Newly-Elected Democratic Party Dundee Township Supervisor Shefali Shah Acts As If She Is All-Powerful

From Marc V. Avelar::

Two weeks prior to Christmas, Dundee Township Supervisor Shefali Shah (D, East Dundee) set off 4^th of July fireworks at the December 11 regular meeting of the Dundee Township Community Mental Health Board (MHB) during public comment.

Her target was Township Trustee Sue Harney (D, Sleepy Hollow), who serves as the president pro tempore of the MHB and is the presiding officer. Harney, first elected to township office in 2001, leads the MHB since the November 14 resignation of Marc Avelar as the president, though Avelar remains on the MHB until the end of his appointed term.

In a Facebook post on Friday, December 12, Kane County Board Member Jarett Sanchez (D, Carpentersville) posted the following after witnessing the event in-person unfolding during the MHB meeting:

What Is Going On At Dundee Township???

Tensions ran high at a meeting of the Dundee Township Mental Health Board last night.

In a move that will likely come with many legal challenges, Township Supervisor Shefali Shah attempted to remove sitting Mental Health Board President Pro Tempore and Township Trustee Sue Harney during the public comment period.

Armed with a document reportedly written by the Township’s attorney, Supervisor Shah read a list of six charges against Harney in her short time as board president pro tempore (Harney assumed the role in November of this year).

After providing Harney with a copy of the letter and reading the charges Shah then instructed the police officers in attendance to escort Harney from the building, and it was at this point that the moment took a turn as Harney questioned the legality of the move and refused to leave the meeting.

Shah won the Township Supervisor seat in April of 2025, riding a wave of anti-Trump sentiment that saw all contested races go to Democratic candidates; she had no local government experience prior to that election. Harney is the former Township Supervisor where she served for over 16 years, implementing the Township’s Open Space program.

While elected as a Republican during her tenure, Harney affiliated herself with the Democratic Party after leaving the Supervisor seat in 2017 and is currently an elected Democratic Township Trustee. So this move to unseat Harney from the Mental Health Board comes with the extra gravity of a member of a political party, a very new member, attacking one of their own.

Two officers were present at the meeting: Chief Green of West Dundee who was only there to greet the board and show his support, the other officer was from East Dundee but apparently had been asked to be there by Shah. It was obvious that the officers did not realize they were going to be brought into the drama of the moment and asked to physically remove someone.

Even as Shah kept asserting that Harney was to leave and kept asking the officers to escort her out, the officers asked to speak with Shah outside of the meeting room, likely to inform the fledgling supervisor of the limits of their, and her, authority.

Did she really believe that they could act as her personal police force?

During this moment, a motion was made by MHB Member Chris Kempf of unincorporated Dundee Township to adjourn the meeting but it failed 3-3 so the board resumed the public comment period.

Shah then returned to the room and interrupted the public comment speaker from partner agency AID to insist that all board members who voted to adjourn leave, and that the meeting was thus over (7min mark in the recording):

“Excuse me, the three members who voted to adjourn the meeting please exit, and there will be no more quorum,” Shah said, to looks of confusion and disbelief from the board members.

At this point in the meeting and amidst a chorus of voices, one of the members who voted to adjourn the meeting, Belinda Adame of Carpentersville, expressed her desire to stay for the rest of the meeting, pushing back against Shah’s empty commands.

Former Board President Marc Avelar shouted down the noise and let Shah know specifically that a quorum was present and the motion to adjourn had failed. Shah remained convinced that her authority was absolute.

“Madame Adame you voted no…and there is no quorum once you voted no,” Shah said.

But Robert’s Rules of Order, the meeting procedure used at all levels of government, dictates that once a motion is voted upon it dies if there is the lack of a majority vote, which was the case with the motion to adjourn.

With Shah insisting they no longer had a quorum, Avelar asked that a roll call be taken in order to determine if a quorum was present, in order to drive the point home that Shah was out of line. And so it was established that five members of the board remained (Joe Connell of West Dundee left after the first interruption from Shah) and that constituted a quorum.

Realizing that she was not achieving her desired result, Shah then left the meeting and the rest of the proceeding took place as normal.

Mental Health Boards are authorized under the Community Mental Health Act, and a provision within that act gives the “appointing officer”, in this case the Township Supervisor, authority to remove members:

“Sec. 3c. Any member of the community mental health board may be removed by the appointing officer for absenteeism, neglect of duty, misconduct or malfeasance in office, after being given a written statement of the charges and an opportunity to be heard thereon.”

Shah did not state in her public comment or in the letter she gave to Harney which specific cause for removal was being invoked. The allegations would seem to imply misconduct but it simply was not stated. Sources close to the situation noted that the claims were either baseless, hyperbolic, or of not sufficient gravity to remove a sitting board member.

What is very clear is that the move by Shah to remove Harney during a live meeting was not legally founded and shows a complete overreach of authority by the new Supervisor. It also demonstrates Shah’s inability to understand the letter of the law because even in her own document it states:

“Pursuant to Section 3(c) of the Act, 405 ILCS 2013c, you are hereby provided the opportunity to respond to these charges and to be heard before a final decision regarding removal is made. You may submit a written response or request a meeting at which you may present any information you wish me to consider. Please provide a written response or request for a meeting within five (5) days, on or before December 17, 2025. If you decline to respond or fail to do so prior to 4:00 p.m. on that date, I will proceed based on the information available and will determine whether removal is warranted.”

Maybe Shah didn’t read her own letter to the end. Or maybe she was just so hellbent on attacking Harney that she forgot that as the Township Supervisor you can’t order people to do things and expect that they will listen—that’s just not how government works…

Reaction within the Dundee Township community to Sanchez’s Facebook post was summarized by this post from Steph Traynor of East Dundee who administers the public Facebook group “Getting Organized – voter education for the NW Suburbs of Chicago”:

“This is pretty wild behavior. Without having the full context I am hesitant to speak on the issues that motivated this conflict but as for the way the conflict was handled there is no excuse for that. It is disturbing how abuse of power is continuing to become more normalized. Thank you for drawing attention to this matter Jarett Sanchez and taking the time to keep the community informed. I am surprised that the township lawyer did not intervene. Isn’t part of the job of the township’s legal counsel to advise in order to prevent the township government from putting the administration in situations that could cause lawsuits that ultimately cost the tax payers?”

The 9- minute audio recording excerpt published by Sanchez through Facebook can be heard here.

The Dundee Township Board of Trustees regular meeting is Wednesday, December 17 at 7PM at the Township Meeting Room in Suite 201 of 611 E. Main Street in East Dundee.  Combined with the events at the MHB meeting the previous Thursday night, plus setting the levies for the Township and the Road District and Supervisor Shah’s first appointments of community members to the MHB, more pre-Christmas fireworks likely to be displayed during this meeting as Harney, as a Township trustee, will have some things to say.

Marc Avelar is a 31-year resident of Dundee Township and served as an elected trustee for the village of Algonquin in the late 1990s. In 2022, Avelar was appointed to the Dundee Township Mental Health Board & served as president of the Board for nearly 3 years.