Sarto confirmed for April ballot in Carpentersville

The April 7 election for Carpentersville village president will be a three-man race after all, now that incumbent Bill Sarto and challenger Jim Krenz overcame a resident's challenge to signatures on their nominating petitions Tuesday.

Sarto and Krenz will now join Ed Ritter, who overcame challenges to his petition last week.

The village's electoral board sustained about half of the 102 challenges resident Frank Stoneham filed against Sarto, who is seeking his second term as village president.

Though the electoral board threw out about 50 of the signatures, Sarto was still left with more than the required 148 signatures to remain on the ballot.

"Let the games begin," Sarto said shortly after the electoral board completed their cross-check of signatures Sarto collected against county voting records. "We're off and running again. This is one hurdle I am over and I will move on to the next one, which is the election in April."

Among the eight objections, Stoneham claimed 102 of Sarto's 217 signatures contained forgeries, were signed by people who are not residents of the village or that signatures were "printed" rather than signed.

Similarly, Krenz retained his name on the ballot when Stoneham withdrew his remaining two pages of objections.

About two dozen of the 95 challenges were sustained, but Krenz had more than enough signatures to remain on the ballot.

"The taxpayers should be livid," Krenz said of the challenges to every candidate's petition. "This was a complete farce."

All three village president candidates and eight trustee hopefuls faced objections from Stoneham and fellow resident Judith Gallagher.

So far, the objections have resulted in the removal of one trustee candidate, Kent Baldwin. The electoral board ruled that a "medium-sized paper clip" was an insufficient form of binding to secure petition papers.

Trustee candidates Bradford McFeggan, Patricia Schultz, Kenneth Andresen, Joseph Haimann and Debra Lowen, along with incumbent Kay Teeter, will appear on the ballot.

Though the electoral board initially deemed incumbent trustee candidate Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski ineligible for the ballot, the first-term trustee will present evidence - including affidavits - at an electoral board hearing Friday in an attempt to be reinstated on the ballot.

Ramirez-Sliwinski was left just shy of the 148 signatures needed after the electoral board last week rejected 45 petition signatures, many of which could not be found in Kane County election records. But Ramirez-Sliwinski contends many voters were incorrectly rejected and are registered to vote in the county.

The hearing will take place at 1 p.m. Friday in the village hall board room.