Elgin Township’s plan to ask voters to approve a 708 board in the November election fell 32 signatures short after some were challenged and removed by the Elgin Township Officials Electoral Board.
A 708 board — named after House Bill 708 and also known as the Community Mental Health Act — can only be established through referendum by a community, municipality or township. If approved by voters, special tax funds are used for planning and funding mental health, developmental disability and substance abuse services.
Jason Dusenberry, an Elgin resident and chairman of the Elgin Township Republican Central Committee, filed the objection to some of the 1,022 signatures submitted.
A two-day examination of those signatures was conducted by the Kane County Clerk’s Office, which determined that only 804 of the signatures met legal requirements. To be placed on the ballot, 836 signatures were required.
Among the signatures removed were duplicates, people who do not live in Elgin Township, people not registered to vote in the township or people who did not live at the address they are registered at, township attorney Ed Mullen said.
A signature could also be eliminated if it did not match the signature as it appears in the Kane County voter roles, Mullen said.
If approved, the question that would have been on the ballot asked, “Shall Elgin Township establish and maintain community health facilities and services including facilities and services for the person with a developmental disability or a substance use disorder and levy therefore an annual tax of not to exceed 0.15%?”
The organizations that supported putting the measure before the voters were the Community Crisis Center, Ecker Center for Mental Health, Family Service Association of Greater Elgin, Greater Elgin Family Care Center, Latino Treatment Center, Open Door Health Center, Renz Addiction Counseling Center, Senior Services Associates Inc. and Association for Individual Development.
Proponents initially had asked Elgin Township Supervisor Franklin Ramirez and the township board to place the 708 board referendum on a ballot. The township board asked them to gather petitions instead, Ramirez said.
“They shouldn’t just get a free pass” and have the board place the referendum on a ballot, he said. By having the organizations gather signatures, they could “see what the temperature is out there” by way of community support, he said. “If there are eight or 10 agencies, you can each get 150 signatures and that is not a bad thing.”
Dusenberry said he does not support a measure to raise taxes, which he says has the backing of the township Democrats.
“When the slate of Democrats for the Elgin Township Board campaigned, they promised to put forward a referendum for term limits and eliminate the highway office. They have done neither. Instead they are supporting a referendum to raise our taxes. (Trustees) Vern Tepe circulated petitions, Jose Villalobos and Susan VanWeelden signed it. That is a majority of the town board who are supporting raising our taxes,” Dusenberry said.
“If there is a shortage of funding for mental health services it’s because the Democratic majority in Springfield failed to fund them with their 32 percent income tax increase. The property taxpayers in the Elgin Township should not have to compensate for that failure with an increase in their already unaffordable property tax burden. I am objecting to this petition as an Elgin Township citizen, and also as the chairmen of the Elgin Township Republicans. We will hold the Democrats to their promises and defend the citizens from egregious taxation.”
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For the organizers, the petition challenge has been a learning experience, Maureen Manning of the Community Crisis Center said.
“We accept the findings of the records review and we learned a lot about the democratic process that will service us in the future. Stay tuned,” she said.