Urbana, Illinois City Administrator Carol Mitten is planning to resign her position to take a City Manager job in Evanston. The announcement came yesterday with an email from Urbana Mayor Diane Marlin to all City employees:
“Dear Colleagues,
It is with a heavy heart that I share this news: The City of Evanston announced earlier today that Carol Mitten has been selected as its single finalist for the position of City Manager. As part of the final decision process, Carol will be introduced to the community at a town hall in Evanston on Thursday, July 28 followed by confirmation by the Evanston City Council on August 8. As City Manager, Carol will oversee daily operations. I know this is unexpected news and will be a lot for us all to process. In the coming weeks, we plan to celebrate Carol and all that’s been accomplished during her four years in Urbana as City Administrator.
I’ll keep you updated on the leadership transition plan as it develops
Diane Wolfe Marlin
Mayor and Local Liquor Control Commissioner”
The Urbana City Council just reappointed Mitten to the City Administrator position on June 6th. The appointment was meant to be for at least two years. Given the timing of the Evanston announcement, it seems likely that Mitten was already seeking work elsewhere at the time that she was seeking a renewed job commitment from the City of Urbana.
It is not clear how Mitten navigated the Evanston job application with such a long history of unethical conduct.
In a recent article, Check CU noted that, over the past few years, Carol Mitten has (among other things) engaged in the following questionable and sometimes illegal conduct:
- Engaged in the felony destruction and/or concealment of 40 years of police complaints
- Failed to recruit a firm to perform a Community Safety Review requested by the Council
- Allowed the Urbana Police Department to violate their FOP contract for years
- Helped craft a police complaint form that violates Illinois State law
- Shut down discussion of Open Meetings Act violations at a Council meeting, then shouted and swore at a member of the public who was attempting to record the meeting
- Warned the Civilian Police Review Board, a Board directed by ordinance to review police TASER usages, that they are not allowed to discuss possible TASER violations
- Gave an intentionally misleading presentation on human rights laws
- Pushed to have City employees and elected officials exempted from anti-discrimination laws
- Personally overthrew the outcome of a human rights hearing after it uncovered illegal discriminatory hiring practices by City officials
- Encouraged the City Council to engage in criminal free speech violations which resulted in a lawsuit which the City paid to settle as well as multiple citations of violation from the Illinois Attorney General
- Retaliated against a member of the public for submitting a complaint to the Attorney General, by publishing the victim’s home address and email address on the City website
- Threatened police review board members with “sanctions” if they ever disclosed details about their police complaint reviews
- Attempted to convince the City Council that the City should deny police complaints
- Attempted to violate Urbana’s police complaint procedures
- Attempted to hamper the police complaint review process
- Lied to the Council about police complaint notary requirements
- Attempted to hamper events at the Independent Media Center by charging new fees for small gatherings of people