The race for the Joliet Junior College Board of Trustees took a strange twist Wednesday when two candidates accused another candidate of using an illegally obtained college memo to promote his campaign and the accused returned fire, alleging the college foundation is illegally endorsing his two opponents.
“Never a dull moment,” joked college spokesman D.J. Wells, moments after candidates Jeff May and Richard Dystrup held a news conference steps away from the college president’s door.
May and Dystrup asked the Will County state’s attorney’s office to investigate allegations that John Hertko, president of the board of trustees who is running for re-election, illegally obtained and then used a confidential internal college memo in campaign literature. The memo, which was sent to voters, also included a letter critical of Dystrup and May.
The three men are among the six candidates running for three seats on the board of trustees.
“This is a terrible breach of college security, but worse, it may also be a violation of state laws, and an independent inquiry is needed to clear the air,” Dystrup said.
Lisa Las, spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office, said the office will not investigate. “We have determined there are no allegations of criminal wrongdoing here. We spoke to college President J.D. Ross, and we determined he is proceeding appropriately with an administrative review,” she said.
The campaign literature that was mailed out did not have a return address on the envelope and did not mention Hertko’s name. Hertko denies that he, or anyone from his campaign, mailed the memo. He acknowledges that he tried last year to get a copy of the memo through a Freedom of Information request, but he was turned down by the college attorney.
Hertko also denied ever seeing the memo, although in an interview with the Tribune last month, he spoke at length about what was contained in it.
“There have been rumors about this memo floating around for a long time and I write notes down from what people tell me,” Hertko said, explaining how he knew the contents of the memo.
Despite accusations about stealing the memo, the larger issue centers on what is contained in it. The one-page letter, handed out at the news conference, purports to be a July 1997 letter from Fred Holzrichter, former head of the Joliet Junior College Foundation, to Thomas Gamble, former college president.
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Hertko claims the memo proves that the Joliet Junior College Foundation, the non-profit fundraising arm of the college, was involved in recruiting and endorsing candidates.
A spokesman with the Illinois attorney general’s office said it is against the law for a non-profit group such as the college foundation to actively support, campaign for or endorse candidates.
It is difficult to decipher exactly what the memo says because several people being discussed in it are referred to only by initials. But it includes such language as “H. will not be running.” May, Dystrup and Hertko say that sentence and at least one other refer to a candidate for the 1997 race for the board of college trustees.
Neither Gamble nor Holzrichter could be reached for comment. But William Kaplan, president of the foundation’s board of directors, denied that the foundation is involved in politics. “The foundation is a fundraising organization and we are not engaging in political activity,” he said.
But Kaplan acknowledges that there are many ties between the foundation and May and Dystrup.
For starters, Kaplan is a partner in a law firm with Dystrup’s half-brother. And John Lukancic, co-chairman of the political action committee supporting the two candidates, is the brother-in-law of Walt Zaida, former head of the college foundation.
And on Tuesday, Vera Smith, a member of the foundation’s board of directors, gave the Dystrup and May campaigns $5,000.
Hertko also wants to know why a news release announcing the May-Dystrup news conference was faxed from the Joliet Will County Center for Economic Development, a non-profit group that also cannot support candidates. Robert Rogina, co-chairman of the political committee that supports the two candidates, serves on the economic group’s board of directors.
Jim Fairchild, president of the group, said he does not know who sent it from the office and said it never should have been sent.