Sangamon Sun

The consumer advocacy group Edgar County Watchdogs (ECW) has accused the Chatham village clerk of several violations, including tampering with a mayoral candidate's application papers, and is asking for his immediate resignation, Illinois Leaks reported recently.

The watchdog group alleges that the clerk, Pat Schad, was asked by Darlene Judd to return her mayoral application so she could correct a pair of administrative errors in her application — specifically, to comply with requirements that pages be bound together and numbered. In honoring her request, Schad broke the law, the group said.

 

In addition, the group said that Judd found that her application had already been numbered and stapled by someone else, which also is against the law. She signed an affidavit claiming that Schad "informed me that he, the mayor, and the senior trustee, would not allow me to be thrown off (the ballot) through an objection.”

Such an "objection" could come from an application not meeting standards, including not being stapled or numbered.

 

The watchdog group pointed out that Chatham Mayor Tom Gray — who made headlines recently by “flipping the bird” to a citizen attending a hearing for, coincidentally, his alleged violation of the village’s ethics code and faces censure — would be the main party to hear such an objection.

 

ECW’s objections stem from Gray’s evident position that he would not follow regulations, specifically that “he has a position that he would not remove a person for petition papers that were not compliant with the law.”

 

“Clerk Schad should resign immediately,” ECW said. “Mayoral Candidate Darlene Judd, our hat's off to you for doing the right thing.”