Will Hanover Park fire the mayor's wife?

Vindictive politics or simple dollars and cents?

It depends on whom you ask.

Hanover Park is a town divided by a recent move to eliminate the collector job held for more than two decades by Village Clerk Sherry Craig, the mayor's wife.

The proposal came from Trustee Lori Kaiser, who says it's business -- nothing more.

"This is about freeing up some money to put in the public safety budget," she said. "We're looking to add nine new cops, and we need to start looking at places where we can trim."

Mayor Rod Craig, Sherry's husband of 39 years, is certain of an ulterior motive.

"This was done to create pain in my family. It was an act of malice," he said.

The animosity among the Hanover Park village board members is no secret. Craig says it stems from April's election, when he edged out former interim village president and current Trustee Robert Packham to win the presidency by 40 votes. Packham did not concede defeat for more than three weeks.

Craig said he's since struggled to get "bitter" trustees behind his ideas. Only newly elected Trustee Toni Carter has consistently supported his initiatives.

"I don't understand the hate and contempt," he says. "I feel like they're trying to attack me through my wife."

The proposal to eliminate the collector job, effective April 30, is to be put to a final vote at 7:30 tonight.

In Hanover Park and other towns including Bartlett, the clerk and collector positions have always been integrated. When Sherry Craig was first elected clerk in 1985, she was also appointed collector by the village manager, as stated in the municipal code.

The collector job, which generally involves collecting payments for various village-imposed fees and fines, pays most her salary. She earns $5,000 annually as clerk, about $55,000 as collector.

"It would obviously make a pretty big dent," she said. "This is their way of getting to (my husband), through me."

The shake-up in personnel has sparked a war of words over e-mail.

An anonymous group of residents dubbed Supporters of Sherry Craig wrote that the board should be ashamed of the move and pleaded for them to reconsider.

Carter had harsh words for her colleagues, whom she called "evil" and "liars."

Trustee Bill Manton took Carter's comments as a "libelous personal attack," and listed in an e-mail response his reasons why the village should eliminate the job. He said it dates back to a time when the village didn't have a finance department.

"The residents of this town are tapped out," he wrote. "They cannot afford for us to maintain an obsolete position based solely on who occupies it."

Kaiser, who denies any backdoor meetings, says the collector's duties can easily be absorbed into the finance department.

Many towns did away with the position long ago.

Schaumburg absorbed the collector's duties into the finance department in the '90s, Village Manager Ken Fritz said. But the timing of the motion in Hanover Park surprised him.

"We waited until the clerk lost the election," he said. "It's interesting they're doing it midterm."

Sherry Craig, whose sixth 4-year term expires next year, is often the go-to resource for residents. She said she spends many days on tasks that don't fall into either the clerk's or collector's job description. She doesn't know if she'll stay on as clerk.

"I don't buy the argument that it's just business," said Craig, who added she's received dozens of supportive e-mails and letters. "I think it's purely vindictive."