Local electoral boards are odd creations. Created to resolve any range of issues around local elections, they inevitably have a whiff of conflict of interest. We get the upside of keeping these decisions local where the issues are best known. But quite often the decisions involve people or persons who are actually, under statute, on the electoral board.
That’s the case right now in River Forest where an effort to place a referendum on the November ballot, limiting the village president to two terms, has become an issue.
The referendum question is being pushed by Deborah Borman, an up-and-coming local activist. She and her compatriots have gathered 753 petition signatures. That is, seemingly, plenty to satisfy a requirement for 396 signatures. But the petitions have now been challenged by Carolyn Kilbride, another local resident. That led to a meeting of the three-person local electoral board. Under state law, that board includes the village president, the village clerk and the longest serving village trustee.
To her credit, Cathy Adduci, the village president now serving her third term, chose during the initial hearing to recuse herself. That came after the electoral board voted 2-1 to ask the chief judge of the Cook County Circuit Court to name a third member to the body, specifically a local person who is not on the village board.
There is a tradition in many towns that mayors and village presidents self-limit by stepping down after two terms. We recall an Oak Park village president who contemplated going for a third term on the basis of “work still to be done” but ultimately concluded that two terms was the wise, if unofficial, choice.
River Forest does not have that tradition. Adduci is only the most recent local leader to go long.
We understand the argument that voters should decide who is elected. But we also respect the citizen referendum path and, so far, do not see evidence on which to block that effort.