McHenry County Blog

The trial is scheduled for great-grandmother Leona Nelson’s 88th birthday on April 13th in Woodstock.

I’ve joked that a tabloid would bill the controversy as

Great-Grandmother Accused of Sexual Harassment and Telling All

but that does describe the two elements in the case that has been dragging on for 4½ years.

It started when the Crystal Lake Park Board took offense at something fellow board member Nelson did.

Goodness knows what it was. (Or maybe Nelson and others know what motivated the board majority to censure her and it is entirely unrelated to what is on the surface of this case.)

Certainly the feisty Nelson had been a burr under the saddle of the 4-member board majority for the almost her entire term.

She decided not to run for re-election.

Following up on a constituent complaint, she talked to Jack Sebesta, the Crystal Lake Park District’s Superintendent of Recreation, and said she had hear he was a “Casanova.” In continuing conversation, Nelson said that she understood that the park district was “a regular little Peyton Place,” referring to the racy mid-1950’s book about sexual exploits in middle class America.

Concurrently, park board members apparently thought she had revealed information discussed in executive, that is, secret session.

Of course, there is no prohibition to telling others of what happens in an executive session, but, apparently, the park district lawyer didn’t bother to tell the board majority that.

The majority decided to punish Nelson by prohibiting her from attending her last board meeting. That’s the time most outgoing board members are honored for their public service.

On April 5, 2001, Nelson was censured “for her purported release of executive session material and the purported making of comments toward a Park District employee.” In other words, she was charged with sexually harassing Sebesta and releasing documents that the park board majority did not want the public to see.

Nelson sued, claiming that she had suffered “great embarrassment and humiliation in the community.”

McHenry County Circuit Court Judge Michael Sullivan threw her case out of court.

Nelson appealed and won the right to a trial. Even then, the park district’s risk management lawyer (from the Park District Risk Management Agency) didn’t give up. He filed a lengthy, but unsuccessful, brief asking for a re-hearing of Nelson’s appellate court victory.

(PDRMA is the same agency that refused to defend the park board’s 2-2 rejection of the Gay Games’ regatta when the board was threatened with a lawsuit, if it did not reverse its decision. PDRMA is financed by fees from many park districts and park district-like public tax districts in Illinois.)

Nelson is now lawyerless. She apparently had a falling out with her attorney over whether she would have a jury trial or not. Nelson wanted one, which seems to have led to a parting of their ways.

Nelson had previously turned down a $5,000 settlement offer, pointing out that much more than that had been spent in attorney’s fees on the park district’s behalf. Since acting as her own attorney, Nelson has suggested another way to settle the case, even mailing it to each of current park board members, just in case the PDRMA lawyer didn’t pass it on.

Some informed sources put the cost to PDRMA at upwards of $100,000. Nelson wonders why the lawyer should get paid more than she.