With the Thornton Township Hall in South Holland still closed due to a lack of insurance coverage, 2025 ballot challenges were instead resolved at a South Holland restaurant.
Township supervisor candidates Nate Fields, Sidney Moore and Stafford Owens and trustee candidate Felesa Martin were knocked off the ballot, the electoral boards decided Dec. 17, with written decisions handed out Monday. Objections to supervisor candidate Harvey Mayor Christopher Clark and trustee candidates Corean Davis, Jacinta Gholston, Dominique Randel-El and Rachel Jones were overturned.
Affected candidates expressed frustration over the board’s decisions to strike certain names from the 2025 ballot, including Moore, whose campaign for township supervisor was grounded by religious faith, connections to the business community and an interest in fostering fiscal responsibility. His removal from the ballot was approved unanimously because he had too recently switched his party allegiance from Democrat to Independent.
Moore said Monday he thinks electoral board members were unable to make fair decisions surrounding candidate eligibility, and said he will appeal the decision to a Cook County circuit court.
The electoral boards were made up of various elected officials, with the supervisor candidacy challenges board chaired by Trustee Chris Gonzalez, who is seeking reelection himself in 2025 as a Democrat, and the trustee challenges board chaired by Supervisor Tiffany Henyard.
“I think the decision to sustain objections was biased (with) conflicts of interest,” Moore said. “When it comes to unfairness, we expected nothing less.”
Gonzalez, who was unavailable for comment Monday, previously said he does not believe himself to be in the best position to offer an unbiased ruling on candidate objections and would have supported a more independent process for deciding who should remain on the ballot.
“You don’t want to get any kind of personal thing involved in the decision,” Gonzalez said after the Dec. 17 hearing. “You just kind of keep it as straightforward as you could — just like you were on a jury or something.”
Henyard was absent from Monday’s hearing, as she herself was in court challenging the results of a caucus that named State Sen. Napoleon Harris, along with his slate that includes Gonzalez as trustee, the Democratic nominee for supervisor. As it stands, township residents will only be able to write in Henyard’s name if they want to vote for her in the spring 2025 township election.
Cook County Judge John Michael Allegretti said Monday Henyard’s attorney, Stephen Solomon, submitted the lawsuit to the wrong court division and that he needed to transfer all documents from the elections division to chancery.
Allegretti said he normally hears challenges from electoral board decisions, based on whether the electoral board followed specific rules. But he said Solomon was asking for a determination that the caucus process was unconstitutional.
“You want someone to make that declaration,” he said. “That’s what chancery does.”
Solomon previously mistakenly added Dixmoor Mayor Fitzgerald Roberts as a plaintiff to the lawsuit, requiring him to refile to remove him.
Meanwhile, Henyard called for a special meeting of the Township Board Monday at Harvey City Hall, but Trustees Gonzalez and Carmen Carlisle announced via a joint statement they would not attend, which would mean there is no quorum to do business.
“Ms. Henyard was advised well in advance that the proposed date was not conducive to our attendance, yet this meeting was scheduled without our agreement,” the trustees said.
During the last special Board meeting held Dec. 20, Henyard said Gonzalez and Carlisle’s repeated absences from scheduled meetings were to blame for the closure of public buildings including the Township Hall, as insurance coverage issues remained unsolved. According to two trustees, several insurance coverage issues were addressed last week, though the township still lacks general liability, public officials and auto insurance coverage.
“This ongoing issue appears to be an attempt to mislead the public, and we cannot allow taxpayer resources to be wasted,” the trustees said in their statement. “After the last Board meeting, we reached out to the appointed supervisor offering a resolution, but our email went unanswered.”
ostevens@chicagotribune.com