Two weeks after Alsip Mayor Patrick Kitching vetoed a resolution to place the question of term limits for elected village officials on the March 15 primary ballot, trustees voted 5-1 this week to override that veto.
Cook County Clerk David Orr’s office confirmed that it received the resolution Wednesday, prior to the Jan. 7 deadline, and it was certified by the village clerk as required.
The binding referendum will ask Alsip voters if the village should adopt “term limits to be effective for and applicable to all persons who are candidates for those offices being elected at the consolidated election to be held on April 4, 2017 and subsequent elections, so that no person may hold the office of village president, village clerk or village trustee for more than three consecutive four-year terms.”
Trustee John Ryan, who proposed the term limits, said he modeled it after referendums in Tinley Park, Oak Lawn, Homer Glen, Downers Grove and Naperville. If approved, the referendum would not be retroactive, so current office-holders would be allowed to serve three additional four-year terms. In addition, anyone who is forced to leave one village elected office due to term limits would be allowed to run for a different office, Ryan said.
“The mayor made every attempt to obstruct voters’ rights,” Ryan said. “Just let the voters decide.”
Ryan said Kitching did not have the legal authority to veto a term-limits referendum, and four votes were needed to override it. Trustee John Shapiro was the only one opposed to overriding the mayor. Shapiro also cast the lone dissenting vote when the resolution was first passed on a 4-1 vote by the board at its Dec. 7 meeting, when Trustee Sheila McGreal was absent.
Kitching, now in the middle of his third term, would be eligible for three more terms under the terms of the referendum. He did not respond to calls or emails, but according to an audio recording of the Jan. 4 Village Board meeting on the village’s website, the mayor said he supports term limits for Congress and state legislators, but said by limiting the full-time mayor to three terms, “you have eliminated the possibility” of allowing someone to “make a career” out of being mayor.
Being mayor is Kitching’s full-time job.
“Show me a town that has a full-time mayor and has term limits,” he said in the audio. “Three terms for a mayor is ridiculous. We are all subject to term limits – it’s called voting.”
Even though the referendum question presented by Ryan specifies that term limits would take effect with the 2017 election and subsequent elections, Kitching said the wording of the question was “unclear,” and could cause a liability for the village because it was “poorly written.”
Kitching can veto items that provide for spending village money, selling village-owned property or actions which may create liability against the village, according to the Illinois municipal code.
Some critics of the referendum who addressed the board agreed with Kitching – including his wife, Allyson.
They claimed the wording was “convoluted,” and said Alsip cannot be compared to other towns that imposed term limits because they do not have a full-time mayor.
They wanted a public hearing or more public discussion on the issue, but Ryan said the referendum has been discussed at the last three board meetings – Dec. 7, when he made a presentation to the board before they voted for it, Dec. 21, when Kitching vetoed it and Monday’s meeting.
They accused trustees of being “politically motivated.”
Trustee Lynn Dwyer later said in an email, “If it was politically motivated, it would have been retroactive so that our mayor couldn’t run again.
“I think we should leave it up to the residents to decide what they want,” she said.
