All five members of the Citizens for Change Party have been removed from the April ballot.
Last week, the village’s election board voted to sustain the candidacy objections filed against Cynthia Guerrero, who was running for village president; Michael A. LaCassa, who was running for village clerk; and Christopher Litwin, Diego DiMarco, and Frank Houswerth, who were running for village trustee.
Robert Godlewski filed the objections against all five candidates. During an election board hearing on Jan. 18, the arguments from his attorney, James Nally, included an assertion that the paperwork for all five candidates was incomplete and therefore made them ineligible to run for office. Specifically, he argued that all five candidates did not clearly state which village they were planning to run for elected office in and they did not properly fill out statements of economic interest.
Nally alleged that the five candidates’ lack of information in their paperwork was an attempt to “dodge” the risk of perjury charges under state ethics laws.
“You have to disclose your name, your address and the office you’re running for,” said Nally.
Tiffany Nelson-Jaworski, an attorney representing all five members of the Citizens for Change Party, responded that the forms her clients used were provided to them by the Cook County Clerk’s Office and none of the forms filed asked for the level of specificity Nally was asking for.
“I do not see anywhere on this document that was given to the candidates by the county clerk’s office — it doesn’t say anywhere on this document that this may not comply with the law, you need to consult an attorney,” said Nelson-Jaworski. She went on to say any review of her candidates’ eligibility to run for office in Franklin Park isn’t happening in a “vacuum,” and that the combined paperwork her clients filed to run for office did have all the information Nally was asking for.
Nelson-Jaworski and Nally said the Cook County Clerk’s Office changed the forms used to file for candidacy after the last election cycle due to previous litigation and that the most recent form includes an area to submit address information. Nelson-Jaworski said her candidates had filled out the older forms that don’t ask for this information and were still available from the county clerk when they filed their paperwork.
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“This form was supplied by the Cook County Clerk’s Office. It doesn’t say address on it, but if [the law] requires it shouldn’t [the form] have said, ‘address is required?,’ ” asked Village Clerk Tommy Thompson. He went on to criticize the Cook County Clerk’s Office for having both the older and newer forms accessible to candidates running in this election cycle, which he said put candidates at risk to ballot objections that the county already knew were an issue.
After nearly two hours of arguments by Nally and Nelson-Jaworski, the village election board voted, 2-1, to sustain all five of Godlewski’s ballot objections. Village Clerk Thompson was the only person on the board to vote against his objections.
Alex V. Hernandez is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.