High schools footing board
president’s legal bills
Proviso Township district pays another $24K to Chris Welch’s attorneys
By Josh Adams
Special Forest Park Review
August 21, 2008
As a pair of Chicago attorneys finger District 209 school board President
Chris Welch for slander, Welch has avoided paying his attorneys fees,
instead passing bills of more than $46,000 to taxpayers.
For the second time since he was named a defendant for posting allegedly
libelous statements on the Internet, the board president persuaded his
colleagues in the school district to cover his costs. At Monday’s board
meeting, Welch turned in two invoices from the law firm Richardson & Mackoff
totaling more than $24,200.
In June, Welch handed over more than $22,400 in bills for the same case.
The district has spent $46,719 on a lawsuit for which neither the district nor
the school board is a party. “And I still object,” board member Theresa Kelly
said before the Aug. 18 meeting. “This is a personal matter and the district
should not be responsible for it.”
Kelly was one of two board members to vote against the expense Monday,
and was joined by board Secretary Sue Henry. In June, both Kelly and Henry
voted not to pay the bills. As he did in June, board member Brian Cross
abstained from the vote Monday. All others on the board-Robert Cox, Robin
Foreman, Daniel Adams and Welch-voted to approve the expense.
Welch did not return phone calls seeking comment on the matter and quickly
left the building at the end of Monday’s meeting. He did make a brief
statement that all board members are entitled to reimbursement.
Superintendent Nettie Collins-Hart declined to comment on the issue, saying
that any communication would be handled through the district’s public
relations office.
TaQuoya Kennedy, the district’s spokesperson, said the same justifications
for seeking reimbursement in June apply to the latest round of bills. “It’s the
same rationale,” Kennedy said. “It hasn’t changed.”
An attorney for the school district has argued that it is appropriate that the
district pay Welch’s legal fees because Welch is a public official.
“The issue that Chris Welch - and any other board member - is a board
member 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” District 209 attorney Michael
DeBartolo said in June. “If Chris Welch comments on anything, some people
may take it as him communicating as Chris Welch, president of the District
209 Board of Education.”
Welch is being sued by the school district’s former attorneys, Burt Odelson
and Mark Sterk, for statements he made anonymously on a blog soon after
the plaintiffs were fired in 2007. According to DeBartolo, the court will decide
whether Welch’s attempts to hide his identity preclude him from protection
under the state’s indemnification laws.
The Web site on which Welch posted his statements is not affiliated with
District 209. According to paperwork filed with the Cook County Circuit Court,
Welch has admitted to posting the statements in question. Evidence
submitted in the case indicates Welch used a computer in his office at
Sanchez, Daniels & Hoffman, a Chicago law firm where he is employed, to
post the statements. His co-defendant in the suit, Emily Robinson, is an
employee at the same firm.
