A Kane County judge Monday dismissed a disorderly conduct ticket against a Carpentersville trustee who likened her black neighbors' children to monkeys.

Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski was ticketed in April and fined $75 when her neighbors complained the trustee made a racist comment in telling three children to "quit playing in the tree like monkeys."

Ramirez-Sliwinski pleaded not guilty to the village ordinance violation last month.

At the request of the village and the prosecuting attorney, John Brechin, Kane County Judge Susan Clancy Boles dropped the ticket.

"It made sense to me that the village drop the ticket," Ramirez-Sliwinski said Monday afternoon. "I can't see the village spending money on this case considering the constitutional problems in the first place."

In appealing the ticket, the trustee's attorney, Gabe Fuentes of Chicago-based Jenner & Block, argued Ramirez-Sliwinski's words were protected speech and could not be criminally punished.

Fuentes added the words were not threatening.

"The Constitution was on Linda's side, so this prosecution never had a chance," Fuentes said in a prepared statement.

The children, ages 8 and 9, were climbing a small magnolia tree in the front yard of a home next door to Ramirez-Sliwinski on Sparrow Road.

Ramirez-Sliwinski had said she was worried the children would fall out of the tree.

The case attracted media attention and at one point threatened Ramirez-Sliwinski's role as an elected delegate for Barack Obama.

But while Ramirez-Sliwinski has retained her seat as an Obama delegate, the trustee is indecisive whether she will seek re-election to the village board next year.

"Only time will tell," said the first-term trustee. "If I feel like I am getting things accomplished, then I will run again. But if I feel like I am still running up against a wall, then probably not."