Joliet Junior College board votes to release report on trustee misconduct

The Joliet Junior College Board of Trustees has voted to allow the release of a report regarding an investigation into what the chairman described last year as “employee grievances against members of this board.”

The college has not yet publicly released a report of the investigation, but it may do so next week or before the next board meeting, JJC spokeswoman Kelly Rohder-Tonelli said.

The report follows an announcement last August from JJC Board Chairman James Budzinski that the college retained an “independent firm to investigate employee grievances against members of this board.”

Comments from Trustee Alicia Morales at Wednesday’s special meeting indicate that the report may concern allegations against Trustees Maureen Broderick and Michelle Lee regarding harassment toward JJC President Clyne Namuo, staff and other trustees.

“We couldn’t get out of the room without almost having a street fight. We had to have campus security get in between two trustees. [It’s] absolutely ridiculous.”

—  James Budzinski, JJC board chairman

While not naming names, Morales said there are trustees who think they are the only ones who can govern the board, and they also believe they can harass Namuo and other college staff.

But Morales later said the trustees “on the report” are Broderick and Lee.

“You need to stop your behavior because you are a liability to this institution and to the taxpayers,” Morales told Broderick.

Morales was one of the six trustees who voted for the report’s release.

In response, Broderick, the lone vote against the release, said trustees are allowed to have freedom of speech.

“We are allowed to talk, but we should never enter into humiliating one another on this board right now, as you just did, Trustee Morales,” Broderick said.

Last year, the board censured Broderick and Lee for making “disparaging comments” about Namuo, according to board records. The board has further made votes of no confidence against Broderick and Lee.

Broderick and Lee have a pending lawsuit against the college that contends the two were “unlawfully censured,” and that Broderick’s censures violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act.

Their lawsuit claimed the censures were “political” and done at the behest of Namuo, who allegedly “wished to silence” trustees who disagreed with his plans. Broderick and Lee have criticized Namuo’s salary increase last year.

Lee was absent from Wednesday’s special meeting regarding the investigation report from Chicago law firm Laner Muchin. The firm has represented Will County in federal civil cases, and one of its attorneys was once the chief legal counsel for the Will County Executive’s Office.

At the meeting, Budzinski said there’s been bad behavior on the board that has not stopped, including at the last board meeting.

“We couldn’t get out of the room without almost having a street fight. We had to have campus security get in between two trustees. [It’s] absolutely ridiculous,” Budzinski said.

Broderick questioned the cost of the investigation, and she asserted that trustees have the right to ask questions to make good decisions and not “rubber stamp everything.”

Morales said no one on the board is a “rubber stamper,” but trustees are encouraged to ask administrators questions to get information before meetings so “we don’t have to make a circus out of this board meeting every day.”

Trustee Joshua Stamborski said the board not only has a “policy obligation” to investigate “these kinds of horrible harassments and behaviors” but a “moral obligation” as people to “check this kind of behavior.”

Stamborski supported releasing the report so people can “see and evaluate” the kind of behavior that is “unbecoming of an elected official.”

“It is embarrassing but needs to be done,” Stamborski said.