Appeals court backs Amrich’s candidacy in Island Lake
One week from Election Day, an Illinois appeals court has agreed with a Lake County judge’s decision to allow Charles Amrich to run for mayor in Island Lake.
The summary order from the court, issued Tuesday, means Amrich can continue his challenge of incumbent Debbie Herrmann for the town’s top elected post.
“I’m elated, really,” Amrich said after the order was released.
The three-member court rejected the objections a pair of local activists had filed against Amrich’s candidacy. The justices said Amrich’s nomination papers were filed in a timely manner and that the paperwork sufficiently gave the date he was nominated as a candidate.
An electoral board consisting of three village trustees knocked Amrich off the ballot in early March after a hearing on those objections, which had been made by residents Louis Sharp and Daniel Field.
Amrich had been appointed by the other members of the For the People slate to fill a vacancy created in February when he was removed from the ballot by a different electoral board for different reasons.
Amrich — the town’s mayor from 1985 to 2005 — appealed the board’s most recent decision in Lake County court. On March 12, Judge Christopher Starck reversed the board’s 2-1 ruling and said Amrich satisfied the legal requirements and could run.
Amrich criticized the objections and the process that followed as “a waste of everybody’s money.”
Sharp declined to comment Tuesday. Field couldn’t be reached.
Amrich leads the For the People slate of candidates. Herrmann leads the United for Progress slate.