Former Trustee Lisa Stone was elected to office in Buffalo Grove IL, 60089 in April 2009. Known for activism, tenacity, and perseverance, incumbent sitting board members were against her running for Trustee and began attacking during the campaign. Lisa became a watchdog on the Village Board, exposing multitudes of “old boys club” practices which caused the longtime board members great worry. They denounced almost all initiatives that Lisa pursued, including issues of safety regarding the rising epidemic of heroin, which was Lisa’s platform. Not even a year into her position, the Board (Jeff Berman & Jeff Braiman) penned a recall ordinance to attempt to control Lisa’s honest observations and responsiveness to the community whom she was elected by. The issue of the unknown Land & Lakes Landfill was brought to Lisa by a citizen whose business was adjacent to the landfill and who was concerned that his employees were becoming ill from noxious fumes. Additionally, Dr. Carl Lang, whose medical building was also adjacent to L&L, wrote to Lisa requesting help as his employees were going home sick from the noxious fumes and he worried about his patients with COPD and Asthma. While she could have looked the other way or campaigned against the recall, she chose to continue researching the landfill and 27-acre composting site on top of the landfill as the village manager had altered an email immediately when Lisa broached the topic with him.
Further, after Lisa filed a freedom of information act request (FOIA) of Buffalo Grove Board (looking back to 2005 and forward) she discovered that the Board commissioned an environmental study by Shaw Environmental for $25K in 2005 (prior to annexing the landfill from unincorporated Lake County) of the landfill had been purged from Buffalo Grove’s government record. The emails from the FOIA also demonstrated that Buffalo Grove received Brownfield Grant monies for the Land & Lakes enviro study from Lake County which further validated that such study had occurred, though the BG Board couldn’t seem to remember much at all of this transaction or study. Lisa went to Lake County and filed a freedom of information on the Brownfield Grant that was given to Buffalo Grove. Indeed, Lisa found the smoking gun….the Shaw Environmental Review was on file yet the Buffalo Grove elected officials claimed the Shaw Study never occurred and the study was dropped. When Lisa asked to hear the executive closed session meeting audio tape from 2005 of the officials discussing the Shaw Review, somehow that audio tape (which is required by the Records Act) was missing from its locked storage. It was the only audio tape missing from all the years of government meetings.

Testimony of experts regarding post closure care certification of the landfill. Video clips 1-5, click for explanation and letter from Better Government Association regarding Buffalo Grove not taping and televising this public hearing for their citizens