Arlington Heights residents can’t be blamed for wondering what the legal flap is all about challenging the petitions for an advisory referendum about expanding gambling in the village.
Did the petitioners use the wrong kind of binder clips? Are local priests lying about whether they were present when their petitions were notarized? Does the proposed proposition have some grammatical problems: Shall they change all the shoulds to shall, or shall they leave all the shoulds where they shall be, since after all, nothing here is binding?
And by the way, has anybody here noticed that the word “advisory” is stuck right smack in the middle of all this?
Nobody has to do anything, even if the voters should or shall turn out to be 99.9 percent for or against the matter.
The issue boils down to this: Is the local populace going to stamp its collective foot and say, “No, we have enough guys in loud plaid jackets and pinky rings hanging around town already” or give Arlington International Racecourse owner Richard Duchossois a big, wet, sloppy kiss and tell him to go ahead and do whatever it takes to keep those tax payments rolling in.
We all know that in a gambling town like Arlington Heights-which long ago learned to live quite comfortably with the racetrack and has, in fact, developed expensive tastes in goods and services-the issue will not be anywhere near that cut and dried. The margin could very well be small enough either way that local and state officials will have ample opportunity to read the totally non-binding results anyway they want.
Rolling Meadows officials certainly didn’t feel compelled to follow the advice of their residents when they were considering a casino.
Phil Crusius and his band of petition gatherers in Arlington Heights, known officially as the Concerned Citizens for Self Determination, aren’t really too upset about the challenge filed by their arch-enemies, the Northwest Economic Alliance, a group spearheaded by two former trustees.
In fact, in many ways, Crusius, a computer consultant who got involved in all this through his church, says the legal attack is probably the best thing that could have happened to his group.
“If they had just ignored us and hoped we’d go away, we probably would have,” he laughed. “But now this challenge is energizing a lot of people.”
The Northwest Economic Alliance, represented by former Mayor James Ryan, is challenging, among other things, the notary practices on some of the 6,124 petition signatures.
“Here we are, this little citizens group trying to put an advisory referendum (proposal) on the ballot, and they come along and file 14 pages of legal arguments against us,” Crusius said.
Of course, his “little citizens group” is part of a statewide network of gambling opponents, but that’s neither here nor there. He insisted that attorneys for his group, including former Chicago Ald. Marty Oberman, couldn’t find any specific case law on the issue “because nobody ever challenges advisory referendum petitions.
“We’re just so amazed they would go to the trouble to fight this,” Crusius added. “They must be really afraid of what the voters are going to say.”
The petitioners subpoenaed for Friday morning’s hearing include two priests, a couple of grandparents, a local church manager and a few teachers. Kind of a tough group to beat up on, it would seem.
However, Ryan says he thinks it is absolutely worth the trouble to fight to keep the advisory proposition off the ballot. He doesn’t think it’s unusual to mount a challenge to keep a non-binding referendum from going before the voters.
“Anytime you put something on the ballot, it ought to conform and purport to be legal,” he said. “They are seeking to send a message to Springfield, and their platform is fatally flawed.”
His clients, he said, would have no argument with the referendum if it were properly formatted.
For now, the smart money is holding off on placing bets about what the November ballot will look like-at least until it gets a better feel for what the odds are after Friday’s hearing.
Final perspective : And by the way, does avid atheist Rob Sherman, who opposes gambling, find himself uncomfortable aligned with the church folks on this issue?
Not at all, because he insists the real reason churches don’t want casino gambling is because they fear the competition.
“I’m first in line to ban gambling-but it starts with bingo in the churches,” he said.
