Three Schaumburg candidates survive objections
Three Schaumburg candidates facing objections to their nominating petitions - including mayoral hopeful Nafees Rahman - will remain on the April 2 ballot, the village's electoral board ruled Thursday.
The board determined that only 43 of the 60 signatures on Rahman's petitions were valid, but 42 is the minimum necessary. Former village Trustee Patrick Riley filed the objection.
Trustee candidate and former Schaumburg Township Democratic committeeman Rocco Terranova, who's a member of Rahman's slate, also survived Riley's challenge. Riley filed 16 objections involving Terranova's 53 signatures, questioning whether the signatures or addresses - and sometimes both - matched those of registered voters in the village.
A records review by Cook County officials determined that 49 of Terranova's signatures were valid, enough to keep him on the ballot.
Riley's third objection, against independent trustee candidate Scott Felgenhauer, said he should be removed from the board race because he bound his petition with two large binder clips rather than a fastener through a pair of punched holes.
Attorneys for Felgenhauer, Riley and the village agreed that recent case law determined any type of binding that keeps the papers from falling apart is legally adequate. A demonstration of the binding on Felgenhauer's petition papers demonstrated that it passed muster.
"If it doesn't split, you must acquit," quipped Felgenhauer's attorney, Wheeling Trustee Joe Vito.
The electoral board made up of Mayor Al Larson, senior Trustee George Dunham and Village Clerk Marilyn Karr voted to declare a page of eight signatures on Rahman's petition that had not been notarized as invalid. Though such notarization is technically required, it was not within the jurisdiction of the records review conducted by Cook County that had given Rahman credit for 51 valid signatures.
Rahman's attorney, James Nally, did not object as the removal of the eight signatures that didn't threaten his client's candidacy.
Because Dunham is running for re-election, his place was taken on the electoral board for the Terranova and Felgenhauer hearings was filled by fellow Trustee Jack Sullivan, whose term expires in 2021.
Other Schaumburg mayoral candidates in the 2019 election are longtime Trustee Tom Dailly and newcomers Sunil Shah and Matthew Steward.
The additional trustee candidates vying for the three available seats are incumbent Mark Madej, current zoning board of appeals member Brian Bieschke, and two further members of Rahman's slate - Leon Mangum and Dhitu Bhagwakar.