THE BLADE: The Large Pepperoni Pizza in the Room

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has complained to me over the past two-and-a-half years about the “blogs” on Oak Lawn Patch.

"Why doesn’t Patch switch to Facebook commenting. That way, people would have to use their real names?”

“How come Patch can’t require bloggers to blog under their real names or at least tell them to be civil?”

“Patch should ask bloggers to give their phone numbers and/or email addresses so that the editor can verify who is writing the ‘blogs,’ the way newspapers verify letters to the editor?"

If I had I dollar for every time someone kvetched about untrue and crazy “blogs” – nine times out of ten by an elected or public official – I’d be taking a year off and backpacking through Europe.

So when anonymous “blogs” began appearing in the comments section on recent village government stories about a top-secret meeting allegedly convened by the newly elected village officials in the main dining room of Palermo’s on 95th, I didn’t pay attention.

The same way I didn't pay attention to anonymous comments left about one of the mayor's candidates' who had allegedly embellished her involvement in her parish women's club.

Now, suddenly, all of these new anonymous comments that have popped up in the last two weeks hold credence.

None of these anonymous complainers could provide the date when this alleged, top-secret meeting in Oak Lawn’s most popular restaurant took place.

According to one version of the story, Mayor-elect Sandra Bury, along with trustee-elects Tim Desmond and Mike Carberry, and trustees Alex Olejniczak and Tom Phelan plotted out a color-coded “hit list” of village employees to fire because they placed a sign for an opposing candidate in their yards.

Over pizza and beer, deals were struck to award the village treasurer’s job to lame duck Trustee Phelan. In yet another version, Phelan was to have received the village manager’s job – both in exchange for managing the mayor-elect’s successful campaign.

We know this conspiracy to be true because Trustee Bob Streit said so at Friday’s special village board meeting after charging that he and Trustee Carol Quinlan – the outgoing mayor’s close ally and friend – were prohibited from placing an ethics ordinance on the regular village board agenda.

Just by putting the thought out there, should Phelan get the village treasurer's position, which he is barred from accepting because of his occupation as a financial advisor, Streit has saved the village from his former ally's conflict of interest.

Unless there was some other top-secret meeting at Palermo’s that I’m not aware of, Bury, Desmond, Carberry and Olejniczak walked to the restaurant after clearing out Bury’s campaign office in the old Frugalista clothing store the weekend after the April 9 election.

Tom Phelan did not attend the dinner to celebrate an “amazing campaign” in the words of the mayor-elect. Phelan and Olejniczak have also sworn up and down that Phelan was not at the dinner.

No open meetings act rules were violated because Bury, Desmond and Carberry haven’t been sworn in yet. The only elected official present at the Palermo’s pizza and beer dinner after a sweaty day of cleaning out a campaign office was Olejniczak.

According to the dinner party attendees, there were no decisions made about village business. They discussed family and vacations. I can only go by their word, the same way I can only go by Trustee Streit’s and Trustee Quinlan’s word that they were barred from exercising their powers of elected office despite those who argue otherwise.

If the newly elected officials are guilty of anything it’s perception. Giving them all the benefit of the doubt that this dinner was on the up and up, it’s certainly understandable how the casual observer, a sore-loser rumor mongerer or an unhinged political hasbeen could easily concoct a cabal over a large pepperoni.

The only possible list that came to the newly elected officials' minds was a voter list that the Oak Lawn First campaign worked from, which was not pulled out at the Palermo’s dinner, or so I’m told. I can only assume that the Mayor’s Independence Party also used such a list during its campaign.

Trustee Streit reportedly plans to release the color-coded hit list to the news media this week. I welcome this list, as well as any other documentation. I have the newly elected officials’ comments – on the record – as well as Olejniczak’s and Phelan’s that nothing untoward happened, and that Phelan wasn’t at the impromptu dinner party.

If I find documented proof that what I was told was untrue, that will be reported.

Maybe it’s a good thing that the new mayor- and trustee-elects are learning now about perception, before they are sworn in next month.

If Trustee Streit doesn’t care to release his documentation from the top-secret meeting to Patch, then I will link to any news outlet that carries it so that our readers are sure to see it. We owe them the entire story – and that means both sides of it.

The newly elected board members will receive the same level of scrutiny as any other elected officials I have covered on this site. The Oak Lawn voters who spoke loud and clear on April 9 expect -- and deserve -- nothing less.

And speaking of perception, we have an ethics ordinance introduced by a trustee who is being investigated for alleged bid tampering by the FBI, co-sponsored by another trustee who two years ago was accused by Trustee Streit of forging signatures on a referendum petition to change the village’s form of government.

Then again, Streit claims during this period that he was under the spell of fellow trustee Tom Phelan’s supernatural mind-control powers, before he switched sides.

Perception?

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