An Election Day referendum that asked Hazel Crest residents if the village should be divided into six districts with one trustee elected from each district has failed, its proponent said.
Residents voted nearly five-to-one to maintain the village’s status quo electoral system by which trustees represent the entire village rather than just the area where they reside, according to Max Solomon, a Hazel Crest resident who had advocated for changing the system.
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Because village officials failed to certify the public question to the county on time, it was printed on a separate piece of paper and did not appear on the regular ballot on Election Day. As a result, votes were subjected to a tedious hand count that was still being finalized this week.
While the County Clerk’s Office has yet to verify the final tally, spokesman Nick Shields said it appeared the referendum was going to fail, based on unofficial counts.
Solomon, a lawyer and adjunct professor who organized the petition-initiated referendum, said he blamed Hazel Crest Village President Vernard Alsberry for its defeat and questioned the legitimacy of the process.
“I blame him for not giving the people of Hazel Crest — whether or not they support it — a fair chance to encounter that question on their ballot,” Solomon said.
Alsberry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the referendum process, and neither he nor Village Clerk Isaac Wiseman have returned requests for comment on the village’s failure to certify the referendum petitions to the county on time.
Interim village manager John Daly previously chalked up missing the deadline to an “honest mistake” made by an inexperienced clerk unfamiliar with the election cycle process, but Solomon believes the village’s inaction was deliberate.
A pre-election post on Alsberry’s website instructed constituents to oppose the referendum and called it a “terrible idea” that “makes no sense.”
“In my opinion, the reason Mr. Solomon is pushing his Chicago ward plan is obvious,” the post reads. “He is hoping that if he can get his referendum passed, maybe he can get himself elected Trustee in a smaller district. That’s not good public policy — it is plain selfishness.”
Solomon disputed Alsberry’s assertion that his motivation for putting forth the referendum was self-serving. Rather, it was about providing a point of contact for all residents and making elected officials more accountable to voters, he said.
“This is about representation,” he said. “That’s all it is.”
Solomon said he only learned of the village’s failure to certify his petitions when he visited the county clerk’s website in late January to view the sample ballot and realized it did not contain his referendum question.
By that time, the deadline to certify petitions had passed and it was too late to get the public question on the regular ballot. As a result, he was forced to settle on having his question appear on a separate ballot, he said.
“If I had not personally, unilaterally caught that this wasn’t certified… it would never have been on any ballot,” Solomon said. “I would have been waiting for a referendum to show up on Election Day and it (wouldn’t have been) there.”
Following the apparent defeat of the referendum, Solomon said he’s exploring all of his legal options, but does not intend to take any action that will necessitate Hazel Crest taxpayers footing the bill.
“If it were a candidate who was trying to run for village office, or any candidate in any election, and the village refused or ‘forgot’ to certify that candidate’s petitions,” Solomon said. “I don’t think it would be something that would be looked upon lightly.
“But the fact that it’s a referendum and it’s coming from a group of people that the village president sees as opposition…it worries me .”
Twitter @ZakKoeske