Moses Amidei is out as Forest Park village administrator, with the village council expected to vote on the severance agreement at its last August meeting.
Village staff received an email from the mayor’s office last Tuesday announcing that Amidei had been “placed on administrative leave until further notice,” two sources with knowledge of the situation told the Review.
Mayor Rory Hoskins told the Review last week to “stay tuned,” but he declined to elaborate beyond that. Amidei did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment. The Review reached out to every village commissioner, but none of them responded by Aug. 28.
The village council agenda, which was posted online Aug. 25 a little after 5 p.m., includes a vote on a separation agreement.
The separation agreement makes the firing retroactive to Aug. 23. It specifies that Amidei will continue to be paid his regular salary over the next three months, and he will be able to stay on the village insurance coverage until Nov. 30, 2023. Under the current budget, Amidei’s salary was set at $125,931.
The agreement doesn’t include any language prohibiting either party from speaking ill about each other – usually a standard part of municipal employee separation agreements. It does include the standard language where Amidei agrees not to sue the village under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act. It also specifies that Amidei agrees to drop any legal claims under federal and state civil rights and labor laws.
Amidei was hired as the village administrator effective May 11, 2021. Before that, he served as served as village administrator of Wadsworth, a largely rural Lake County suburb bordering Wisconsin, for 14 years.
When he was hired in Forest Park, Amidei told the Review that he left Wadsworth in October 2020 in what he called “mutual parting of ways.” Before that, he served as an interim city administrator in his hometown, the north suburban city of Highwood.
Under the commission form of government, the village council runs the village, with commissioners responsible for their respective departments. In practice, much of the responsibility for the day-to-day village operations is delegated to the village administrator and department heads.
This is a developing story.
