Several members of the Du Page County Board played hooky Thursday from a special meeting, preventing board chairman Jack T. Knuepfer from putting a referendum to abolish the office of county coroner on the Nov. 4 ballot. The meeting had to be canceled for lack of a quorum.
Knuepfer, clearly perturbed, said after the non-meeting that he has not given up on the issue.
Ten members avoided the meeting by staying in the board`s anteroom, in offices adjacent to the county board chamber and in an atrium hallway outside the third-floor board offices. Five members did not show up at all, and one was late.
Knuepfer sat in the chamber with nine colleagues, needing 13–a majority of the 25-person board–to conduct business. After less than 10 minutes, Knuepfer admitted defeat and called it a day.
It was the second time in less than 48 hours that the normally subservient county board had rebelled against Knuepfer`s leadership. On Tuesday, board members voted 18-3 against the idea of using property tax or sales tax revenue to subsidize construction of a stadium for the Chicago White Sox in Addison.
Knuepfer had hoped to seek voter approval of abolition of the coroner`s office and the absorption of its duties by the sheriff`s office. The referendum proposal was timed to coincide with the retirement Sunday of Coroner Robert K. ”Tiny” Matthews, of West Chicago; so there would be no incumbent to fight for retention of the post. Sunday is the deadline for getting referendums on the November ballot.
Knuepfer`s proposal had caught Republican Party leaders by surprise Wednesday on the eve of the party`s Republican Day fundraiser at St. Andrews Golf and Country Club near West Chicago.
Party leaders opposed to the idea were forced to develop hastily a plan either to defeat the proposal or to prevent its being considered. Among the opponents is State Senate Minority Leader James ”Pate” Philip, of Wood Dale, who also is Du Page Republican chairman.
Knuepfer told the nine board members who joined him in the chamber Thursday: ”Judging by the reaction this morning, it would appear there is not a great deal of desire to deal with the issue. We do not have a quorum and cannot conduct business.”
Outside the chamber, board member Mary Price (R., Naperville) was overheard telling another board member, ”I`m not going to go against the party that put me in office.”
Also outside the chamber, board member Floyd Sanford, a leader of the boycott, said the maneuver ”was engineered.” He said the missing members were prepared to battle the resolution on the board floor if Knuepfer had succeeded in cajoling 13 members into joining him in the room.
Sanford also was a leader of the revolt Tuesday in which board members defied Knuepfer on the White Sox stadium issue. Knuepfer had been trying to keep all options open, including the possibility of tax subsidies, in his negotiations with the Sox ownership.
Sanford lives in Medinah, a residential area near the Sox site that is a hotbed of opposition to the proposed stadium.
As a result of the dispute Thursday, Knuepfer is believed to be researching whether he can legally appoint the sheriff to fill the remaining two years on Matthews` term. Although the sheriff automatically assumes the duties of the coroner`s office should that office be vacant or its occupant incapacitated, state law requires the county board chairman to appoint a successor, with board concurrence, within 60 days of a vacancy.
Seated and apparently ready and willing to take up the referendum issue Thursday were Mary Lou Walter, of Winfield; Charles Vaughn, of Wheaton; Frank Bellinger, of Glen Ellyn; Julius Hankinson, of Lisle; Harold Bollweg, of Warrenville; Lloyd Renfro, of Glen Ellyn; Carole Pankau, of Roselle; and Richard Carlson, of Wheaton. Board member Robert Raymond, of Naperville, took his seat just as the failed meeting was breaking up.
Absent from the board chamber but standing nearby were board members Pat Trowbridge, of Downers Grove; Stephen Elliott, of Lombard; Edward Merkel, of Elmhurst; Mary Price, of Naperville; Judith Ross, of Downers Grove; Barbara Purcell, of Downers Grove; Sanford; Mary Guardalabene, of Villa Park; William Bates, of Elmhurst; and Norbert Fencl, of Downers Grove.
The board`s lone Democratic member, Jane Spirgel, of Elmhurst, arrived late for the meeting but said she had not planned to boycott.
No-shows included Constance Zimmerman, of Glen Ellyn; William Maio, of Itasca; Kenneth Moy, of Hinsdale; Frank Urban, of Clarendon Hills; and Raymond Soden, of Addison.
But while Sanford, Philip and other party leaders won Thursday`s skirmish, Knuepfer let it be known after the abortive board meeting that the war had just begun.
”This issue (abolishing the coroner`s office) has bounced around the board for years,” Knuepfer said, noting that some board members in the 1970s explored abolishing the county auditor`s post. ”The issue is not a sudden one. It may have come up suddenly.
”I can`t leave it in limbo,” said Knuepfer, who has been resisting party efforts to force him to name Richard Ballinger, the chief deputy coroner and a Bloomingdale Township precinct committeeman, to direct the coroner`s office. ”I`ll get around to doing something.”
According to associates, Knuepfer prefers naming a physician, Dr. Robert F. Wilson Jr., of Glen Ellyn, to the post, but in lieu of party support for Ballinger had hoped to abolish the coroner`s office and ultimately replace it with an appointive medical examiner. Only Cook County among Illinois` 102 counties has the medical examiner system.
Party leaders, however, are opposed to Wilson because of his avowed intention not to be a full-time coroner and because of Ballinger`s longtime tenure as chief deputy.
”You can`t win `em all. If that was the only criterion, winning an issue, the only thing I would present to the board would be things I could win on,” Knuepfer said.
