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March 28, 2024

Tinley Park Planning Director Amy Connolly Preposterously Cries Discrimination

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen

On April 2, 2016

TINLEY PARK, IL. (ECWd) –

Correspondence between disgraced Tinley Park Planning Director Amy Connolly and embattled Village Manager David Niemeyer shows what appears to be a threat made by Connolly of a discrimination lawsuit against the Village after Connolly was put on paid administrative leave for her role in allegedly tampering with the Village’s Legacy Code zoning ordinance

Both Connolly and Village Attorney Thomas Melody (of the Orland Park firm Klein Thorpe Jenkins) are personally named in a lawsuit filed on 3/22/16 by citizens of Tinley Park in Cook County Circuit Court chancery division to have a Judge declare void all tampering to the zoning code that Connolly and Melody are alleged to have done in August and September 2015 to intentionally benefit the Columbus,Ohio-based Buckeye Community Hope Foundation. The lawsuit alleges that Buckeye needed the zoning code tampered with to remove the words “street level commercial required” and replace them with “street level commercial permitted” for Buckeye to be able to build a low income housing project in the formerly “commercial required” Oak Park Avenue Corridor of downtown Tinley Park. Buckeye’s project, called “The Reserve,” has never included the kind of street level commercial space that the Legacy Code zoning ordinance required (before it was tampered with in 2015, in what the lawsuit alleges was a deliberate act designed to specifically benefit Buckeye by removing the word “required” and altering it to “permitted” so $16 million “The Reserve” project could proceed). 

A housing project in 2014 for senior living residential units by a developer called PIRHL without street level commercial space was not allowed to proceed because of the strict “commercial required” zoning code. The lawsuit alleges that Connolly and Melody intentionally tampered with the zoning code to allow Buckeye to succeed in 2015 where PIRHL failed in 2014. 

A letter from Village Manager David Niemeyer to Connolly, dated 2/17/16, placed Connolly on immediate administrative leave, took back her computer and other Village issued items, and asked/barred Connolly from setting foot on Village premises. This disciplinary action was taken by the Village against Connolly when emails surfaced between Connolly and Buckeye that seemed to show improper collusion leading up to efforts to “clean up” the zoning code to clear a path for Buckeye to get its way where PIRHL was stopped. At multiple Board meetings in February and March 2016, thousands of Tinley Park citizens demanded an investigation into Connolly’s actions, necessitating her suspension. 

Connolly appears to have lashed out against the Village of Tinley Park on 2/25/16, when she raised the specter of a discrimination lawsuit based on a wild perversion of the Fair Housing Act. In Connolly’s warped logic, she apparently believes the Village can be sued for placing her on paid administrative leave while it investigates Connolly’s actions in allegedly tampering with the zoning code in improper and possibly illegal ways. Connolly claims that she has “been discriminated and retaliated against for lawfully aiding in the exercise and/or enjoyment of fair housing rights relative to the Reserve Project.” 

The problem with this absurd contention by Connolly is that it does not appear that her actions in removing the words “street level commercial required” and ultimately replacing them with “street level commercial permitted” in the Legacy Code zoning ordinance were lawful, according to the lawsuit filed against the Village. As Tinley Park’s Planning Director, her job was not to aid an out-of-state developer by intentionally altering existing zoning code so that the developer’s housing project could then slip through. Those actions are both at root of the lawsuit and the reason for Connolly’s suspension and paid administrative leave. 

On 3/22/16, the Village of Tinley Park appointed Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart as its official Inspector General and asked his office to immediately begin investigating the propriety and legality of all actions taken to alter the Legacy Code zoning ordinance. 

This maneuver by Connolly in claiming discrimination may have spared her from being terminated outright, since she remains on paid administrative leave as of this writing. It appears the Village was frightened of a potential discrimination or wrongful termination lawsuit, which has allowed Connolly to sit at home and collect her full paycheck and benefits while the Village figures out their next move. During board meetings, repeated calls for Connolly’s termination have been made by residents of Tinley Park who don’t understand why the Village can’t just fire her. Many ask what a public employee needs to do to lose her job in our state. 

