Brusatte selected for Reddick Library Board

Retired Circuit Court Family Law Judge James L. Brusatte was selected to fill a vacancy on the Reddick Public Library Board in Ottawa.

The decision was made at the board’s meeting Monday. Brusatte is to be sworn in at the board’s regular meeting in May.

Brusatte will fill the remaining year of the term of Mary Rooney, whose resignation last month became effective Monday.

Rooney voted for Brusatte along with the other five board members who were present following a closed session to consider the applications of four candidates for the non-paying post.

Brusatte, 67, graduated from Joliet Catholic High School in 1970 and Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, with a degree in political science in 1974. He went on to graduate law school from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 1977.

He began his legal career as a La Salle County assistant public defender in 1980 and later was appointed as the head attorney in that office in 1985. Before taking the bench, Brusatte worked in private practice with the Ottawa law firms White, Marsh, Anderson, Brusatte, Vickers & Deobler and also Ferracuti & Associates.

Brusatte joined the 13th Judicial District Circuit Court as an associate judge in 1995 and was repeatedly reappointed.

He retired from the court on Sept. 30, 2010.