Clik here to view.
By Steve Metsch
More than eight months after the process began, the village of McCook has reached a settlement with former police officer John Kosmowski Jr.
“This will end this case for once and for all. Gets it out of our hair even though I don’t have hair,” Mayor Terrance Carr quipped during the McCook Village Board meeting July 1.
The board unanimously approved the settlement.
The village agrees to pay Kosmowski – whose father is John Kosmowski, the embattled former police chief of Summit – 14 days of pay.
That comes to around $8,700, Carr said in his office after the board meeting.
Kosmowski had been suspended for 55 days without pay last year for “conduct unbecoming,” Carr said.
“So, he serves his 55 days. Then he turns in his resignation letter the day (Oct. 30) he was supposed to resume working,” Carr said.
“He gets a free lawyer from the union. I’m on the hook for paying for two lawyers, one for the village, one for the police department,” Carr said.
Carr added “it blows my mind how somebody is allowed to file a lawsuit after they resign.”
Carr called Kosmowski – who sued the village to get paid for the 55 days he was suspended – “a pain in my side.”
“Now, he’s out of my life forever. He signed all the agreements that he’s done. He can’t sue (the village again). He can’t do anything,” the mayor added.
Carr said he agreed to the settlement because he had grown tired of paying for two lawyers as the case was continued several times. “We settled on giving him 14 days to avoid legal bills. That’s the only reason we settled.”
Carr declined to be specific about conduct that had been deemed unbecoming, other than to say Kosmowski was found to be out of McCook while he was on the clock.
