U-46 election petition challenged on dates, penmanship, other details

Elgin Area School District U-46 board candidate Brian Sauvageau cited poor penmanship and a lack of understanding about how to fill out a candidate petition form Wednesday at a Kane County Electoral Board hearing about whether his name should be put on the April 7 ballot.

Mary Shesgreen and Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford objected to his petition on several grounds.

They said he failed to circle whether he lived in a city, village or unincorporated area on seven pages; wrote the date of election as April 7, 7018 on one page; included two blank pages; listed a date of notarization on one page as Dec. 21, 2011; left part of the name of the school district off a blank on one page; that on a page, he listed the district as being in the village of Bartlett; and on another page, listed the date of the election as April 17.

"If Mr. Sauvageau were to be elected, he would be responsible for managing millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, and we thought that the way he filled out his paperwork showed he was not a careful person, and that was a problem," Shesgreen told the board at the hearing at the Kane County clerk's office in Geneva.

"I appreciate you guys proofreading my work," Sauvageau began when it was his turn to give a statement. "I did it, and looking at some of these things, some of the directions aren't the clearest. Guess what, this is my first time doing petitions."

Regarding the "7018" date, he said: "My penmanship is not the best ... it is what it is. I probably should have typed it out instead."

But, he said, the board should focus on the number of signatures he had, indicating people want to elect somebody new to the board.

"We were just concerned that if there were this many mistakes on a simple form, we would object to such a candidate on our U-46 school board," Brumbaugh-Cayford told the board.

The electoral board will issue its decision Monday.