DeKalb city clerk asks for recall election mechanism if residents don’t like his work

DeKALB - Amid ongoing controversy surrounding incomplete city council meeting minutes, DeKalb City Clerk Sasha Cohen asked the mayor Monday to create an avenue for a recall election, and said if DeKalb voters don’t like their clerk, they can vote him out.

“If the citizens don’t feel represented by the mayor or an alderman or myself, they should have a methodology to request a recall election,” Cohen said. “This is entirely possible in the state of Illinois, a city need only pass an ordinance creating such a methodology.”

While the Illinois Constitution includes a provision for the recall of a state governor, municipal recall elections are not specifically covered in the law.

Cohen said he’s obtained documents through the Freedom of Information Act which show Mayor Cohen Barnes has emailed citizens referring to the clerk and a recall.

“I would welcome that,” Cohen said. “If citizens don’t feel that I’m adequately representing them, they should be able to start a recall petition as they should for each and every person sitting up on these chairs.”

The DeKalb City Council on Monday continued its weeks-long pursuit of appointing someone other than the clerk to take minutes at meetings, saying the goal isn’t personal, but rather an attempt to keep up with standards of record-keeping required under law, a responsibility aldermen said the clerk fails to meet.

[ DeKalb aldermen say recorder plans ‘not a personal attack’ on city clerk amid clerk’s inability to perform job ]

A unanimous vote amended city code Monday to add duties to the executive assistant’s position, a city employee who will now serve as Recording Secretary to the city council. The vote comes amid ongoing concerns that Cohen is violating state law by failing to perform clerical duties as required, leading to incomplete city records.

City have officials said minutes taken by Cohen are “chronically late and incomplete,” include typographical errors and misspellings, fail to note which aldermen make motions or how they vote, and violate the Illinois Open Meetings Act, according to city documents. In response, Cohen has accused the city manager’s office of continuing “a years long effort ... to consolidate the working powers of the city clerk.”

“I see no reason to further change the status quo regarding the enumerated duties of the city clerk and executive assistant,” Cohen said prior to the code amendment vote. “So I would politely request that you do not pass this ordinance change.”

The ordinance was passed unanimously, though Ward 3 Alderman Tracy Smith and Ward 6 Alderman Mike Verbic were absent.

Ruth Scott, the city’s executive assistant and former deputy clerk, was appointed as recording secretary. Among the clerk’s other duties are notarizing documents for the city and administering elections. Scott formerly served as deputy clerk until the position was eliminated in 2019 amid controversy surrounding previous city clerk Lynn Fazekas.

In order to process a backlog of late meeting minutes, Scott’s minutes from the Aug. 23, Sept. 13, Sept. 27, Oct. 25 and Nov. 8 notes were submitted for council approval, and received unanimous support. The clerk also submitted his notes for those meetings, though didn’t include any for the Nov. 8 meeting.

The city council declined to consider any of Cohen’s backlogged notes Monday, instead approving for the record Scott’s notes for the prior five meetings.

According to the Illinois Open Meetings Act, meeting minutes from an open session of City Council meetings must be approved by the public body within 30 days of the meeting, or the second subsequent meeting. Within 10 days after the council’s vote to approve the minutes, the record must be publicly posted, usually on a website.

“We have the August meeting minutes finally,” said Ward 7 Alderman Tony Faivre Monday. “They weren’t available last meeting. Probably if we hadn’t brought forth this consideration, we might not even have those tonight. That’s part of the reason.”

Faivre said the notes between recording secretary and clerk are stark in difference. According to city documents, the sets of minutes done by Scott versus Cohen do appear different in nature, with the latter including less detail surrounding discussions prior to votes. In the Oct. 25 meeting minutes, Scott’s version includes comments by the mayor and three aldermen who criticized the minutes as being lacking in detail with errors, including five paragraphs summarizing the discussion. In Cohen’s Oct. 25 minutes, he notes the mayor and two aldermen spoke, and includes four sentences of notes.

“I would ask anybody to review minutes and make a comparison [between Scott’s and Cohen’s],” Faivre said. “Ask yourself two years from today, which meeting minutes are going to explain what happened tonight? It’s very clear.”