Des Plaines health insurance referendum voluntarily withdrawn
An advisory referendum on whether Des Plaines elected officials should get health insurance is off the November ballot before it even got on.
Wayne Woodworth, principal circulator of petitions, decided Thursday to withdraw the petitions after two challenges against them were filed Monday.
In a letter submitted Thursday to the city clerk's office, Woodworth wrote that it would have been too costly to provide a legal defense. And, he said he didn't want the city to incur additional legal fees to set up the city electoral board that would have determined whether the question got on the Nov. 8 ballot.
"The intent of this petition was to give the citizens of Des Plaines an opportunity to express their advisory opinion on a matter that has been a controversial subject for quite some time," Woodworth wrote, adding later in the letter that "the specifics of the challenges seem to me to be standard legal operating procedures to try and diminish the free speech that petitions facilitate."
Mike Lake, one of the petition challengers, said he was surprised by the move, though he added his challenges presented a strong case that would have prevailed. Lake, a frequent critic of Mayor Matt Bogusz, was part of a successful referendum effort in 2004 that changed Des Plaines to a council-manager form of government.
"I'm a little upset for Woodworth to blame us and say we don't want the democratic process - it's just ludicrous," Lake said.
Woodworth was one of a dozen petition circulators, including Bogusz and Alderman Denise Rodd, who collected a total of 1,500 signatures.
Objections filed by Lake and Christine Schap, chairwoman of the Immanuel Lutheran Church congregation, argued the advisory question - "Shall part-time elected officials of the City of Des Plaines receive taxpayer-funded health, dental and life insurance benefits?" - was improper and biased.
They questioned whether the officials are part time, and argued that the benefits aren't entirely "taxpayer-funded," since officials who accept the city health plan pay 12 percent of premium costs.
Rodd said some of the referendum supporters wanted to defend the petitions before the city's three-person electoral board. But others felt it wasn't worth it to enter a protracted legal battle.