Oak Lawn Tax Watch Referendum Timeline

November 2010

• President Pro Temp Bob Streit denies Oak Lawn Tax Watch Chair Myrna Jurcev from discussing her group’s efforts to put a binding referendum on the April 2011 ballot to change Oak Lawn's form of municipal government during the public comments portion of the .

December 2010

• Oak Lawn Tax Watch volunteers collect about 1,200 signatures from registered voters to put the referendum on the April 2011 ballot.

• Among the circulators is Myrna Jurcev’s 96-year-old mother. Some village board members question how a 96-year-old woman could have physically gathered hundreds of signatures. Jurcev tells Patch that her mother was “planted” at condominium associations, the library and the Hilton.

• Trustee Carol Quinlan (Dist. 5) and her husband, Joe, both sign and help circulate the petitions.

• Mayor Dave Heilmann also signs the petition to eliminate the village manager’s position and restore power back to an elected mayor.
  

January 2011

• Jan. 3 – Oak Lawn Tax Watch files the referendum petition with the Cook County Circuit Court. A date is set later in the month to certify the petition to put on the April ballot.

• Jan. 5 – Served with a copy of the 132-page referendum petition, Village Clerk Jane Quinlan flips through it, only to find her son and daughter-in-law’s names misspelled on the petition.

• Deputy Village Clerk Christine O’Grady’s son and daughter-in-law’s signatures appear on the petition even though both had moved out of Oak Lawn months before the petition was circulated.

• Assistant to the mayor, Carmie O’Leary, finds her name on page 42 of the petition.

• Jan. 7 – Quinlan, along the village board trustees from Districts 2, 3, 4 and 6 send letters to residents whose signatures appear on the petition. Residents are invited to two meetings at , asking them to verify their signatures.

• Jan. 9-10 – After being advised by election law attorneys to gather evidence of potential wrongdoing, a quorum of Oak Lawn Village Board members convene meetings at Stony Creek.

• Mayor Dave Heilmann and Trustees Jerry Hurckes (formerly of Dist. 1) and Carol Quinlan (Dist. 5) are not notified of the meetings.

• 140 residents sign affidavits at Stony Creek claiming their signatures were forged. More than 200 residents will sign sworn statements.

• Jurcev is turned out of the January 10 meeting. Later that evening, she emails a press release: “Why would there be opposition if people felt they were doing a great job at what they are doing?”

• Jan. 10 – Trustee Carol Quinlan (Dist. 5) who is related to the village clerk by marriage, fires back at accusations that she and her husband were somehow involved in the alleged fraud.

• Jan. 12 -- Trustees Bob Streit and Tom Duhig, along with village planning and development commissioner Wayne Gray, file an objection in Cook County Circuit Court challenging the petition’s validity.

• Jan. 18 – Oak Lawn Tax Watch withdraws the petition during a court hearing to certify it. Judge Susan Fox Gillis admonishes the group’s attorney after she spent most of the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday reading the objection.

• An observer from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office also attends the hearing; Jurcev does not.

• Jan.  25 – Trustee Tom Duhig reveals that a bound copy of the 132-page petition has been turned over the state’s attorney during the village board meeting.

• The mayor calls Duhig on “a point of order,” saying he didn’t’ think it was a matter for the board.

• A source tells Patch that “forensic handwriting experts” were privately hired to examine the signatures.

March 2011

• The mayor files a complaint with Attorney General Lisa Madigan that a quorum of village board members violated the Open Meetings Act by not giving advanced notice of the meetings at Stony Creek.

August 2011

• The Illinois Attorney General’s office concludes that village board members did not violate the Open Meetings Act because no village business was conducted during the Stony Creek meetings.

• Jane Quinlan reveals that alleged petition fraud is still under investigation by the Cook County State’s Attorney.

October 2011

• Oct. 19 -- Myrna Jurcev is indicted on felony and misdemeanor counts of election fraud. UPDATED: Oak Lawn Activist Indicted for Filing Fraudulent Election Petition.