Schaumburg Twp. Democrats appealing removal from ballot

Four of the five Democrats seeking office in Schaumburg Township will appeal their removal from the April 9 ballot — despite having to pay individual filing fees well above what they expected to pay as a group.

Former trustee candidate Moe Patel is choosing not appeal his removal, which came on the basis that he did not identify which office he was seeking on a required statement of economic interest.

But trustee candidates Mike Murray, Carolyn A. Quinn, Zuhair Nubani and highway commissioner candidate Michael Lenehan will move forward with their appeals. The township's electoral board, in a 2-1 vote, struck their names from the ballot because the Democratic official who slated them — Mike Cudzik — had not been properly appointed committeeman.

Because the Schaumburg Township electoral board filed the rulings on their cases individually, filing the four appeals will cost he Democrats $1,350, rather than the $300 they anticipated for a single case.

Cudzik said the four candidates paid their own filing fees, though the rest of their legal fees are being covered by the Schaumburg Area Democrats.

“I'm very proud of our candidates for standing strong and pushing this forward,” Cudzik said.

Another consequence of the cases being filed individually is that their initial hearings are scheduled on two different days before three different judges at the Daley Center in Chicago.

Two of the cases will get started Thursday morning while the other two won't begin until Monday morning.

Arguments will come later, and the candidates' attorney, Dan Johnson, said he will ask for the cases to be consolidated. Even if they are, the initial filing fees are already gone, he said.

“It would have been nicer if the township electoral board had consolidated the cases,” Johnson added.

Schaumburg Township Supervisor Mary Wroblewski, who chaired the electoral board, said the panel had no part in how the decisions were filed.

“The lawyer took care of that,” Wroblewski said. “We never even talked about that. That's not my area of expertise.”

In ruling to remove the candidates, Wroblewski and Township Clerk Timothy Heneghan found that Cudzik's appointment as Democratic committeeman had not been properly made, and therefore he could not lawfully slate candidates. The electoral board's third member — attorney Ellen Raymond of Burr Ridge — believed the procedural error should not result in the removal of candidates.

Wroblewski, Heneghan and Township Assessor John Lawson are running unopposed for re-election on a Republican slate that also includes incumbents Robert Vinnedge, Jeffery Mytych, Diane Dunham and newcomer Nimish Jani for trustee and current Trustee Scott Kegarise for highway commissioner.