CALLING ALL CANDIDATES

In a matter of months, municipal elections will be in full swing, so candidates planning to run for election, or reelection as the case may be, to the La Grange Village Board, Park Board of Commissioners or Library Board better start lining up.

First, we've got to get through that presidential and congressional election in November.

A little more than a week after voters visit the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 4, the Citizens' Council of La Grange will begin its biennial process of endorsing candidates for the village's 12 open seats.

The Council, which is comprised of 47 delegates (of a requisite 88 representing 11 geographical districts), met Sept. 10 and will meet again at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8 before gathering all candidate data, doing interviews and reference checks before endorsing on Wednesday nights, Nov. 12 and Dec. 10.

Incumbents will be notified this week to file applications and data sheets by Monday, Nov. 3. Park and Library board data is due Wednesday, Oct. 15.

The Council's mission is to "identify, interview and endorse highly qualified, community minded residents to run for public office" in the upcoming April 2009 elections. All facets of the process are public, but the actual endorsement vote is typically done in private.

A volunteer group, the Council considers itself "a nonpartisan, broad-based group of committed, informed citizens who evaluate candidates" for various village boards. The group has been around since the 1930s.

Council members, or delegates as they are called, must be registered voters and residents for at least one year. Although delegates represent whichever district in which they reside, there is at least one opening on all but one of the geographical districts.

The Council, according to its president Orlando Coryell, is not a political party but must file as one after its delegates help endorsed candidates collect signatures on their respective nominating petitions. Anyone can run for office independent of Council candidates and all petition documents must be filed no later than Jan. 19.

The group met Sept. 10 and decided not to hold a second meeting in October in a proposed attempt to build the roster of available delegates. However, since endorsement sessions are held on two separate days, it is possible more delegates could sign up (and attend two meetings as required) in time for the December session.

Endorsements for three Park Board and four Library Board candidates will be in November, with the session for Village President, Clerk and three trustees in December. For all offices except library, one must be a minimum one-year resident. A Library trustee only has to have resided in the village for at least one day, said Coryell.

Although the Park District, like schools, vets all of its employees because of required background checks, that is not done by the Council, Coryell said.

The Council decided to distribute flyers to residents, schools and businesses instead of just using email as was done this summer to recruit delegates. However, there is concern over distributing flyers to all 5,000 households in La Grange through the village, since some consider the Council a political organization, Coryell said.

A move by new delegate Ted Hadley to add a meeting in October was rejected by a 34-13 Council vote after board secretary Rob Pierson suggested doing so may invite abuse and cause partisan groups to pack the Council (as it has in the past) until endorsements are finished so they can assure "their" candidate is slated.

Hadley was the Council's endorsed candidate for village president in 2005, but lost to incumbent Liz Asperger. He joined the Council this summer.

Coryell, who is in charge of the meeting schedule, said the Council cannot bar new members who show up for the first time in October from participating in endorsements.
"That's not democracy," he said. "We're an inclusive, not an exclusive group."

Another delegate told the Council she "would like to see a larger representation" from under-represented areas, especially given the fact many recent endorsed candidates have come from one geogrphical area: the village's central historic distrct.

"We need to make this a more diverse council," she said. "It can only be a better community if you do that." There are two African-American delegates and slightly more men than women. However, it is not known which districts are better represented.

Some at the meeting agreed the District 102 caucus -- a separate organization with a similar charge -- has long been padded with special interests, which the Council says it wants to avoid.

There have been years in which voting membership was near the maximum or in the high 60s or 70s, said Coryell, who added one winter was so rough endorsements were only voted on by eight members. A majority of whoever is present determines which candidates are slated.

Although it is not yet known who my or may not run, incumbents whose terms are up in April include Asperger, Village Clerk Robert Milne and Village Board Trustees Mark Langan, Barb Wolf and Mike Horvath; Park Commissioners Tim Kelpsas, Bob Ashby and Chris Walsh Jr. and Library Trustees Mary Nelson, Jane Byczek, Becky Spratford and William Coffee.