Village president Vicki Scaman ended a finance committee meeting Feb. 22 after only 10 minutes after hearing a comment she said was “threatening.”
“I deserve to be able to participate fully in this meeting without being this upset,” Scaman said as she ended the meeting.
Sarah Corbin, a friend of Scaman’s, said her understanding is that before the meeting started Donna Gayden, interim chief financial officer, was telling a story about a previous place of work. There, the chief of police shot the mayor.
Trustee Ravi Parakkat reportedly leaned toward the trustee next to him and said something along the lines of “I guess we need to talk to the chief” in a joking manner, Corbin said. Parakkat declined to confirm whether this was true, and said he has nothing to comment about what happened.
“She was quite shaken with the joke being made about gun violence, violence toward women,” Corbin said. “It’s unfortunate, I think, that she still has to meet and work with Ravi in a congenial way, when he still has not apologized.”
In a written comment, Scaman said a comment made just prior to the meeting violated the village’s values and principles, one of which is building trust through respectful dialogue and actions.
“Regardless of his intent, it had a visible impact on Vicki, and he needs to account for that,” Corbin said.
Although Corbin said Scaman asked for an apology, Parakkat said he is not planning to talk to any board members about the incident and would rather focus on coming together to serve the community.
“It is rather unfortunate that this is where the board relationships are,” he said. “There is a lot of pent up stress.”
At the March 5 board meeting, roughly 10 community members attended to show support for Scaman, Corbin said. Scaman said that genuine support made a real difference for her and allowed her to return to doing her job.
“It took some of that dark cloud of really having felt quite distraught by the incident,” Scaman said.
Scaman added that she wants to keep the best interests of the community in mind and focus on the positives rather than the negatives.
“There’s nothing about our environment that says it’s OK to make a side comment about gun violence or violence against women,” Corbin said.
The finance committee meeting will be rescheduled for a future date.