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News
Dispute over park board member's residency settled : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisDispute over park board member's residency settled
| Wass officially an Oswego resident
| by Lyle R. Rolfe
| 12/13/2012
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The question of whether Oswegoland Park District Board member Len Wass is a legal resident of the park district and able to continue to serve on the board has apparently been settled.
Wass of 175 North Adams Street, Oswego, was elected to a six-year term on the park board in April 2011.
It was learned at the November board meeting that Wass had listed his primary residence as a home in Somonauk in LaSalle County rather than where he actually lives in Oswego.
Board President Bob Mattingly said he and Board Vice President Deb Krase discovered this when they reviewed the amount of property taxes each trustee was paying.
Mattingly had said at that time that the district's legal counsel felt listing the LaSalle County property as his legal residence while living in Oswego, was illegal and told Wass so.
Wass said he hired two different attorneys and noted that both said that what he did was legal so he could continue serving on the board. He said the attorneys notified the board's legal counsel of this.
But the board's attorney quoted a different case law and maintained that Wass would have to change his residency or his serving on the board would be illegal.
Mattingly said in a statement issued afterward, that "we have given Len (Wass) until Dec. 5 to rectify the situation (concerning his residency) before any other action is taken."
When Wass was contacted by the Ledger-Sentinel this week about the Dec. 5, date, he said he was not aware of the deadline.
"I had no idea I was under any kind of time pressure. I had two attorneys give me the same opinion so I saw no need to acquiesce to their pressure," Wass said.
Mattingly however, said the board's attorney had notified Wass' attorney of this decision.
Wass said he had changed his residency on Nov. 26 and had sent notice of this to the district's legal counsel.
Wass said he visited the clerks of both LaSalle and Kendall counties on Nov. 26 and changed the residency back to Kendall County.
His reason for doing he said, was "...to put an end to their wasteful spending of thousands of dollars on attorneys pursuing a situation that had no validity to it. I stopped it in the interest of the taxpayers," he said.
All five board members were present at a Dec. 4 park board finance committee meeting, but no one mentioned Wass' changing his residency.
The Ledger-Sentinel asked Kendall County State's Attorney Eric Weis if he had been asked to investigate whether Wass, was serving on the board legally. Weis said he had not been contacted for an opinion on the issue or asked to investigate Wass' status as a board member by anyone, including his board colleagues or any private citizens.
Wass maintained "principal residence" is just a legal term for transferring an exemption from one property to another. It has nothing to do with where a person votes or where he actually resides, he added.
Weis described the question of whether an individual who owns multiple residences in different jurisdictions as a "kind of a legal gray area" when determining residency for elected officials.
He noted that a recent Illinois Supreme Court ruling involving Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel addressed the issue. Prior to the Supreme Court's ruling, Emanuel's legal residence in Chicago was in question since he had maintained a home in Washington, D.C. while serving as an aide to President Barack Obama.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled in Emanuel's favor and he subsequently ran and won election as Chicago's mayor last year.
Weis said the Supreme Court's decision in the Emanuel case established the intent of the individual whose residency is being questioned as the key factor.
He explained, "It really depends what the intent of the individual is. Where do they want to reside?"
Mattingly said he was pleased that it has been resolved.
"From the beginning I wanted to make sure that as president of the board that we were not doing something that was illegal. We did not want to knowingly keep someone on the board if it was illegal," he said.
Wass said the issue has been resolved.
"So the matter is dead. It's no longer active," he said.
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