FPR commenters (yay!) nailed the issues and the history of the Gillian hire, i.e. the bill of goods pitched by the mayor to hire his bud and political ally to cut down on annoyances while ruling the small pond. Dog poop scoff-law Mark Hosty and body/soul marshmallow Mike Curry gave him the two votes needed.
Yes, in 2009, the mayor pitched Gillian as the right person to replace Michael Sturino as Village Administrator because:
1) Nobody loves Forest Park more than Tim, except the mayor.
2) Nobody knows Forest Park better than Tim, except the mayor.
3) Hiring Gillian, instead of a VA professional, would save us taxpayers’ boatloads of money.
Indeed, we didn’t need a fancy-schmancy/credentialed/lawyer/outsider type to administer our simple little town when we could get Gillian for half-ish the price. It’s all recorded and there might even be a YouTube isolating the grand pitch.
Sturino was making about $135k+ and we were told we could get Gillian for a song. I believe we got him for the sweet song of $90k which grew quickly to $100k and now an ‘interested party’ thinks he should get $120k so that, only three years later, Gillian comps to actual professionals in similar Chicagoland suburbs.
See how this works?
There was, and is now, the pension gaming talk. It just slays me that the majority council members are proclaimed Republicans who rail against…moochers.
All sort of innuendo is flying but mainly that Calderone will not seek a fifth term and so his two aspiring public servants are vying for his godfather nod by sucking up to him, his friends and the lamp post. And FP PAC – don’t forget the PAC $$. We’ll see,
I don’t know about you, but it really frosts me that we pay a guy $80k-$120k /yr to babysit the-guy-who-believes-he’s-the-extreme-manager-of-everything from blowing the place up because that guy is ridiculously bad at policy and astoundingly thin skinned. It’s right up there w/insiders (and outsiders) running Reagan for a 2nd term knowing he was suffering from Alzheimers.
Gillian may or may not be doing his job well – how would we know? Before my recent incarnation as a Realtor, I spent six years in a very sophisticated Human Resource department. So sophisticated, we didn’t even call it HR. Effective performance reviews are a combination of art and science but can and should be done well and often. A professional VA/VM would know all about that.
Also, too. Commenter Edward P. from Forest Park has just funnied in on the Hosty Wants $20k/20% Raise for Gillian – Which Makes No Damn Sense and is a Betrayal of the Public Trust (Story Developing) story and is complaining (among other things) that someone has changed their online handle. Now that’s funny.
