After a tense March meeting during which Crest Hill City Treasurer Jamie Malloy questioned prior bank records from the city’s events committee, the city has begun the process of having an outside audit done on the funds.

During Monday’s 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 and Taylor, but were instead assigned to handle the audit through the Southwest Area Risk Management (SWARM), Crest Hill’s insurance pool.

The audit was pushed by Malloy at the March 2 meeting after she presented council members with a packet of records that showed that while under the leadership of Alderwoman Tina Oberlin, the committee had it’s own separate bank account.

That account was registered under Oberlin’s own address and social security number. The account was established at Numark Bank, where Oberlin was also employed at the time.

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.

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 council members debated not only if the audit should move ahead, but what it’s 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 and City Attorney Michael Stiff, had any prior business or connection with Ketchum, the council agreed to move ahead with the firm.

Oberlin, who according to her attorney Joe Giamanco is considering options for legal action against Malloy, the city, and Numark Bank for the revelation of the documents and the improper redaction of one page in the packets containing personal information, 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.”