Electoral panels weigh in on mayoral races
Community boards rule on nominating petitions in Tinley Park, Markham
Electoral board decisions have kept it a two-person race for mayor in Tinley Park while thinning the field in the Markham mayoral race.
In Tinley Park, the electoral board Feb. 1 rejected an objection to petitions filed by Kevin Suggs, a former village trustee, who will face Trustee Michael Glotz for mayor in the April 6 election.
Incumbent Mayor Jacob Vandenberg is not seeking a second term.
Objectors Dennis Mahoney and Colleen Sullivan, who are running for trustee on the Our Tinley Park ticket, had alleged Suggs’ petitions were not properly notarized and that some signatures were forged.
The electoral board ruled that Suggs needed 364 signatures in order to be on the ballot and had 391 valid signatures, after an examination of voter records in Cook and Will counties. The threemember panel said it had found no pattern of fraud in the nominating papers.
The board had first convened Jan. 12 with the hearing continued several times, partly to accommodate examinations of signatures.
Glotz heads the Our Tinley Park ticket with incumbent Clerk Kristin Thirion, Trustee William Brady and Mahoney and Sullivan.
Suggs became Tinley Park’s first Black trustee when he was appointed in May 2016 to fill a vacancy, but did not win election in 2017 to a full term. He also serves as Bremen Township Republican Committeeman.
Markham removals
In Markham, first-term Mayor Roger Agpawa initially faced a field of three challengers, but a city electoral board removed Perry Browley and Markham police officer Kenneth “Mojo” Muldrow Jr. from the ballot.
The board overruled an objection to petitions for Jennifer Coles, now city clerk, who remains on the ballot as sole challenger to Agpawa.
In the 2017, when Agpawa was elected, Browley was a mayoral candidate on the ballot and Muldrow ran as a write-in candidate.
Agpawa came into office as mayor-elect and was unable to take officially take office for 18 months while he fought to resolve issues about his ineligibility to serve because of a 1999 federal felony conviction.
Among objections against the three challengers were that petitions were signed by people who aren’t registered voters or who live outside of Markham, or that some people signed petitions more than once.
Objections to Browley’s papers alleged that he didn’t gather enough signatures and that some of signatories didn’t give complete addresses.
Following an examination of voter records by the Cook County clerk’s office and challenges to several of the signatures, Browley’s nominating papers were deemed to have fallen short of the minimum 96 signatures needed, Markham’s board ruled Jan. 22.
At that hearing, the board also upheld an objection filed to Muldrow’s petitions, which had alleged the papers “demonstrate a pattern of fraud and disregard” to the state’s election code and contain a “high percentage” of signatures from people either not registered or who had signed his petitions more than once. Allegations included forged signatures and fabricated street addresses.