North Cook News

A proposed salary increase for the mayor of Burr Ridge will go before the voters in April under a resolution approved Monday by the village board. 

The proposed increase that voters will see on the ballot, which will raise pay from $6,000 a year to $12,000, is only a fraction of the 500% increase that Mayor Gary Grasso had asked for in a letter mailed to Burr Ridge residents in early October.

One village resident, attorney Ellen Raymond, who opposed the requested amount and the way Grasso first presented it to village residents, said she was relieved by the board’s decision. The mayor’s letter would intimidate residents into acquiescing to the larger salary increase, she told North Cook News for an earlier story on the issue.

“I’m relieved that the village board heard the residents' concerns of retaliation over directing negative comments to the likely recipient of the increased salary [Grasso] and will allow residents to anonymously weigh in by putting the salary increase on the ballot,” Raymond said. “I also appreciate that the referendum will be a request for doubling the salary and not the outrageous 500% increase the mayor originally requested.”

The increase will become effective May 2021, the start of the next mayor’s term. Grasso has yet to announce whether he’ll run for office again.

Two of the six village trustees, Guy Franzese and Zachary Mottl, voted against putting the question on the ballot. Franzese expressed his opposition a year ago before the pandemic hit, when he said he would have approved it. He also objected to the cost of putting a question on the ballot, estimating the cost will run between $10,000 and $15,000 based on the cost of a 2016 ballot question on water infrastructure.

By the village government's count, 133 residents responded to the mayor’s letter saying they supported the 500% increase. Another 30 said a raise was in order but not as high as $30,000 a year. Still another 72 opposed any increase.

Raymond said that a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that 90 residents were against the raise, and 100 supported it.

A separate FOIA request showed that the cost of mailing the mayor’s letter was $5,000.