Carpentersville, Dundee candidates face objections

Candidates in races for village board seats in Carpentersville, East Dundee and West Dundee will have their election petitions scrutinized after several residents filed objections to their paperwork this week.

Though objections are common in Carpentersville elections, no candidate this year was spared from an attempt to remove them from the April 7 ballot.

Meanwhile, the lone challenger for West Dundee's village presidency and a pair of trustee hopefuls in East Dundee also face probing by their respective municipal electoral commissions.

In Carpentersville, two residents are responsible for a dozen challenges against the three village president candidates and eight potential trustees.

One-time village board candidate Frank Stoneham filed objections against incumbent village president Bill Sarto and challenger Jim Krenz, incumbent trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, and trustee hopefuls Debra Lowen, Kenneth Andresen and Joseph Haimann.

Among his half-dozen objections, Stoneham claims candidates' petitions include forged or duplicated signatures and signatures from people who live outside the village, a violation of the state's election code.

Stoneham, who was removed from the 2007 ballot after residents successfully challenged his petition, also contends the petitions of Andresen and Lowen contain more than the allowable 225 signatures of qualified voters.

Sarto called Stoneham's claims "frivolous."

"My own mother's signature is being challenged," he said. "It is a frivolous challenge and just payback for what happened two years ago when Frank Stoneham was kicked off the ballot."

Resident Judith Gallagher filed objections against the remaining five candidates and an additional challenge to Krenz's petition.

Gallagher claims a number of technical errors in paperwork filed by village president candidates Ed Ritter and Krenz, as well as incumbent trustee Kay Teeter, and challengers Patricia Schultz, Bradford McFeggan and Kent Baldwin. Among them: paperwork was not "neatly fastened together in book form," and that the statements of candidacy were not signed in the presence of a notary public, as required by the state's election code.

A panel of the village's electoral board will convene at 6:30 p.m. Monday to hear the objections. The three-member board ordinarily consists of the village president, senior trustee and the village clerk, but because Sarto is one of the candidates being challenged, he instead will oversee the hearings for trustee candidates only.

A staple could also undo the political endeavors of two East Dundee village board candidates. Resident Frank Leitsch filed objections against former trustee Howard Schock and Patrick Clarke, arguing that both should be removed from the ballot because they submitted a stack of papers, rather than petition sheets "neatly fastened together in book form."

No electoral board hearing date or time was immediately available.

In West Dundee, the village's electoral board will hold a hearing at 4.pm. Thursday in the village hall board room over objections against village president hopeful and outspoken Wal-Mart opponent Michael Elmore.

Richard Lovett claims Elmore's petition fails to meet required state standards like numbering petition pages, clearly identifying the county, city, village or town and state of a signee, and binding the paperwork together in book form.

With Village President Larry Keller up for re-election, Village Manager Joe Cavallaro said Village Clerk Barb Traver and trustees Andrew Yuscka and Joseph Motyl will sit on the electoral board. The trio will meet before the meeting to elect a chairman.