrabotta ended up being the fall guy.

Is Marty Moylan getting out of alimony if his ex-wife Moylan-Krey keeps getting her Township check and public pension?

EDITOR’S NOTE: “[P]olitical hit job” sounds about right, although we assume that will generate howls of “victim shaming” and “bullying” from the politicians, hitters and their sycophants playing tribal or gender politics. We wonder, however, whether the RINOs even considered having Petey Gialamas take one for the team and accuse either McKenzie or Sweeney of grabbing his ass.

No idea what Moylan’s divorce decree or post-decree deal is with the ex. But being the Non-Assessor sure sounds like a sweet side job for the full-time Realtor, SM-K.

Hilarious take on a really bizarre situation.

Are the Maine Township Stupid Party Players anything like SNL’s Not Ready For Prime Time Players?

EDITOR’S NOTE: The SNL folks were far smarter and funnier. Unfortunately, the Maine Twp. folks have a much more direct impact on our community.

Maine Township RINO politics is a bad joke, but what bothers me is how the attorneys acted. How can the Township’s principal attorney (Krafthefer) privately counsel one trustee on how to deal with alleged harassment by another trustee, then encourage the first trustee to file a formal complaint about the other trustee? That seems totally wrong.

EDITOR’S NOTE: How Krafthefer could counsel Jones in how to confront Carrabotta and to file a Formal Complaint against him, and not even let Carrabotta know she was doing that, sure sounds like a conflict-of-interest situation gone very bad. And we also aren’t sure how Ancel Glink could properly handle the investigation, especially after Krafthefer’s counseling of Jones to actually file the Formal Complaint.

I agree with your valid critique of the law firm’s actions — but the suggestion that this was a fabricated claim made solely for political motives, i.e. a “hit job,” is not supported by the facts in the investigation, as I’m sure you are well aware. There was no evidence of scheming for political gain in the documentation, quite to the contrary. She expressed disgust and worry for the township employees. This is not the way Jones would have raised the issue if she were simply making up claims to smear her political nemesis. In the interest of your “HITA” principles, it would be nice if you wouldn’t so obviously cherry pick info to support your preferred narrative.

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Scheming for political gain” was not even a subject of Ms. Jones’ complaint or of the attorneys’ investigation: The only issue they investigated was whether Carrabotta touched Jones in a sexually-offensive manner. Those attorneys apparently could find not one shred of credible evidence to corroborate her claim that he did.

To the contrary, the attorneys reported that the only two other alleged Carrabotta “victims” (Ms. Berman and Ms. Rizzo) categorically denied any inappropriate conduct by him, which suggests that Kazmierczak, Gialamas and Morask may have outright lied to the investigators about what Berman and Rizzo told them.

Given how Carrabotta has been barbecued for the past four months by Todd Wessell, on social media, and by Jones herself – even after the investigation report was made public – this has been a very effective public “smear” of him by Jones, et al.

And as our “Act 2” and “Act 3” posts will demonstrate, we don’t need to “cherry pick info” to make a case for this being the rankest form of dirty politics, a case with which readers are free to agree or disagree.

Will it turn out that Jones and Carrabotta were having an extramarital affair?

Will the attorney be reprimanded for providing conflict of interest advice?

Stay tuned to your favorite soap opera “Maine Township Stupid Party Tricks, I mean Players”!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Re affair: We sure hope not.

Re reprimand: Only if somebody beefs about it. And right now, the only likely beefers are the folks unhappy with the investigation report; i.e., Team Jones.

Your portrayal is grossly skewed and completely inconsistent with the actual facts. Hopefully concerned citizens will read the investigation report for themselves rather than trust your deeply biased and offensive spin. If you can’t muster respect for others, which you clearly can’t, try to muster some for yourself and have some integrity in your portrayal of facts. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion, of course, no matter how offensive. But hopefully no one here is confusing your opinion with fact.

EDITOR’S NOTE: What? No accusations of “victim shaming” and/or “bullying”? You’re slipping.

We respect everyone that earns it, and even many who don’t. But we’ll never respect shameless political weasels like the RINOs at Maine Township who can’t abide the fact that Reformers have invaded the weasels’ den and started cleaning up the decades of scat.

Maine Township government is one of the smaller government “cars” but it sure is packed with “clowns.” Thanks for pointing that out for us.

This entire kerfuffle stems from one thing and one thing only: 3 votes to 2 votes. Morask, Jones and the rest of those RINOs are used to having their own way, so one of the majority 3 had to go. Carrabota became the fall guy because he was, literally, the guy.

EDITOR’S NOTE: It sure looks that way, but we still wish it had been Petey Gialamas accusing McKenzie or Sweeney of grabbing his tushy.



Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

(required)

(optional and not displayed)