"N-word" used by Mayor during Council Meeting, attempt made to keep us from recording meeting -

Royal Lakes, IL. (ECWd) -

During our first visit to a Village of Royal Lakes meeting of the Village Trustees, we were met with opposition to our presence.

We first had to deal with the Trustees and Clerk trying to tell us we could not video record the meeting without approval from the Board - that didn't work out for them, see the video (click here) where the objection was lodged by the Clerk after we had been recording for 30 minutes already. We continued recording, no permission or notice needed.

Later, the Mayor decides to use the N-word by stating "this ain't a bunch of dumb n*ggers up here man..." (watch it here).

That type of language anywhere, and especially during a public meeting, cannot be tolerated from anyone. Later in the meeting, some residents expressed their objections to the Mayor over his use of the offending language.

There were other issues in the Village, such as nobody could find the resolution setting the compensation of village officials, and one trustee position had been vacant since the election - but I believe that the issue is fixed now.

This is the same village we wrote about in 2017 who tried to keep village records from the public (see village letter).

.