Following up on a tense March meeting during which city Treasurer Jamie Malloy presented bank records from the Crest Hill Events Committee, the Crest Hill City Council moved Monday to begin the process of a forensic audit.

During the April 13 Work Session meeting, the City Council received a recommendation from attorneys Jason Blumenthal and Michael Bersani of Hervas Condon & Bersani, P.C. to hire Sarah L. Ketchum and her firm Ketchum Advisory, LLC to conduct a forensic audit of the Events Committee’s financial history.

Bersani and Blumenthal are not affiliated with the city’s regular law firm of Spesia & Taylor, but were instead assigned to this issue through the Southwest Area Risk Management (SWARM), Crest Hill’s insurance pool.

The audit was requested by Malloy at the March 2 meeting after she presented board members with a packet of records which showed that while under the leadership of Alderwoman Tina Oberlin, the committee had its own separate bank account, which Oberlin had registered under her own address, date of brith, and social security number.

The account was established at Numark Credit Union, where Oberlin was also employed at the time.

The packets were quickly collected by City Attorney Michael Stiff before most of the council members had a chance to see them, as it was discovered one page was improperly redacted, revealing Oberlin’s personal information. They have since been redacted and shared with the City Council members.

Malloy, as well as current Events Committee chairpersons Alderwoman Claudia Gazal and Alderman Darrell Jefferson, said residents had been asking questions for years about how funds were spent from the committee, particularly in regard to picnics it organized for several years under Oberlin.

The last of these events was held in 2019 and the account closed in 2021 when Oberlin stepped down as head of the committee.

Jefferson told Shaw Local that he had previously called for a forensic audit of the committee several times, but that the requests had been ignored.

Throughout Monday’s work session the city council members debated not only if the audit should move ahead, but what its scope should be, and if they should seek other options for a firm to conduct it.

Gazal, Jefferson, and Alderman Mark Cipitti all initially expressed interest in gathering alternate options in the “interest of transparency,” however, after establishing that no one on the city council including City Attorney Michael Stiff, had any prior business or connection with Ketchum, the council agreed to move ahead with the firm.

When asked what the scope of a potential audit should be, and if it should only include a handful of years, Gazal and Jefferson advocated for the audit to cover the committee “from its inception to the present.”

“I’m tired of this and of all the questions,” Gazal said. “If you’re going to do it, I think to me we should do it all from the day it started.”

Oberlin, who according to her attorney Joe Giamanco is considering options for legal action against Malloy, the city, and Numark for the revelation of the of the documents and the improper redaction, remained quiet through most of the meeting.

Her only comment during the discussion was in a heated exchange with Gazal, who had stated she thought Oberlin should abstain from voting on the forensic audit.

Before Stiff could express an opinion on if Oberlin was required to abstain, she said, “I’ll do you all a favor, I abstain.”

The only voting member of the city council to express hesitance to the audit was Alderman Joe Kubal, who said the entire process was unnecessary.

“I’m tired of all this, and I vote it stops tonight, I don’t need it to go forward,” Kubal said. “I agree with Claudia, I’m tired of it.”

Gazal and Stiff were quick to correct Kubal in his assertion that her saying she was “tired” implied Gazal did not want the audit to proceed.

Still Kubal argued “it’s a pretty old issue from 12, 15 years ago. I don’t care to see city money spent on this topic.”

This lead to another sharp exchange with Cipitti, who said the audit would be a responsible choice.

“I think we need to do the audit,” Cipitti said. “We’ve had so many questions raised, and if there’s any impropriety it should be dealt with. It’s not responsible to ignore it.”

Kubal interjected saying that spending $12,000 of taxpayer money – the estimated cost of the audit – was “not responsible” to which Cipitti replied “we spend money on a lot of legal fees.”

“I think this is going to tell us a lot of what we already know,” said Alderman Nate Albert of the audit. “If we want to talk about an audit, I have more questions about this building and the finances that were behind that,” he added, indicating the City Hall building which was completed in 2023.

While Cipitti and Jefferson expressed agreement with that issue, it was moved that that issue should be discussed separately from the issue of the events committee and its picnics.

In a straw vote the City Council agreed unanimously to move forward with Ketchum for the first phase of the audit, with Oberlin abstaining and Kubal noting that “if we’re going to go forward with this, I’m fine with her.”

Asked after the meeting what the anticipated timetable for the early phases of the forensic audit would be, both City Administrator Blaine Wing and Blumenthal were unable to give a definite answer.