COD trustee files more complaints with election board

An outgoing College of DuPage trustee who challenged several candidate petitions before the April 7 election is filing a new set of complaints with the Illinois Board of Elections.

This time, Kory Atkinson says the campaign committee for COD Trustee Kathy Wessel violated the state election code by contributing $800 to newly elected Trustee Sandy Kim. Atkinson also claims that Kim's campaign committee failed to disclose contributions in a timely fashion.

"I hope that this will remind these officials - and all elected officials - that they should take their campaign disclosure requirements seriously," said Atkinson, who soon will be seated as a Roselle village board member.

Both Wessel and Kim said they hadn't seen the complaints that Atkinson mailed to the election commission on Monday. State election officials also said they hadn't received the complaints.

Still, Wessel said she was shocked by the claims.

"I have done nothing wrong," she said. "I am sorry that Mr. Atkinson felt the need to do this to stir things up and make things unpleasant. But I'll deal with it."

Kim said she's not sure how to respond until she sees the complaint.

"I find it unfortunate that he (Atkinson) chose to send the complaint to the press without ensuring that I, the respondent, received it," she wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Herald.

She went on to explain that state election officials were made aware about why her campaign contribution information was filed late. The paperwork was submitted after the election on April 15 - that's 13 days late, according to Atkinson.

Atkinson said he believes that if the paperwork had been filed on time, it could have influenced the outcome of the race that Kim won. "The voters should have had the chance to see that Sandy Kim was being completely financed by the teachers union," he said. The report lists separate donations for Kim of $4,139 and almost $800 from Friends for Education, the COD faculty association.

As for the $800 contribution Wessel made to Kim's campaign, Atkinson claims that was improper because her campaign committee originally filed paperwork saying that it wouldn't participate in the election. "She said she wasn't participating and then she did," he said.

State election officials said it will take at least several weeks to investigate all the complaints.

More: Complaints will take several weeks to investigate, board says