League of Women Voters Forum on Video

It was standing room only at the DeKalb city council chambers for the League of Women Voters candidate forum for the April 9, 2013 consolidated elections. Kay Shelton, LWV president, hosted the televised forum which was moderated by WNIJ (89.5-FM) reporter Susan Stephens. WNIJ is the NPR News station within Northern Public Radio, the broadcast service of Northern Illinois University.

Stephens panned as the forum started that she wondered if there were any non-candidates in the large audience. But in the time it takes for a shorter-than-normal city council meeting the audience in the room and those tuning in on cable tv heard statements, questions and answers from candidates for the Kishwaukee College Board of Trustees, DeKalb County Regional Office of Education, DeKalb School District #428, DeKalb Township (supervisor, tax assessor, highway commissioner, clerk and trustees), the DeKalb Park Board, 2nd and 4th wards of the DeKalb city council, DeKalb city clerk and mayoral race.

The four candidates for Mayor of DeKalb all arrived after the 7pm start and were scheduled to conclude the forum because they were also participating in a candidate forum held by the NIU Student Association from 6-7:30pm that same evening.

The event included the write-in candidates in the DeKalb city clerk race. Three of the four write-in candidates introduced themselves to the audience but no question/answer period was allotted.

Liz Cliffe Peerboom said that for the last four years residents and business owners have been disrespected by the clerk’s office. She reminded the audience that she was the only candidate that is a certified municipal clerk. Peerboom worked for the City of DeKalb for 19 years but left the position of deputy clerk shortly after finishing second to Steve Kapitan in a four way race for city clerk in the 2009 elections. She is now the appointed village clerk for Maple Park and plans to keep that job if elected in DeKalb. She pledged to be neutral and impartial yet willing to stand up for the office and the citizens of DeKalb.

Lynn Fazekas pledged to live up to the promise of the office despite the challenges facing it due to the city council’s reorganization of it after Steve Kapitan’s resignation. She said she would apply her skills to opening up government by using modern technologies to provide unsurpassed public service from an elected city clerk. Fazekas said opening up government is a cheap and easy way to prevent our own Rita Crundwell moment. She plans to publish a city clerk website, perhaps independent of the City of DeKalb website, that will show just how the city spends the public’s money including all checks and transactions, bid awards, vendor contracts and expenditures online in a searchable database.

Former full time city clerk, Steve Kapitan, asked for voters to give him a chance to redeem their faith in him earned from his 12 years on the city council. Before resigning from the $60,000 position for what he said were personal health issues he sped up the City’s process for handling FOIA requests by using email technology. After his resignation the city council reduced the pay of the city clerk to $5,000 with no benefits, eliminated the office of city clerk altogether by transferring the duties of deputy clerk to the city manager’s office. The city council then passed a ballot question requesting to make the city clerk a position appointed by the city manager. That referendum was soundly rejected by more than 70% of the voters in a record turnout presidential election.

The other write in candidate for city clerk didn’t show up.

The LWV Candidate Night was the first forum for the candidates for the DeKalb Township offices. This race for the offices of supervisor, assessor, roads and highways, clerk and board of trustees is the only contest on the April 9 ballot with a party affiliation.

The new United DeKalb party was formed by Eric Johnson. A properly filed new party can run a slate of candidates under one petition. Signature requirements are the same for a new party as a group as non partisan candidates as individuals. The procedure is commonly used throughout Illinois, especially in larger communities, but it’s new to DeKalb. Johnson has said that he offered a slot on the United DeKalb petition to his opponent, Jim Luebke, for re-election as a township trustee but his offer was declined.

Luebke, a Navy veteran and NIU graduate, said he ran for township trustee two years ago to bring about transparency to township government. But after serving for two years he decided that change is the only option available so he went out and recruited a whole slate of independent candidates and urged voters to elect each and every one of them from the top (supervisor) on down to the trustees. A major point of contention aired by Luebke was the time of the monthly board meetings. He thinks that moving the current 4:30pm start time to a later slot would bring about more government transparency.

Johnson was appointed to DeKalb Township supervisor after the passing of Pat Lavigne. He has developed an open source website that he believes is among the best in the state. Johnson sited that under his leadership DeKalb Township has created a committee on youth that provides grants to local service agencies fighting against juvenile truancy, made significant improvement to the township cemeteries and is the only local unit of government that is without public debt. He is active in the statewide township association and believes it is the unit of government closest to the people.

The City of DeKalb provided a great public service by televising the forum with the technical assistance of Jeff Birtell, with the City’s IT Department. Each of the participating candidates were able to take a seat at the microphone to express their ideas and reasons for running for local government. The video below is the complete forum. An index table is provided to slide the control to the beginning of each segment for each office.