YORKVILLE — It was standing room only Tuesday as Yorkville Village Council unanimously voted to ask Mayor Sandy Reasbeck to resign.

Council member Sarah Jokovich made the motion.

“I want it on record that I have lost all faith and she is not concerned about her public seat,” Jokovich said.

Immediately following the vote, Reasbeck rejected the request and informed council that she will not be stepping down.

The room was filled with residents who came to the special meeting to voice their support for Street and Sanitation Supervisor Jesse Cordery, who was fired by Reasbeck last week.

In response to Reasbeck firing Cordery, a Change.Org petition was created by Dawn Lampasone and an in-person petition was created by Cordery’s fiance Krista Woodland.

Both petitions and the large crowd that gathered to support him said that Cordery was fired unjustly.

Reasbeck fired Cordery without council’s approval.

According to both the council and residents in attendance of Yorkville it’s no secret that Cordery and Reasbeck do not get along.

According to discussion at the meeting, both of them have said they don’t trust each other to be in a one-on-one meeting together, and have both asked for a witness to be in attendance each time they have met. Last week, Reasbeck apparently informed Cordery they would be having a one-on-one meeting, but he refused. In response to his refusal, Reasbeck terminated Cordery’s employment.

Council members and residents both questioned Reasbeck’s motive for wanting to meet with Cordery one-on-one due to it being common knowledge that neither feels comfortable having a one-on-one meeting.

Reasbeck said the reason for the meeting was for her to reprimand him.

“The reason I wanted to see him that day was because we do paydays on Thursdays, so the checks are put in the administrator’s door with their W-2 to be passed out on Thursday. He took the checks out and passed those checks out. He went into his boss’s desk and took the checks out of that desk and passed them out,” Reasbeck alleged. “That was why I wanted to see him on Thursday to tell him he had no authorization whatsoever to do that.”

Council member Doug Delvecchio then asked Reasbeck if Cordery had been authorized to go into that office and take the checks to hand out. Reasbeck responded that he had not. Delvecchio then informed her that Cordery told him that he has been told to hand out the checks regularly. He added that he has tried for months to be a mediator for Reasbeck and Cordery, but to no avail,

“I’ve said early in 2024 I told him, if I have to be the go-between you, that’s fine I will do that, because this hostility doesn’t work in any environment. This disagreement, this arguing, it doesn’t work for any place,” Delvecchio said.

At that point the residents in attendance broke into various outbursts, calling for the reinstatement of Cordery and the resignation of Reasbeck.

Jokovich added that several village employees have recently quit, citing a hostile work environment.

“For me, I know after we have a meeting when these employees are going to have a bad day the next day. It’s been a pattern,” Delvecchio said, directing his remarks to Reasbeck. “When a meeting doesn’t go your way, you retaliate against them.”

He then asked her if she recalled what she told him regarding what would happen if council were to reinstate Cordery. She replied that she did. Delvecchio then announced that she told him that if council reinstated Cordery, she would sue each member of council. She did not confirm nor deny saying that.

The other council members and the attendees asserted that Reasbeck has a tendency to retaliate if an employee does something that she doesn’t like, which she denied.

Reasbeck said she does not feel safe around Cordery, alleging that he has made threatening posts about her on social media. Following his firing, Reasbeck said, she filed for a restraining order against Cordery, which he said he was unaware of. Once that information was revealed, Cordery immediately left the municipal building where the meeting was being held in an effort to avoid any legal issues.

The calls for Reasbeck to resign became even louder once attendees became aware of the restraining order. Residents yelled at her to resign, which led to Yorkville’s new Law Director Thomas Ryncarz and Delvecchio attempting to brainstorm a solution. With no resolution reached, however, council voted unanimously to reinstate Cordery as the village’s street and sanitation supervisor.

The crowd cheered as Cordery was reinstated, and some attendees still yelled for Reasbeck to resign.

Cordery, who had gone to the fire station next door, said he is excited to be back on the job.

“I’m thankful to be back, and I’m thankful for the residents for showing up in my support,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a stress relief because, at the end of the day, I still need to take care of my family.”

Although the two petitions were started in response to Cordery being fired, both petitions seeking to remove Resbeck are still circulating.

Lampasone’s Change.Org petition states: “I am a resident of Yorkville, and I’m deeply concerned about the state of our village. It’s disheartening to see our once vibrant community spiraling downwards under the current leadership. The absence of police presence is particularly alarming and it’s directly linked to decisions made by our mayor.”

Although Lampasone’s petition is online, Woodland’s petition is an in-person petition that she brought to the meeting on Tuesday evening.

Yorkville residents took to social media to vent about the situation with one resident, Kersten Schaal, saying, “It takes a long process to remove the official.” She added that she believes it would take the remainder of Reasbeck’s term to remove her from office.

Lampasone said she created her petition because she believes the way Reasbeck treats village employees is unacceptable.

“These actions from the mayor are not only harming the community’s trust in local leadership, but many of us feel that our voices are not being heard,” Lampasone said. “The mayor is acting in self-interest rather than in the best interest of the village.”