School board filing going smoothly in Cook County
Alva Kreutzer was at Ditka's Arlington Heights location at 6:50 a.m. Monday morning, more than an hour before the doors opened.
"I had this nightmare there would be a huge line out the door and I need to get to work," said Kreutzer, who is running for her fifth term on the Northwest Suburban High School District 214 school board.
Cook County election officials expected long lines at Ditka's Hall of Fame Room at Arlington International Racecourse Monday morning, as filing opened for the April 2015 election. For the first time, school board candidate filing is being handled by county clerks all over Illinois, and Ditka's was the only Northwest suburban location for school board candidates in Cook County. Other locations were in Tinley Park and two offices in Chicago.
But, the anticipated backup didn't materialize. Kreutzer was the first person in line, and once filing opened at 8 a.m. she was done handing over her paperwork within five minutes.
"It's kind of perplexing that I'm running for a local position, but I'm filing with the county," Kreutzer said. "The process is fine. They seem to be streamlining, but it is a little strange."
Officials said they expected up to 700 people to file for school boards across Cook County so they were prepared for long lines on Monday morning.
"We had thought it would take until 10:30 a.m. to just process the line, but everything is going smoothly," said Ryan Chew, deputy director of elections at Cook County Clerk David Orr's office.
Between 60 and 70 petitions were filed with a 8 a.m. timestamp at the track, although there were fewer than 40 people waiting. Candidates could file paperwork for more than one person, Chew explained, and many took advantage of the opportunity.
Filing is open until 5 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 22.
"At least we didn't have to go downtown," said Bill Dussling, District 214 board president who is running for another term. Dussling was the second person in line at Ditka's.
"We didn't know until two weeks ago that we would be able to do this in the suburbs, but I'm glad we did," he said.
For districts where multiple candidates filed at 8 a.m. on Monday, there will be a lottery held after filing closes to determine the order names will appear on the ballot.
Several school board candidates seemed confused by the change in procedure, which was mandated by the state legislature.
"I'm not sure why they changed the process and why it was only the school boards filing here and not library boards or anyone else," Dussling said.
"School districts wanted this change because the candidate filing period typically falls during their winter breaks, and they didn't want to be open specifically for it or to accept the objections afterward," said Cook County clerk's spokeswoman Courtney Greve.
Greve said the clerk's office asked to handle school districts, municipalities and townships, but the legislature only assigned them jurisdiction over school board candidate filing and objections, so far.
While the Arlington Heights location was convenient for some Northwest suburban school board candidates, others drove from as far as Glenview, Schiller Park or Skokie to file.
"It went smoothly. It's not as easy as in the old days, but I was still happy with it," said Bill Harper, a Schaumburg Elementary District 54 board member running for another term.
"The old way was closer to home," agreed District 54 board member Barbara Hengels.
"It was very organized," said Chuck Williams, an Arlington Heights Elementary District 25 board member who is running for his seventh term. "You wondered how they were going to do it with so many of us, but it was an organized process. I definitely thought it would be more crowded than this."