McHenry County Blog

Remember when the Prospect Heights village hall burned during a thunderstorm?

It seemed strange that this Northwest suburban public building would not have been grounded.

Now, CBS reports

Prospect Heights Fire Chief Donald Gould said that on Thursday afternoon, fire officials were notified by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that an accelerant, or substance used to fuel a fire, was found at the scene.

One person I reached said,

my sources tell me it was to destroy audit documents.

The city fathers have a vibrant local opposition group, Citizens for a Responsible Future, who believe that all sorts of hanky-panky has gone on.
Here’s a sample from a letter to the Daily Herald from Kurt U. Giehler, which is on the group’s web site:

In addition, before us lies an inherent conflict of interest between Mayor (Rodney) Pace, as titular head of our local government, and his wife's corporation, Maman Corp., who was hired by the City to oversee the City Hall renovation work.

This work did not meet fire-safety codes, due to, among other items, the lack of mandatory-required fire walls.

This places the Mayor in the awkward fiduciary position of having to sue his wife's firm for its possible negligent role in creating the ensuing disaster. It also begs the question as to whose insurance should pay for damages, the City's or the Contractor's.

In any case, knowing the role that City officials had in creating the disaster, it would be reasonable to ask that they not charge themselves with their own investigation. Given their recent history, prudence would mandate that they leave the planning, bidding, construction contract award and oversight of the new City Hall building to the next administration.

It would be the honorable thing to do.

And consider this, from someone closer to the participants than I:

Most of the shennanigans revolve around courtships and (alleged) payoffs to the parade of developers looking to put in the Arena...among other things, like the interior construction of the City Hall was done by Pace's (wife's) contracting firm...which also, by the way, gets remodel contracts from Jesse White as well.

Rodney and Maynme Pace contributed $300 to Jesse White’s 27th Ward Organization on October 8, 2004. (Click to enlarge graphic.)

Mamon, the woman-owned Palatine firm referred to, has done significant work for Motorola, as well. Prospect Heights is not mentioned as a client on the firm's web site.

Torching the village hall does seem a bit extreme.

One wonders why a shredder would not have done the job?

Now, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has to be interested.

And, that is undoubtedly what the watchdog group desires:

“How can we possibly have the city and the fire department investigate themselves?”

it asks in commentary on the April 17th city council meeting.

Here's is the Daily Herald's article. And here's Sunday's Daily Herald story, in which city officials suggest vandals burned down city hall.