Creighton's lawsuit pushed back to Nov. 12
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Red Bud Chief of Police James Creighton's lawsuit against the City of Red Bud has been rescheduled in Randolph County for Wednesday, November 12 by Judge William Schuwerk.
The case scheduled for last week was postponed at the request of Elisha S. Rosenbloom of O'Halloran, Kosoff, Geitner, and Cook, LLC of Northbrook, Illinois, representing the city. The firm has been hired by Red Bud's liability insurance provider. Red Bud City Attorney Mark Rohr has told the aldermen that he cannot represent them because he did not support the ordinance in question and because he may be called by Creighton as a witness.
In addition, the aldermen have hired their own attorney, Barney Mundorf of Collinsville, Illinois.
Creighton's pay and benefits were cut off by a vote of the city council on July 7. However Mayor Ken Mueller refused to replace him. Creighton is represented by Joshua Avigad of Kaplan and Associates, LLC of St. Louis, Missouri. He is seeking the invalidation of an ordinance enacted by the council, restoration of lost pay and benefits, and attorney's fees.
Mueller and Aldermen Dennis Braun, Don Glassock, Bill Hanebutt, Clarence Nail, Scott Schubert, and Dave Young have butted heads since Mueller's election last year. Two other aldermen, Harold Cowell and Glenn Linnertz, generally support the mayor.
Mueller decided against reappointing Chief Dan Brotz, instead naming former Chester Chief of Police Don McKinney. The council voted six-to-two against confirmation. The council then created a new position assistant police chief at a pay equal to that of the chief's and unilaterally appointed and confirmed Brotz.
Illinois statutes and Red Bud city codes allow the mayor to fill vacancies on a temporary basis whenever the council fails to confirm. So Mueller temporarily appointed McKinney. But he resigned after just four days citing difficulties with Brotz and lack of support from the council.
Then in April of this year after the council refused to confirm Mueller's appointment of Creighton, Mueller again exercised his privilege to fill the position with a temporary appointment of Creighton.
This was followed by the council passing Ordinance 1178 to limit temporary appointments to 60 days with no more than two appointments of the same individual in a fiscal year. The ordinance also provided for the time limits to apply retroactively to existing temporary appointments, i.e., Creighton.
Mueller vetoed the ordinance claiming it would make it impossible to fill vacancies, was an attempt to undermine the mayor's authority, and would probably lead to lawsuits the city could not afford.
The council subsequently overrode the veto thereby reestablishing the ordinance. Mueller, however, questioned the validity of the ordinance and refused to replace Creighton.
On July 7, Glasscock addressed Mueller's failure to act in accordance with Ordinance 1178. He said, "In essence you (Mueller) have unilaterally decided to ignore a lawfully enacted ordinance, which is unacceptable. After consulting our own legal counsel we disagree with you and the City Attorney's position that 'There are several questions about the validity of this ordinance which could be raised in a lawsuit'."
Glasscock noted that the council authorized pay and made a motion to end payment to Creighton which passed by the usual six-to-two vote.
Thus, the ordinance, as predicted by Mueller, has now led the city into court.