Orland Park’s Liz Gorman, who is running for the 17th District seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners, is threatening Lyons Township with a lawsuit over FOIA requests that haven’t been fulfilled.
Lyons Township Clerk Elyse Hoffenberg is her opponent in the November election.
Freedom Of Information Act requests were not acted upon, the video was leaked and Democrat Hoffenberg accused township Supervisor Chris Getty, also a Democrat, of informing Republican Gorman of the video, and she also accused “political opponents” of extortion.
Gorman stopped by the Sept. 8 board of trustees meeting in Countryside and spoke during the public comments section and threatened the lawsuit.
“I followed the process, I narrowed my request and I waited,” she said of her FOIA requests. “I figured enough was enough. My attorney is preparing legal action against the township for failure to produce public records and concerning statements made about me that I contend are defamatory.
“This could have been avoided by doing your job, following the law and releasing the records. Now taxpayers now have to pay the price for Clerk Hoffenberg’s poor decisions.”
In a lively meeting in which this issue took a backseat in drama and theatrics to residents haranguing Supervisor and congressional candidate Christopher Getty, Gorman’s target was Hoffenberg.
“The clerk accused me of extortion and that really crossed the line,” she said and turned her attention to Hoffenberg. “I never spoke to you. Nobody in my campaign has spoken to you. Nobody threatened you. Nobody demanded anything from you.
“I filed FOIA statements. That’s not extortion. That’s FOIA. You can mislead your fellow board members, you can deceive the audience, you can mislead the press. You can misrepresent anyone else you have over the last few years but you will not lie about me. You do not get to make serious accusations against me and then portray yourself as the victim when you are called to account for.”
During the meeting, Hoffenberg kept her comments strictly to township business, announcing coming community events and praising a lengthy presentation from the Mental Health Commission.
After the meeting, she was cornered outside of the Township Hall by a handful of reporters and Hoffenberg talked about some of the good things the township was doing but was deflecting questions about the potential lawsuit and her role in it.
“I don’t want this to become a soap opera,” she said.
“I don’t want to make any allegations – I just want to stand by the work that we do and the work that we’ve done and seeing what good government looks like.”
When asked about more pressing issues about the controversy, political director Nick Desideri ended the questioning and she was taken away as he said she had another event to attend. Before her exit, she said that challenging the status quo is not easy.
“I think it was (activist) John Lewis who talked about ‘good trouble,’’’ she said. “It seems like I have gotten myself into good trouble here.
“It’s worth the battle and it’s worth doing right by taxpayers.”
A handful of people at the meeting praised Hoffenberg for her excellent service in recent years, but Gorman was not one of them. She said she was told some of the information she requested had been deleted.
“I want to be clear on the seriousness of this,” Gorman said. “Based on the circumstances surrounding the deletion of those public records, I believe a crime has been committed, especially after my attorney sent a preservation letter.
“It’s not something you explain away. That’s something that needs to be investigated immediately.”
Meanwhile, an emergency township board meeting had been called for Aug. 24 to discuss independent investigations and discuss fallout from these issues but the meeting was cancelled.
At the Sept. 8 meeting, Getty read a statement denying allegations against him by Hoffenberg.
“The recent accusations…are completely false and without merit,” he said. “The clerk has chosen to manufacture procedural drama, promote baseless conspiracy theories and launch political attacks against my office and the dedicated professionals who serve our township.”