Lake in the Hills not filling open trustee seat

Out of respect for a Lake in the Hills trustee who died in June, Village President Ed Plaza will not fill the nearly two-month old village board vacancy his death created.

Plaza instead wants voters to decide next year who replaces Trustee Joe Murawski.

Murawski, 75, died June 11 after a lengthy illness.

"It's his seat," Plaza said. "I think it would be a disservice to appoint someone to the seat. Someone should run for it and win it."

State election law says a village president must appoint someone to fill board vacancies that occur with less than 28 months left on the term. Murawski's term had about 10 months remaining when he died.

But Village Attorney Richard Flood views the law not as a mandate, but as a guideline if a village president decides to fill a vacancy.

Flood helped craft the current law, which he said started as a way to resolve issues between a Warrenville board that repeatedly rejected a village president's nominations.

The law doesn't address what happens if a village president chooses to leave a seat open, he said.

"It suggests that this is the way you do fill a vacancy and it says what happens if the board and the president disagree, but it doesn't say if the president of the board decides to leave it vacant there are consequences to or any remedies for it - it just remains vacant," Flood said. "With the election really not that far away, I think if President Plaza decides it ought to be filled by the electorate, that certainly is, in my opinion, legally his prerogative to do."

Representatives from the Illinois State Board of Elections and the Illinois Municipal League could not be reached for comment.

As a village trustee, Murawski helped steer Lake in the Hills as it grew from a community of about 6,000 residents in 1990 to one of more than 29,000 in 2006.

He had been involved in village politics since 1981, when he was appointed to the zoning board of appeals.

In 1991, he was elected to trustee and served two terms through 1999. He served seven months as acting president in 1996 and was re-elected to the board in 2003.

Trustee Steve Harlfinger said it is appropriate that the village honor his legacy.

"Leaving it open would be the best thing to do, in my opinion, out of respect for Joe and his family," Harlfinger said.