The next important date on the horizon appears to be 5/1/16, when the Village of Tinley Park announces its new budget and staffing for 2016. This is the day when apparently the Village will appoint high-ranking positions such as Village Manager and Planning Director, which appears to be an opportunity for the Village to decline to renew Amy Connolly’s employment with the Village. A working theory amongst people following this matter closely is that perhaps the Village is keeping Connolly on paid administrative leave until the clock runs out on 5/1/16 and the Village can cut her loose without Connolly being able to make any sort of wrongful termination claim. 

If that’s true, then Connolly has found a clever way to keep getting paid and to maintain all of her platinum-plated benefits from 2/17/16 (the date she was placed on leave) until 5/1/16, the date that allegedly the Village has a clear window to potentially let Connolly go for good. 

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Amy Connolly Tinley Park Planning Director

 

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13 Comments
  • Jeanne
    Posted at 11:19h, 02 April

    This woman has special needs kids. So what if she does whatever it takes to keep her job? Anyone who doesn’t want affordable housing in town is just racist. It is illegal to discrimate against someone who wants to bring affordable housing to town. Amy is a hero not a villain. Her city is racist so she had to change the codes to let the affordable housing be able to come in. that is a hero in my book because the codes were racist in not letting the affordable housing be built. This is a civil rights issue.

    • jmkraft
      Posted at 19:53h, 02 April

      please let us know what you have been smoking, it’s doing wonders to your brain

    • Annoyed
      Posted at 20:08h, 03 April

      You got to be joking me. That is the stupidest thing I ever read. This is what’s wrong with people today, they don’t understand something so they cry the race card, call people racist, blame the system, etc. Tinley Park wants that to remain a business district, so they have that code. There’s nothing racist about. It’s not keeping out only a housing project, it keeps out senior living homes, regular homes, townhomes, condos, etc. no race involved. If someone wanted to build a huge mansion there, they couldn’t, because commercial is required.

      No race involved. Just criminal activity to illegally change the codes.

    • Blah
      Posted at 20:10h, 03 April

      Who cares about her children. This has nothing to do with it. She broke the law. She failed to do her job properly. She messed up multiple times. She got caught red handed. That means termination. She’s trying a Hail Mary now to try to milk more money from Tinley. Ridiculous.

      • Jeanne
        Posted at 22:23h, 03 April

        I care about her children. The last thing her children need is going to school and being picked on because other kids read this garbage about their mom. Enough is enough. How would you like it if every day someone was writing about the bad job you do at work an your kids read that? You would not like it. So have some decency and stop picking on Amy. She has kids.

        • jmkraft
          Posted at 08:23h, 04 April

          Jeanne: please read this article and ask yourself once again if “bending the rules” or “laws were made to be broken” are legitimate answers: http://townhall.com/columnists/pauljacob/2016/04/03/the-abcs-od-corruption-n2142842

          • Jeanne
            Posted at 19:25h, 04 April

            I worked at IHDA for 10 years so it’s not necessary for me to read this. I find what you are doing to Amy to be destructive. Feels to me like you have an agenda. She is the good person in all this and you are not.

          • jmkraft
            Posted at 20:54h, 04 April

            let’s wait until the investigation is over before we say she was a good person and the end justifies the means

    • Not Buying the Bullsh*t
      Posted at 09:05h, 05 April

      “Racist” .. I have to tell you this excuse has been well overplayed. Try something new already will you? How about doing a bit of research yourself instead of regurgitating what your training has taught you?

      Did you ever stop to consider that “affordable housing” does not automatically mean people of color?

      Talk about racist.

  • CAWSKayaker
    Posted at 11:52h, 02 April

    Amy probably knew Moody would advise against firing her since he’s a terrible attorney, and he would find a way to lose the “wrongful” termination suit she’d bring against the Village.

  • Teri
    Posted at 13:28h, 02 April

    Who wrote this article? Sounds like a certain “reporter”?

  • Kyle
    Posted at 19:39h, 03 April

    Another fantastic article. Jeanne is another simple person who cries out racist when dealing with issues she does not understand. Amy is no hero, she is indeed very shady and perhaps may be a criminal. Time will tell. There is no discrimination here and saying so is simply a overused scare tactic these days.

  • Tinley Resident
    Posted at 11:37h, 05 April

    Maybe Amy should have thought about her kids before doing some illegal on her job

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