http://www.rblandmark.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=4053&TM=32600.27
Cameragate
The RB meeting video that put a 17-year friendship asunder
By BOB SKOLNIK
Contributing Reporter
Feelings were running so high at the July 17 special meeting of the Riverside Brookfield Township High School District 208 School Board that even friends turned on each other. One such confrontation was between Riverside activist Jerry Buttimer and RB Booster Club president Gary Zeleny.
The two have been friends for 17 years, but that friendship has been strained after an almost comical minuet between the two at the meeting.
It all started when Buttimer found out that RBTV would not, as usual, be taping the school board meeting. So he showed up with a camcorder and tripod to tape the meeting himself. That was the meeting that determined the fate of Superintendent/Principal Jack Baldermann after an investigation into whether Baldermann had a relationship with an RB staff member.
Zeleny saw Buttimer with the camcorder and was convinced it was the camcorder the RB Booster Club had bought for RB's wrestling program, a program Buttimer volunteers with. During wrestling season, Buttimer videotaped most of RB's wrestling matches. His son is on the wrestling team.
Zeleny asked Buttimer if that was the camera the Booster Club had bought.
"Jerry refused to answer," Zeleny said.
Zeleny and others repeated the question to Buttimer.
When they couldn't get an answer Zeleny, former District 208 school board member Marty Crowley, and former District 208 school board candidate Frank West decided to make things difficult for Buttimer.
Buttimer says that Zeleny, Crowley and West stood right in front of the camcorder and tried to block him from getting a clear shot of the proceedings. When Buttimer, who was stationed in the back of RB's Alumni Lounge, would move a few steps to try and get a clearer shot, one of the three would move in front of the camcorder, Buttimer says.
"They would even move an empty chair so that they could stand in front of me," Buttimer said.
Zeleny acknowledged that they were making it difficult for Buttimer.
"I was probably being a little annoying to him because he wouldn't answer the question," Zeleny said. "We were just acting a little childish. We weren't making it as easy as he wanted it to be."
Days after the meeting, Buttimer still refused to say whether the camcorder he was using was the one bought for wrestling.
"I don't care to answer that question right now," he said.
But Buttimer did say that although the Booster Club wrote a $3,000 check on Jan. 3 to the Bulldog Wrestling Club, of which Buttimer is an officer, for an assortment of computer and audiovisual equipment for the wrestling program, he bought the camcorder with his own money and has yet to be reimbursed for it by the Bulldog Wrestling Club.
"Even if it is the wrestling camera, who is he to be objecting to me using it at a school function?" Buttimer asked. "Cameras and rechargeable batteries are supposed to be used and not sit on the shelf for six months."
Zeleny says that the camcorder should not be used for private or political purposes.
"This was not a wrestling event or sporting event," Zeleny said. "It shouldn't be used for his private use. I don't like the idea that he may think it's his own property now. I don't mind him using it for wrestling."
Buttimer maintains that he was performing a public service by making a tape of an important school meeting.
"I thought this would be a telling time for the community since the board was to make a very important decision," he said.
Friday Buttimer said that he delivered his recording of the meeting on DVD to Gary Prokes, head of RBTV.
It is unclear whether RBTV plans to broadcast the DVD. Landmark could not reach Prokes by presstime.
Can Buttimer and Zeleny be friends again? Not looking too promising right now.
"He's a former friend," Buttimer said.