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COD candidate booted off ballot by technicality

Gino Impellizzeri's name won't appear on the ballot for College of DuPage trustee for the second election in a row after a three-member panel Wednesday ruled his nominating petitions to be invalid.

Impellizzeri, of Elmhurst, submitted his papers to board secretary Kay Neely one by one, when election law requires that pages be bound and submitted together, according to COD board attorney Ken Florey.

When Impellizzeri submitted his papers, he said Neely stamped them, and he then put them together with a paper clip, thinking his papers were certified properly. But once a candidate hands in nominating petitions, that's a “moment in time” when the papers must be bound together, Florey said. Impellizzeri's unbound papers effectively voided the 71 signatures he collected.

Electoral board members Kathy Wessel, Nancy Svoboda and David Carlin voted 3-0 to remove Impellizzeri from the ballot.

“Having dealt with election law for the past 12 years, I understand the frustration, but it seems to me what the law is is very clear, and what happened is very clear,” said Wessel, who is chairman of the COD board of trustees.

The objection to the candidacy of Impellizzeri, who retired in August 2008 as a professor of Italian at the college, was filed by Joseph Kenny of Darien.

Kenny was represented by attorney Kory Atkinson, a current Roselle trustee and former COD trustee. In 2009, Atkinson himself filed objections to six candidates for the board, including Impellizzeri, who got thrown off the ballot for not specifying if he was running for a six-year or two-year term, Atkinson said.

Impellizzeri called the recent objection to his candidacy absurd and “a little Machiavellian plot.”

Atkinson said he was representing a citizen who wanted to make sure the nominating petitions were correct.

Last week, Atkinson appeared before the electoral board representing Westmont resident Keith Sellers, who filed an objection against candidate Hank Steinbrecher of Glen Ellyn. But Steinbrecher already had withdrawn from the race.

Five candidates remain on the ballot for the April election to fill two 6-year seats. They are, in ballot order, Erin Birt of Wheaton, Dianne McGuire of Naperville, Max Bochmann of Naperville, Mike Skarr of Naperville and James Long of Downers Grove.