Residents To Vote On Term Limits for Oak Lawn Village Board

Unless you already voted early, Oak Lawn residents will head to the polls on Tuesday to cast their votes in the Illinois primary.

Voters will select candidates for local, state and federal offices to run on the November 4 ballot. Included on the Tuesday’s ballot is a binding referendum limiting the number of consecutive terms that Oak Lawn Village Board members can hold a particular office.

VOTER INFORMATION FOR MARCH 18, 2014 ILLINOIS PRIMARY

Oak Lawn trustees voted 4-2 in December to place the referendum question on the ballot.

Voters are being asked:

"Shall the Village of Oak Lawn limit the number of consecutive terms which one person may serve in any elected office within the Village of Oak Lawn including the offices of Village President, Village Clerk, and Trustee to three (3) consecutive full four (4) year terms, to be effective beginning with the election in April 2015 and applicable only prospectively to those persons elected to the offices of Village President, Village Clerk, and Trustee at the election held in April 2015, and at each election for any of said offices thereafter?"

A “yes” vote means that the referendum will to limit the number of terms that a village board member can hold a mayoral, trustee or village clerk seat.

A “no” means that elected village board members can continue holding a particularly office until he or she quits, or voters vote them out.

The referendum does not affect school, park or library boards.

Should voters pass the referendum, the clock would start ticking with the April 7, 2015 election. The referendum is applicable only to the offices of village president, clerk and the six district trustees seats and at every election held thereafter.

Current trustees, such as Bob Streit (Dist 3), now in his fifth term in office, and Alex Olejniczak (Dist. 2) and Carol Quinlan (Dist. 5), both with multiple terms under their belts, would all be eligible to serve three more consecutive terms as village trustee after April 2015.

The mayor and new trustees elected last April, could also conceivably run for three more terms for their respective offices. Current and future elected board members could also serve three consecutive terms in another village board position.

Streit, Oak Lawn’s longest officeholder, was one of the trustees that opposed putting the referendum on the ballot. Streit was first elected to the village board in 1991.

Streit, who barely won his last election by just 11 votes over a write-in candidate, told fellow board members in December that the village already had term limits, every four years when residents voted to retain elected officials. He is up for reelection, should he choose to run, in April 2015.

“This is one of those questions that before you put it on the ballot, everybody knows the answer to it,” Streit said in December. “When the voters are asked if they want term limits, they do. It’s the lack of confidence they have in elected officials, especially in Washington and Springfield.”

Tr. Carol Quinlan (Dist. 5), a trustee since 2007, is up for reelection next year. She, too, voted against placing the referendum on the March 18 ballot, when her motion to remove two paragraphs referring to “promoting diversity in office holders” and “urgency in forming and implementing policies”  from the referendum died on the table.

Tr. Alex Olejniczak (Dist. 2), elected last year to his third term as village trustee, supports the term limit measure.

“Being on the street campaigning last year, people felt they didn’t see enough turnover or change in government,” Olejniczak said. “I think that change is good. Take a look at the person that I beat (in 2005). He was a good man and did a good job, but can another person do a good job, if not better?