Nunda officials refuse to pay bills accrued by ex-highway chief, cancel his sale of equipment

Before he was voted out office as Nunda Township highway commissioner, “Iron Mike” Lesperance built not just roads but green spaces with benches and dedicated parking – including one park-like area on which his crews apparently started construction after he lost reelection this spring.

The newly elected Nunda Township board is now refusing to pay an invoice and the credit card balance for five bills, totaling $27,457.16, related to that park, because they believe the work went beyond what a highway commissioner has authority to do.

“We talked to the lawyers. We can’t or should not vote to pay for them – it is illegal,” Nunda Township Supervisor Mike Shorten said, adding that Illinois Township Code does not allow highway districts to build parks.

Rob Parrish, who beat Lesperance to win the roads commissioner seat in the April 1 election, also sent cease-and-desist letters to Lesperance and two other McHenry County township highway commissioners on May 14 – days before Parrish officially took over his new Nunda role – to stop Lesperance from selling Nunda highway department equipment to the other area townships.

Before his term was up, Lesperance entered into intergovernmental agreements with those township officials to sell the equipment, Parrish said. The equipment included a 2018 John Deere 60G mini excavator with three buckets, a 2018 trailer with chains and straps, a 2017 Leeboy paver, and a 2012 Ford Super Duty F-350 pickup truck with a snowplow that Parrish described as Lesperance’s work vehicle.

Signed copies of those agreements were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. Had the sales gone through, Parrish said, the township would have been left without essential equipment.

“Nunda would have been in a $200,000 hole from sale prices to replace the essential equipment,” Parrish said.

Parrish is also deciding what do to about the parks and other non-road projects Lesperance built during his tenure. In 2023, Lesperance, who was roads commissioner for 12 years, developed a park area along Wegner Road in Lakemoor that includes a parking lot, pavilion and benches.

In the fall of the same year, he had crews construct a parking lot on Steuben Road, creating a northern access point to Moraine Hills State Park but angering residents in the area who thought it was unnecessary.

The newest park in question, now finished at Beachway Street and Rawson Road Bridge outside Cary, is named in honor of McHenry County Sheriff’s Deputy Jake Keltner, who was killed in the line of duty in March 2019. A ceremony took place last December to dedicate the bridge in Keltner’s honor.

But according to nearby resident Jim Aldana, it was on April 6 – days after Lesperance lost reelection – that Aldana found crews from Nunda Township staking out a narrow strip of land between his Fox River-facing property and the bridge for the park. It now has a bench, paved sidewalk, parking area and a flag and flagpole.

Aldana said he has no problem having a memorial for the officer next to his property along Beachway Street.

“A memorial is a good thing,” Aldana said. “I am not in favor of how [Lesperance] is going about it.”

Shorten, who also serves on the McHenry County Board, said it’s unfortunate the township has been left in its current position.

The outstanding bills the board is now contesting include $8,837.63 for a bench at the Keltner park that first showed up on the highway district’s March credit card statement. That bill was to be paid to Swenson Granite Works in South Hadley, Mass.

That bench was cracked within days of its placement at the park, Parrish said. It has since been moved to the McHenry County courthouse in Woodstock and replaced with a simple metal bench. Its purchase is another bill the Nunda Township board does not want to pay.

When asked about the Keltner-dedicated park and his decision to build it in April, Lesperance said: “I will leave it to your imagination,” and hung up on a reporter.

When reached again this month and asked about the parks and allegations that they went beyond his authorities, Lesperance hung up without comment.

Between losing reelection and leaving office, Lesperance also reignited a feud with residents near Holiday Hills who, for more than a decade, had been fighting to keep a large tree outside their homes that Lesperance wanted removed. In April, residents of the LeVilla Vaupell subdivision awoke to find a crew taking down the tree, in what one called an “act of vengeance” by the roads commissioner.

That happened days after a crew working for Lesperance had halted the tree removal work after renewed protests from residents.

Again, Lesperance hung up the phone when the Northwest Herald reached him and asked why he removed the tree and why then.

Parrish said he hopes to divest the township of the parks his predecessor built. That could include turning over the Wegner Road park property in Lakemoor to the village, tearing out most of the Steuben Road parking lot and deeding the Keltner park area to McHenry County.