T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Yorkville Mayor Sandy Reasbeck refuses to resign after the Yorkville Village Council asked again for her to step down.

YORKVILLE — Yet another standoff occurred between Yorkville Village Council and Mayor Sandy Reasbeck this week.

For several months, Yorkville has been without a village administrator. Council members have repeatedly said they believe Street and Sanitation Supervisor Jesse Cordery is the best person for the job.

According to Councilman Doug Delvecchio, Cordery has been the only person who has applied for the position and has continued to apply each time the job has been posted.

Cordery and Reasbeck have an extended history of conflict. Both Reasbeck and Cordery have said they don’t trust each other to be in a one-on-one meeting together, and both have asked for a witness to be present each time they have met. Last month, Reasbeck 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 reinstated him days later due to his termination taking place without council’s approval.

On Tuesday, for the second time in two months, council made a motion requesting the resignation of Reasbeck. All five council members in attendance voted in favor of the motion.

Councilman Dave Spong said he would like Reasbeck to step down because of his lack of confidence in her.

Reasbeck immediately replied, “You can vote on it but I’m not stepping down.”

Delvecchio made the motion, saying, “I make a motion that I would like to request Mayor Reasbeck’s resignation.”

She replied that it was fine that he made the motion but she was not going to resign.

“That’s fine. You don’t have to resign, but I want it to be well known and there’s a track of it so then other issues come down the road that it’s known that we don’t agree with your decisions,” Delvecchio said.

Reasbeck said she believes Delvecchio made the motion because he wants to be mayor of Yorkville. He responded that he has told her countless times that he doesn’t want to be mayor.

Delvecchio then told recently appointed Law Director Thomas Ryncarz that Cordery recently applied to become the village administrator again. Ryncarz asked Delvecchio if Cordery was previously the village administrator.

“We’ll start from the beginning. So we took applications, and Mrs. Reasbeck asked for a committee of three people to do the interviews. She was aware of when the interviews were but was not there for the interviews. We did the interviews, we came back to the council, and I said, ‘The committee does have a recommendation,’ and she wanted to hear what the recommendation was. The recommendation was put out there with a motion, and then the motion was seconded, and then it went around the table and it passed,” Delvecchio said.

Ryncarz asked Delvecchio what the motion was. Delvecchio said the motion was to make Cordery the village administrator.

He added that the motion to make Cordery the village administrator was unanimously approved with no negative comments from Reasbeck. He said that several weeks later, Reasbeck told council she had spoken to Daniel Balgo, who was the village’s law director at the time. She said he informed her that the vote to hire Cordery as the village administrator wasn’t legal because the mayor is required to appoint a village administrator, who must then be approved by council.

According to Section 735.271 of the Ohio Revised Code, “The village administrator shall be appointed by the mayor, but shall not take office unless his appointment has been approved by a majority vote of the members elected to the legislative authority of the village.”

Delvecchio told Ryncarz that Cordery was nominated, just not by Reasbeck because she asked him to create a special committee to hold the interviews and present her with a recommendation. Council then made a motion to accept the special committee’s recommendation without any debate from Reasbeck.

“It was never debated on that … she had the chance to speak up. So then we figured it was OK, and we proceeded to vote,” Delvecchio said.

Reasbeck replied that when Cordery was recommended, the meeting was so loud and rambunctious that she didn’t process what was happening.

“Here’s what happened. There was a whole hullabaloo. It was a very heated meeting. Then all of a sudden, Doug made a motion,” Reasbeck said before Delvecchio interrupted her and told Ryncarz that is not what happened.

Reasbeck added that she was blindsided by the council’s vote to hire Cordery.

Ryncarz read the minutes from the meeting where Cordery was approved as village administrator by council and said he didn’t see anything in the meeting’s minutes that suggests Reasbeck was against the hiring of Cordery.

Reasbeck replied that although she doesn’t agree that Cordery should be the village administrator, it was only after she spoke to Balgo and was informed it was an illegal vote that she told council Cordery would not be the village administrator because she didn’t appoint him.

“So listen, folks, everybody in here is hostile. Your job is not easy. I know that. I sat in that chair for four years. But it’s not all rocket science, either. I never went against a council’s decision on a hire, not in four years. You folks are obligated, as we elected you, to negotiate a happy medium that benefits this village,” former Yorkville mayor Dana Brown interjected.

He added that he believes the village didn’t elect the council members or the mayor to fight constantly.

“We did not elect you to do this. We elected you to sit down and reach a decision that benefits this village, not a personal agenda, not to go against someone’s personal agenda. If you only have one application and you’ve advertised this job, again and again, hire the guy. If he doesn’t do the job, terminate him. This is so simple,” Brown said.

“We got people here that are just like, it’s like, full hatred,” he continued. “This is terrible. I mean, I sat there Sandy. There are people in this town who hate my guts because they don’t know the full story, but there are a lot of people in this town who don’t like me because I said it to them, and not to everybody else, I said it to them. Now, whether you like what I said or not, it doesn’t matter, but this is ridiculous and embarrassing.”

He added that he believes Reasbeck and council have an opportunity to make major headway in showing the community that the two parties are trying to come together and do what is best for the village.

“Just make the appointment. Go along with your council and, if it doesn’t work out, you have full authority to terminate,” Brown said.

Reasbeck replied that she believes if she were to appoint Cordery and it didn’t work out, council would fight her every step of the way.

Reasbeck then asked if council could go into a closed-door session, which it did without citing a specific reason for the private session. Following the extensive executive session Reasbeck said the topic would be tabled.