Lawsuits, city spending, who's endorsing whom in Geneva mayor fracas

Did one of the Geneva mayoral candidates make millions of dollars off nuisance lawsuits?

Is it true no current aldermen support the incumbent mayor?

On campaign literature and Facebook pages, questions and accusations have been bandied about, including the latest Thursday, about whether the Democratic National Committee had endorsed one of the two.

With four days until Election Day, here we go:

• Candidate Tom Simonian did, indeed, file 40 lawsuits in federal court in February, March, April and August 2010, seeking damages from companies selling products listing expired patents.

Simonian says he made less than $10,000 from the suits and provided a letter from his attorneys saying so. The letter said Simonian agreed to be paid 5 percent of any judgments. The lawyers would get 45 percent, and the federal government 50 percent.

The suits were against companies including Maybelline, Bunn-O-Matic, Blistex, Snap-On, Fiskars, Kimberly-Clark, Cisco, 3M and Oreck, seeking a $500 fine for each time they listed expired patents on products including mascara, vacuum cleaners, scissors and tools.

• Simonian has said he will donate his mayoral salary back if elected, a total of $120,000, he said.

Geneva city code says the mayor is paid $22,000 a year. Multiply by four, and that's $88,000.

• A mailer from Simonian's campaign said zero current aldermen supported Kevin Burns.

That peeved several aldermen, who said they had wanted to avoid endorsing anyone, preferring to stay out of the mayoral campaign. So Aldermen Michael Bruno, Tara Burghart and Craig Maladra then released statements saying they support Burns.

Current alderman Richard Marks is treasurer of Simonian's campaign. Aldermen Mary Seno, Ron Singer, Don Cummings and Jim Radecki have also endorsed Simonian.

• Did the city's budget increase from $63 million in 2010 to $92 million in 2016, as has been claimed?

Basically, yes. The 2009-10 budget called for $66.69 million in spending (including the budget for the Tri-Com dispatch center; Geneva handles the finances for the agency, which serves the Tri-Cities and Elburn). The 2016-17 budget called for $90.81 million in spending.

The city's budget falls in two major categories: general operations (think police, fire, streets), and spending for running its water, electrical and wastewater utilities.

The budgets for the first category went from $15 million in spending in 2010 to $17.3 million in 2016, an increase of 15.3 percent.

But the utilities budgets went from $43 million in 2010 to $57.85 million in 2016, an increase of 34 percent.

Burns has said much of it happened because the city's customers were using more electricity. The city purchases electricity and resells it to consumers. Figures about electrical usage were not available Thursday from the city.

The city's property tax levy rose 11 percent, from $6.26 million extended in 2011 to $6.95 million to be extended in 2017.

• An alderman posted on Facebook that he had received a mailer from the Democratic National Committee endorsing Burns.

There is no indication on Burns' campaign reports to the Illinois State Board of Elections that the DNC has sent anything on his behalf. Contributions of more than $1,000, or expenditures of $500 made on behalf of a candidate, have to be reported to the state within two days, during the month preceding an election.

Claims: City's utilities budget did rise 34 percent