Well, I just got back from attending the counting of the late-arriving absentee ballots at Lake County Clerk Willard Helander's office. In the much-anticipated count for Mettawa Mayor, which was tied after election day, challenger Jess Ray got three votes of three ballots that were counted (several more were received but were rejected by the election judges for various defects), and none for incumbent Barry MacLean. So, the unofficial totals for mayor are Jess Ray- 146, Barry MacLean- 143. That means no coin toss after all, although Willard was ready with a shiny new coin, just in case. Here's a pic of the votes being read off the tape.
The results are expected to be certified tomorrow. No word yet on any challenges or recount demands, etc.The other very interesting aspect is that Mr. Ray sued the Village over its plan to develop a Costco at the southwest corner of I-294 and Route 60. If Mr. Ray is confirmed as the winner, he may well be in the unusual (if not unprecedented, at least in Lake County) of a sitting mayor suing his own village. Ironically, the Ray lawsuit was up in Lake County court this morning on the Village's latest motion to dismiss, at the same time while the mayoral votes were being counted downstairs in the clerk's office. The late word is that two counts of the lawsuit were dismissed by the judge, and three survived the motion to dismiss. So, this could be very interesting.
This could turn out to have plenty of twists down the road as the new Mayor tries to play his various cards to thwart the Costco project. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: The Daily Herald has expanded its article that was posted earlier today, here.
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1 comment:
Looks like boy wonder has some explaining to do...
"Now, I don't claim to know everything about all of this. Mr. Giannoulias says there are certain things he can't discuss because they may be litigated.
But not everything here needs to wait for a court ruling. There's more than a little smoke here -- and it's been around for quite awhile.
Illinois families lost $85 million on Mr. Giannoulias' watch. Somebody in Springfield, perhaps in the General Assembly, needs to hold a hearing or otherwise start asking some questions.
How could this have happened?"
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?page_id=2308&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35cPost%3ae38a16de-2923-40e5-9467-ceaca38a9ece&sid=sitelife.chicagobusiness.com
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