MONROE — The Monroe Common Council voted March 1 to approve City Administrator David Lothspeich’s $7,500 temporary housing reimbursement for his Lake Geneva home. 

Lothspeich purchased the home to act as an “in between” house because it sits between his family home in Libertyville, Illinois and Monroe. 

The Lake Geneva home cuts his commute to Monroe from two hours and ten minutes to one hour and fifteen.

The Sept. 8 contract between Lothspeich and the City of Monroe states that the council “prefers Lothspeich to purchase a home within the corporate limits of the City, but acknowledges residency is not required.”

While the motion passed with only one vote against, there was some discussion surrounding the distance between Monroe and Lothspeich’s second home location. 

Alder Brooke Bauman expressed concern that the purchase of the house may not fit the contract’s open to interpretation clause that the residence be located “near, or within the corporate limits, of Monroe.”

Because Lothspeich has children still in school in Illinois, the council agreed to give Lothspeich thirty months to move to a residence near or within Monroe, but the contract does not specify a preferred maximum distance from the city.

The contract also states that “Starting with his third year of employment and for the next eighteen months, the City agrees to reimburse Lothspeich for reasonable relocation expenses and/or down deposit toward the purchase of a house located within the corporate limits of the City of Monroe,” but it does not require that he move closer with his third year of employment.

Lothspeich said that moving his family to Monroe is a possibility, but that they are leaving the options open.

“I don’t know where we’ll settle at that point,” Lothspeich said.

In the meantime, the City is providing Lothspeich $300 per month in a “vehicle allowance.” The allowance will expire when Lothspeich moves permanently to Monroe or after 42 months of employment, should he choose to stay at the Lake Geneva home.