Public commenter urges investigation after trustee denies receiving agenda emails

A resident addressing the Village of Weston Public Works & Utility Committee on May 12 said she was prevented from presenting a letter to the committee and urged members to investigate whether Trustee Houshang Zagami failed to receive emails that requested agenda items for the committee.

The commenter said the letter, which she said was hand-delivered for the record on April 16, documents two email communications Trustee Penzfeld sent between March 15 and March 31 requesting items be added to the committee agenda. The speaker said Village Clerk Graham provided copies of inbound emails in response to an open-records request and that the emails showed they were sent and received. "If Zagami was not actually getting the emails, then there's clearly a fault with the email server at the village, and the root cause needs to be investigated and corrected," the commenter said as she read from the letter.

The matter was raised during the public-comment period rather than during a committee agenda item. The commenter said Village Administrator (name not provided) and Trustee Houshang Zagami had contacted her and asked her not to make the information public and that, she alleged, the administrator refused to include the letter in the committee packet. She also said Zagami had come to her workplace and demanded a private meeting regarding the item.

The letter read into the record says Zagami denied on the record, during an April 14 Public Works meeting, receiving either of the two emails Trustee Penzfeld sent. The commenter told the committee that Clerk Graham provided the requested inbound-email records and that those records showed the emails were received. "How irresponsible and completely unacceptable is that?" the commenter asked during her remarks.

The speaker asked the committee to consider investigating whether the cause was a village email-server fault, a problem with the device Zagami used to access email, or insufficient training on the email system. She also noted she is in regular email contact with Trustee Barbara Ermeling and that Ermeling, unlike Zagami, regularly responds by iPad; the comment was offered as a contrast while asking the committee to determine the problem rather than speculate on causes.

Committee members did not record a formal motion or commitment on the record during the meeting transcript to open an investigation; the public commenter asked the body to "consider to investigate it if you so choose."