Buffalo Grove will hear Stone's recall challenge on Thursday

The Buffalo Grove Electoral Board has called a meeting for Thursday evening to consider a challenge filed by Trustee Lisa Stone to about 100 of the more than 2,000 names on a petition seeking a referendum in November on whether to recall Stone.

Even if all the challenged names were removed, the petition would have almost twice as many as the 1,000 signatures needed to meet the recall ordinance requirement.

Stone said her intent wasn't to prevent the referendum but that she felt she would be negligent if she didn't challenge names that clearly didn't meet the requirements. Most of the challenges related to names being printed rather than signed, and to duplicate names.

"I simply objected to the ones that were silly, flagrant," she said.

Adam Moodhe, one of the leaders of the petition drive, said that any petition has some names that can be challenged and that he has seen cases of 30 percent of names being disqualified, while Stone is challenging less than 5 percent of the names.

"I think it's just an attempt to say 'it's not as many signatures as I had votes,'" Moodhe said, referring to comments recall supporters made when the petition was filed that it contained about 30 more signatures than the number of votes Stone got when she was elected.

The challenge will be heard by a panel made up of village President Elliott Hartstein, village Clerk Jan Sirabian and senior Trustee Jeffrey Braiman at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at 50 Raupp Blvd.

Stone said she doesn't plan to challenge the recall ordinance itself. "I do see it as an effective tool. The way they are using it is wrong," she said, suggesting it's being used to silence an independent voice on the board.

"I'm looking forward to the November vote," she said. "I want to represent the people if they want me. If they don't want me, I don't want to be there."