first official village election was held in April 1959, at which time a new president, Harry P. Keeley, Jr., and three new trustees were elected. These officials, along with the three remaining trustees, went to work establishing commissions, ordinances, codes and sources of revenue. This was no small task. Without a public facility, all meetings were held in their homes and long hours spent on village business. A small contingent of residents began agitating to abolish Kildeer and merge into the village of Long Grove. The issue became so heated that some members of village commissions submitted resignations. President Keeley wrote a letter to all village officials and staff stating, "The resignations that have been handed to the village board within the past month are very alarming to me as the President of the Board, and I am deeply concerned over the internal strife which has been going on. It seems to me that as adults, with reasoning power that has been given to us, we should be able to resolve our differences in an adult manner. We are doing to ourselves what Mr. Brickman with all of his law suits could not do. We are being destroyed from within by smear campaigns, rumors, half truths, etc. I am in hopes that the gentlemen who submitted their resignations will reconsider and will realize that our differences can never be resolved by any means other than hard work, gathering of facts, and reasoning." "The Board and I have seen fit at this time to not accept the resignations, a matter on which we shall have to take action at the special meeting that I am calling for next Monday night to finish much business that we were not able to get to at our regular meeting." President Keeley appointed a special representative to gather information relating to a merger with Long Grove. He went to great lengths accumulating the facts and summarizing his own views on the negative aspects of such a merger in a letter to the Board of Trustees containing the following closing statement. "In light of the facts mentioned above, I feel that though we have won the battle of Brickman, we have lost the war for self preservation and home rule. I feel that your part in this administration is a failure if you condone the merger with Long Grove. I cannot and will not be part