‘Yeah, I gave him the finger’: Campton Hills trustee in hot water again over zoning flap

In Campton Hills, residents can have a variety of legal home businesses – a beauty or barber shop, animal grooming, day care, music and dance studio, architecture, accounting, religious congregations, dressmakers and cabinet making.

But not massage therapy.

For that you need to be in the commercial district with a special use.

Campton Hills cited Trustee Janet Burson Jan. 24, alleging a zoning violation against her for operating a massage therapy service as a home-based business, records show.

The citation, from Building and Zoning Officer James Brown, sets an adjudication hearing for Feb. 18. If she fails to attend the hearing, Burson risks a maximum of $750 per day fine for the violation, according to the citation.

Burson, who was recently censured by the board alleging various infractions – all of which she denied – dismissed the citation’s validity.

“I had a clinic in Oak Park when I first moved here,” Burson said. “And once I got elected, I didn’t see people here.”

Burson said the main reason she kept up the web page was for its self-care section.

Burson said she still sees clients she had in Oak Park, but she travels there to see them, they don’t come to her house.

Village Administrator Mark Rooney said one reason for Burson’s censure had to do with redoing village’s zoning ordinance and that she wanted to add massage as an permitted residential use.

Trustees were on board – until they weren’t.

“A lady from the audience showed up at the next meeting (Nov. 19) and said Trustee Burson was running a massage business from her house,” Rooney said. “She had snapshots of a web page where you can sign up for an appointment in the house.”

The lady from the audience was Darlene Bakk, a former village trustee.

“Since 2017, Trustee Burson has operated a massage establishment in her residence which also houses an art gallery,” Bakk had said.

While Bakk asserted both businesses were in violation of the village zoning code, at the Nov. 14 village board meeting, attorney Carmen Forte recommended that massage therapy establishments be regulated.

“The word massage – it’s not even in the village code," Forte said. “So it can be perceived that it certainly is a permitted use and that there are no restrictions on in whatsoever.”

Trustees reversed themselves on allowing massage therapy as a home business at the Dec. 3 meeting, Rooney said.

“She should have told them (trustees) that was her home business,” Rooney said. “The trustees felt put-upon.”

And because Burson’s home address in Campton Hills was still on her business website, Rooney said, the zoning official had no choice but to cite her.

He and Burson talked after that meeting where he warned her to change the text on her website so people could not sign up for an appointment at her house.

Rooney said he advised Burson that if she modified her web page and could show the hearing officer her effort to get it right, the citation would likely be dismissed.

“She told me, ‘You can’t prove I’m doing it and I’m not changing a ... thing,’ and gave me the middle finger in my face not once but twice,” Rooney said. “And the second time, she almost clipped my face.”

Burson did not deny flipping the bird at Rooney.

“Yeah, I gave him the finger,” Burson said.

“I was really angry. He was pushing me on the issue,” Burson said. “He wanted me to do something about my website. I’m not in that business at home. How big of a deal do I have to make here? I cannot prove I have a negative here.”

Burson said the website’s appointment function has not worked since COVID.

“I do not deny I was uncouth. The ask was inappropriate,” Burson said. “They had no business asking me to do anything with it.”