Frankfort Trustees Table Contract Approval For Village Administrator

By Jon DePaolis, Richard Free Press:

FRANKFORT, Ill. — The Village of Frankfort Board of Trustees voted 5-1 Monday, June 21, to table the approval of a contract agreement with Village Administrator Rob Piscia.

Trustee Margaret Farina was the lone trustee to vote against tabling the contract approval after Trustee Adam Borrelli made the motion and Trustee Jessica Petrow seconded it.

“I’m a little perplexed at why we are tabling it tonight,” Farina said before the vote. “We had negotiated with our Village administrator … the contract that is in front of us tonight. I do believe we need to move forward in good faith with our employee and our staff lead, and move forward with his current contract.”

No reason was given during the meeting for why the contract approval was tabled.

Later in the meeting, the trustees voted unanimously to overrule the decision of the Plan Commission and to approve a variance for a home in the downtown district.

“Applicants Thomas and Beth Rapcan propose expanding their existing driveway at their residential dwelling, located at 11 W. Sauk Trail,” Trustee Michael Leddin said. “The Village’s zoning ordinance … requires that driveways not exceed 28 feet in width at the property line and are not wider than the width of the garage when within 20 feet of the garage. The existing driveway is 17 feet wide and approaches a garage that is 23.9 feet wide.

“The applicants propose a 15-foot width addition to the north side of their existing driveway. The addition would result in a driveway measuring 32 feet wide, exceeding both the 28-foot maximum driveway width and the width of the existing garage. To accommodate the proposed driveway expansion, the applicants request the granting of a variance to permit the construction of a 15-foot wide addition to the existing driveway.”

Leddin said the Plan Commission had forwarded onto the Village Board a split recommendation, with two members voting in favor of the variance and four members voting against it.

During the June 21 meeting, Beth Rapcan spoke to the board members. She said she and her husband were excited to live in downtown Frankfort when the opportunity arose in 2015.

“We were elated,” she said. “We worked with a great builder and had three variances [so] we were able to build our brick bungalow and frame home. We chose to build in the bungalow tradition because we felt that it best enhanced [the] downtown Frankfort historic look.”

But after moving in, the Rapcans said they began to experience issues with parking and street traffic, with issues like certain street parking leading to their mail not being delivered or not being able to park on the street if there was snow measuring more than 2 inches. They also encountered heavy traffic and difficult-to-navigate roads due to an increase of enrollment at a local preschool program.

After discussion, the board members voted 6-0 to approve the variance — exceeding the four-vote supermajority necessary to overrule the Plan Commission recommendation.

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