After December resignation, Frankenhoff says he’s ‘back on my feet’ as he campaigns for re-election to Park Board

QUINCY — When John Frankenhoff resigned as a commissioner on the Quincy Park Board on Dec. 20, keeping his name on the ballot for the April 1 municipal election was still on his mind.

“Stepping down wasn’t necessarily the final end all,” he said.

Frankenhoff learned from Adams County Clerk Ryan Niekamp that he had until Feb. 28 to make the decision to have his name stricken from the ballot. Not only is he staying on the ballot, but he started putting signs in yards last week to campaign for one of four open seats on the Park Board.

“There’s no better gauge of public opinion than an election,” he said in a Thursday interview. “Regardless of what the public opinion may have been in December, I knew the best gauge of public’s opinion about me or what I can do for the Park District would be through an election on April 1.”

Frankenhoff was first elected as a commissioner in 2001 and is running for a seventh consecutive term as a commissioner. Also on the ballot are Barbara Holthaus, David Grimm, Cecil Weathers, Greg Artz and Josh Crabtree.

The Quincy Park Board approved a resolution during a Dec. 19 meeting that censured Frankenhoff for conduct that President Mark Philpot described as “unbecoming of a commissioner.” Frankenhoff resigned the next day.

The resolution said, “Concerns and complaints have been lodged by employees related to harassing, bullying and hostile conduct by Commissioner Frankenhoff toward employees over a period of years.”

The resolution banned Frankenhoff from entering the Park District offices at 1231 Bonansinga Drive, except to attend monthly meetings. It prevented him from approaching or communicating with Executive Director Rome Frericks or any Park District directors by phone, by email or by letter. It also limited communication with Philpot to questions or a need for information related to voting on pending matters before the Park Board.

Philpot said Thursday that the sanctions against Frankenhoff are “binding in perpetuity.”

“The only way that would (make the resolution) null and void is if it were repealed, but that would be a board action,” he said. “That’s not something that could be done unilaterally by the board president or any individual member.”

Frankenhoff said he doesn’t see the sanctions as “entirely negative.”

“It doesn’t hinder my communication with the public, and it doesn’t hinder my communication during the meetings, and those are the two most important things,” he said. “Issues and questions that previously could have been addressed via telephone calls or emails, now I may not have a choice but to bring those up in a public meeting, which I think is a positive. It adds more transparency to what we’re doing. I think the public will actually gain from it.”

Marketing Operations Director Marcelo Beroiza filed a written complaint in November with Park District officials after an incident with Frankenhoff after the Park Board’s Nov. 13 meeting. He said during a six-minute statement during the Dec. 19 meeting that he wanted Frankenhoff to resign. He threatened legal action and promised to contact the Illinois Human Rights Commission and the NAACP if he did not.

A Freedom of Information Act request filed in December with the Quincy Park District by Muddy River News asked for copies of public records that detailed:

• Complaints filed against Frankenhoff from 2001 (when he was first elected) to the present.
• Documentation regarding investigations of Frankenhoff by Park District officials as a result of complaints filed against him from 2001 to the present.
• Documentation of any disciplinary action taken against Frankenhoff by the Park District as a result of complaints filed against him from 2001 to the present.

The request for documentation about investigations was denied. Park District attorney David Penn said the only documented complaint during Frankenhoff’s 24-year tenure as a commissioner was filed in November by Beroiza.

“Marcelo’s thing is the only written one,” Penn said. “There were verbal comments (made to Park District staff).”

Three seats on the Park Board are available because the four-year terms for Frankenhoff, Holthaus and Patty McGlothlin are expiring. McGlothlin announced in November she was not running for re-election. 

Trent Lyons said his Dec. 11 resignation was designed to expose Frankenhoff’s “toxicity and abhorrent behavior.”  

The Quincy Park Board appointed David Grimm and Dave Hogge during its Jan. 16 meeting to fill the seats vacated by Lyons and Frankenhoff. They were sworn in at the Feb. 12 meeting. Their terms will expire after the April meeting.

Frankenhoff says he has been energized by the support he’s received in the last month.

“As they say, I got knocked down, but I feel like now I’m back on my feet,” he said. “I’m now at a point where I hope that the public will allow me the opportunity to get back in the saddle and help lead the Park District forward again.

“Through the weeks when I was making a decision (about keeping his name on the ballot), when I would speak to somebody about it or engage opinions, it was overwhelmingly in support that I should stick with it. People who I hadn’t talked to in a while contacted me. I reached out to people I haven’t had regular contact with just to kind of put those tentacles out there. There were people I didn’t expect who messaged me and said, ‘Hey, you need to get back (in the race). You need to do this.’”