Lake County Board member says eliminate coroner’s post

A Lake County Board member has proposed asking voters to do away with the elected coroner’s position and create a medical examiner’s office.

Aaron Lawlor’s proposal comes about a week after Coroner Richard Keller pleaded guilty to felony charges and resigned. The charges stemmed from the death of a Lindenhurst resident who sought treatment at a methadone clinic Keller had managed.

“If ever there was a time to look at it, I think now is the time,” Lawlor, a Vernon Hills Republican, said Wednesday.

Cook County is the only county in the Chicago area with a medical examiner, a professional doctor who is appointed to oversee autopsies conducted in the county.

Lake, DuPage, Kane, McHenry and Will counties all have coroners — politicians who do not necessarily have medical backgrounds who are elected by voters to run such departments.

Eliminating the coroner’s post and creating a medical examiner’s office would require voter approval. The next opportunity to put such a referendum on a ballot would be March 2012.

Lake County voters rejected a proposal to make the coroner an appointed position in 1990.

After Keller’s resignation, Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran was asked to oversee the coroner’s office until the county board appoints someone to finish Keller’s term, which ends in November 2012.

The appointee must be a Lake County resident and a Democrat, because Keller was a Democrat when he was last elected in 2008.

Lawlor proposed changing the office during a meeting of the board’s law and judicial committee on Tuesday.

The move would give the county board oversight of the office’s budget, Lawlor said, and the county administrator would oversee staffing — just like any other nonpolitical county department.

That means the board could hire and fire a medical examiner, something it can’t do with a coroner now.

Keller hasn’t been the only person in the office with legal troubles. Deputy coroner Robert Barrett was arrested in January after authorities said he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl.

That case is pending in Lake County court.

Since Keller’s resignation, the county has launched a forensic audit of the office. Curran has called the office “a hornet’s nest of bad management and poor decision making.”

Getting rid of the coroner also would take partisan politics out of the office, Lawlor said.

“(It) allows us to make sure the office is run effectively, whether or not the person has an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ next to their name,” he said.

County board member Carol Calabresa supports investigating the proposal but had concerns about whether having a forensic pathologist on full-time duty as medical examiner would be cost effective.

“I’m not sure that medical examiners are something that small counties do,” said Calabresa, a Libertyville Republican and a member of the law committee.

The financial implications of such a switch will be researched, officials said. So will the possible timing of such a referendum, since the coroner’s seat already is slated to be on the ballot in 2012.

Grayslake Democrat Pat Carey, another member of the committee, also supports looking into the matter.

“I don’t know enough about it to know if it’s a good thing to do,” she said.

County staff could have a report for the committee to review in the next month or two, County Administrator Barry Burton said.

Coroner controversies aren’t limited to Lake County.

Last year, the Kane County Board investigated doing away with an elected coroner’s office following the indictment of Coroner Chuck West on official misconduct charges.

The Kane board opted not to put the matter to voters, however, saying more information about the costs of such a move was needed.

West remains on the job.