Efforts being made to get candidates off April ballot
Scores of candidates are seeking election to offices ranging from village board trustee to school board member in Lake County, but some might not make it onto the April 7 ballot.
Nominating petition challenges have been filed against some candidates for mayor or trustee in Antioch, Grayslake, Island Lake, Kildeer and Round Lake Beach. The candidates will be knocked off the ballot if local electoral boards uphold the challenges after a hearing.
Some candidates seeking election to boards for the Round Lake Area Park District and Round Lake Unit District 116 also are facing challenges to their nominating petitions.
In Antioch, resident Dave Migalla is trying to prevent Trustee Robert Caulfield Jr. from appearing on the April 7 ballot as a mayoral candidate.
In documents filed with the village, Migalla contends Caulfield was too vague when he listed himself as a candidate for mayor on the nominating petition.
"(Caulfield) failed to specify which mayoral position he is filing for," Migalla's challenge states. "As such, there is a likelihood, or at least a possibility, of confusion as to which city, town or village the candidate was seeking the mayoral position of."
Caulfield said he'll be at village hall Monday night to contest the challenge before Antioch's electoral board.
"I hesitate to say too much right now," Caulfield said Friday.
Caulfield would face Trustee Lawrence Hanson for mayor. Hanson sits on the Antioch electoral board that's in charge of deciding the objection, but Migalla wants him removed from the role because of a potential conflict of interest.
Migalla also contends Antioch trustee candidates David Dziki and Rebecca Weber should be yanked from the ballot because of faulty nominating petitions. Dziki sometimes was improperly referred to as "Dave" in his paperwork, and Weber's problems included not consistently using her middle initial "L," according to the complaint.
As for the other challenges:
•Kildeer resident Carole Smith filed an objection claiming village Trustee Olivia Coughlin's nominating petitions were not numbered as required by state law.
•Round Lake Beach resident Allan Bergh filed challenges against mayoral candidate Fernando Salazar and trustee hopeful Constantin Corche. Bergh contests the legitimacy of signatures on Corche's and Salazar's petitions. In turn, Salazar objected to signatures on petitions filed by Mayor Richard Hill's United Vision Party slate that includes four trustee candidates and one for clerk. No one will be on the ballot if Bergh's and Salazar's petition objections are upheld.
•Grayslake trustee candidates Quin O'Brien and Michael Francq are accused of having signatures on their petitions from people who are not registered voters in the village. Grayslake resident Virginia Russell filed the objections.
•Round Lake Unit District 116 board candidates Ann Welk and Douglas Raul Williams are contesting the validity of the nominating petitions filed by opponents W. Guy Finley and Tonesha Baker. Specifics were not immediately available. Welk, Finley and Baker are incumbents.
•Paul Hollingsworth, a Round Lake Area Park District candidate, filed an objection to opponent Bernard Meckler's paperwork. Hollingsworth's objection centers on whether Meckler obtained signatures from registered voters living within district boundaries.
•Objections were filed concerning mayor and trustee candidates in Island Lake, according to the Lake County clerk's office. Island Lake's top elected official, Mayor Thomas Hyde, refused Friday to provide specific information about the challenges for the public in the absence of Clerk Christine Kaczmarek.
Daily Herald staff writers Lee Filas, Phil Collins and Russell Lissau contributed to this report.