CLIMAX VILLAGE COUNCIL MEETING JUNE 16, 2026:
1. A Very Expensive Meeting!
Trustee Denise Pyle was absent once again. She has missed the last 4 out of 5 Village Council meetings. At least she couldn’t do any damage while absent.
Trustee Ben Moore was absent at the beginning of the meeting but showed up roughly 13 minutes before the meeting ended.
President Bill Lewis is paid $200 for each meeting he attends. The other Trustees are paid $100 per meeting. Between Bill Lewis and the five Trustees in attendance at the end of the meeting, taxpayers footed the bill for $700 for a meeting that lasted 36 minutes and 16 seconds. We paid over $19 per minute for that Council meeting. Bill Lewis made over $5.50 a minute; the four Trustees who were in attendance from the beginning of the meeting made over $2.75 a minute; and Ben Moore made just under $7.70 a minute.
2. Where’s The Beef?
There has been a trend of very short Council meetings under Bill Lewis. Where is our business really being conducted? To this point it has been conducted in the shadows as this site has shown over the last eighteen months.
Bill Lewis’ “Citizen Time” is a 3-minute period at Council meetings where he allows each citizen to speak. But under Lewis’ rules, citizens can’t expect an answer or response to their questions and concerns at that time. The response, if it is to come at all, is at another time or out of public view one-on-one. That is, unless Lewis needs to do damage control immediately.
Most of the time citizen questions and comments don’t require a researched response. They are about the status of Village business or affairs that are ongoing. Questions such as:
- What is the status of collection of the Moore code enforcement debt of $2,580?
- Where’s the report from the planning commission that was said to be forthcoming some time back?
These are simple straightforward questions that don’t require research and are ones in which Lewis has been personally involved. Does he need time to reshape the question so that he can respond to what he wants to answer? Is he trying to figure out what to say to hide what he’s doing or what is going on? That was certainly the scenario in his abandonment of the Bates code enforcement debt owed to the Village. It appears that his history is repeating itself in the matter of the code enforcement debt for the cleanup of the Moore property at 115 Watson Street.
The devil is always in the details. The devil offers just a pinch of truth in his stories. Just enough truth to make his stories believable. These are half-truths. Half-truths contain a portion of truth but hide or deny the full truth. It misleads by what it says and what it leaves out. We’ve seen a lot of that!
Certainly, folks paying attention have caught on by now.
3. Irresponsible Spending and Debt Collection!
The Village and its taxpayers have been victims of Bill Lewis’ term as Village Council president. He has spent tax money like it grew on trees. He’s made us pay ~$40,000 for an attorney to provide the appearance of justification for his deeds, created two totally unnecessary bureaucracies in planning and zoning commissions, imposed private property maintenance burdens on the taxpayers to pay back his friends and supporters, gave away the use of our real estate to his library employer for a shameful amount of rent, abandoned collection of a large code enforcement debt owed by his friend, former associate, or supporter, and may now abandon another.
One of the most damning actions he’s orchestrated was entering into an agreement not to enforce the Anthony Murat Bates code enforcement debt of approximately $15,000. It would have been larger, but Bates must have known he owed it since he paid a portion of the debt. Bill Lewis himself knew that it was a lawful debt owed to the Village and spent a year and thousands in tax money seeking to avoid its collection.
There was no legal or rational reason for this and all involved, including Lewis and Trustees Denise Pyle, Carolyn Kelly, Ben Moore, and the acting Village attorney Craig A. Rolfe, deserve the condemnation of the people of the Village. This must not be forgotten if there is a recall effort and in the upcoming November election.
Now, history may be about to repeat itself. There is a code enforcement lien in favor of the Village for $2,580 plus interest and costs. The lien is attached to the property of George Moore (deceased) and Lisa Moore located at 115 Watson St.
The history is this. In 2021 the property was blighted and the owners refused to respond to requests by the Village to clean it up. The Village obtained a court order permitting it to hire a contractor to do the work. After completion of the cleanup the Village paid the contractor’s bill for $2,580. A lien on the property was recorded by the Village on September 7, 2021. No part of that debt has been paid.
Sometime in late 2025, Bill Lewis directed the acting Village attorney, Craig A. Rolfe, to attempt or make a showing of attempting to collect the debt. He sent letters. These letters have been published here https://climaxprairie.news/memorial-day-water-rates-and-hiding-village-business/ The letters were addressed to the “heirs” of George W. Moore. Those heirs were identified in the letters as Samantha Seneath, Benjerman Moore, and George Moore II. These are reputedly the children of George W. Moore who died in 2022.
But there is no mention of Lisa Moore, the surviving spouse or former spouse of George W. Moore. Lisa Moore is the record owner of the property. Why direct collection efforts to the surviving children and not the record owner? And what about Craig Rolfe’s statement at a Council meeting last year that he couldn’t tell who owned the property?
This all begins to smell like betrayal of the Village once again. We’ll soon get a better sense of what Lewis is doing or not doing about this debt to the Village.
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