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News
Official: No conflict on Henneberry vote : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisOfficial: No conflict on Henneberry vote
| by Matt Schury
| 12/31/2009
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Kendall County Board member Jeff Wehrli said after a board meeting Tuesday he didn't believe he had a conflict of interest because the seller of the Henneberry Woods property was his cousin, Ron Wehrli.
"I'm Jeff Wehrli and Jeff Wehrli Excavating-I'm not Crestview Builders and Ron Wehrli," he said.
Wehrli added that his company has done some residential excavating work for four or five of the houses on his cousin's property and notes that other people are building in the subdivision as well.
Wehrli says his cousin and his business partner Mike Steck, own the business and the land.
He adds that he did not consider abstaining from the vote to purchase the land and did not abstain from voting for the subdivision when the County Board first approved it a few years ago.
"I voted for the subdivision. I didn't abstain from it then and I asked several people if I should and they said 'no, you're a member of the board and you get to express your opinion as does everyone else-unless you have a conflict of interest'. And I said 'that's easy because I don't,'" Wehrli said.
He added that it would be helpful for his cousin to get out from under the property in this economy. However, he says as far as he is concerned, if the sale goes through, he would lose business.
"I have done, for the past 20 years, his houses. So there is a potential that I'm going to lose money on this deal, that's how involved I am," Wehrli said.
Instead, Wehrli explained he felt the property needed to be preserved.
"It was one of the last gorgeous places in the Oswego area and it gives us a connection to Reservation Woods, a connection to Waish-Kee-Shaw Park which gives us a connection back to Oswego," Wehrli said.
Kendall County Board Chairman Anne Vickery said she believed Wehrli when he said he did not have a conflict of interest when it came to the property.
"I'd like to believe that there isn't any (conflict of interest). Anytime that you are doing something like this you have to remember what the perception of the public might be," she said. "We need to protect our board and the people who are selling the land."
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