Harvard’s former city administrator is suing the city for unpaid severance and benefits after his contract was not renewed, and he asserts in the suit that he was terminated without cause to avoid paying that severance.

At the end of an April 22 meeting, the Harvard City Council voted 5-2 not to renew Lou Leone’s contract. The next day, he was placed on what officials said at the time was paid administrative leave and was walked out of the building. Leone never returned to City Hall.

Leone said he did not receive what should have been his last paycheck in mid-May, nor was he paid the 20 weeks of severance as outlined in his contract.

Other than information given by Mayor Mike Kelly in an interview following Leone’s dismissal, Leone said he does not know what he was alleged to have done to lose his job.

“They did not follow any procedures and never told me what I am being accused of, but they told the paper,” Leone said.

Kelly said at the time that Harvard officials were looking for official city emails Leone and seeking to determine if Leone deleted them.

Leone said Aug. 14, the day after the suit was filed in McHenry County court, that he was “given a generic letter with no actual claims. I didn’t know what they were claiming” to justify the dismissal, adding the city “did not follow any internal procedures.”

A Northwest Herald Freedom of Information Act request sought email correspondence between Leone and City Council members from March 1 through April 23.

A review of those emails shows that in March, there were several terse emails back-and-forth between Leone and a council member.

The two were emailing about Harvard’s emergency operations plan, a document that can only be viewed on-site and that the alderperson had questions about in January. The alderperson claims they were not sent that email “despite there being an email copied that makes it look like you did.”

Leone wrote back, “As the attachment shows, I did actually answer you” and that he replied within the hour. “It is not my fault there was an issue on your end.”

“An issue with the City’s email system and my City iPad, just to be clear,” was the alderperson’s response.

At about the same time, the alderperson wrote emails to Leone indicating that Harvard winning the Northwest Herald’s Top Workplaces Readers’ Choice Award for 2024 was not legitimate after Leone informed the council about the designation.

“I know the full story on this. That basically people stuffed the ballot box. That’s not something I’d brag about,” the alderperson wrote.

Leone blind copied his response to the entire City Council, saying “it is disappointing that a council member doesn’t believe in the work environment that administration has built or that staff actually enjoys working here.”

He was not aware the voting was taking place, or that staff was voting, Leone said.

He also said he was proud of his time at Harvard and loved the city, and presented a three-page report of what he felt were milestone accomplishments in his 2½ years with the city at the April 22 meeting.

Those highlights included developing a plan to rebuild Harvard roads using bonds paid for via a voter-approved sales tax, recruiting new and qualified staff at lower salaries than their predecessors, increasing parks and recreation programming, and dismantling “institutional ‘silo’ culture, improving collaboration between departments, resulting in staff voting Harvard as a Top Workplace in McHenry County.”

Leone’s first day as city administrator was Dec. 12, 2022. He replaced David Nelson, who had been the town’s administrator for 35 years.

Kelly deferred any discussion of Leone’s suit to City Attorney T.J. Clifton.

Clifton, of the firm Zukowski, Rogers, Flood & McArdle, wrote in an email: “We do not have any comment on the pending litigation at this point in time.”