It’s no secret that we here at PublicWatchdog love contested elections because they provide an opportunity for candidates for public office to show why they deserve your vote…or don’t.  So we were looking forward to the upcoming Park Ridge Park District board of commissioners election, which initially looked to be a real horse race.

Back in January it looked like there would be 10 candidates vying for the four board seats coming vacant.  Four of those candidates – Richard Brandt, Nicholas Giordano, Walter Mizialko and Peter Wachowski – reportedly were being backed by Local 73 of the Service Employees International Union (“SEIU”), which represents more than 30 Park District employees and has been locked in contract negotiations with the Park District for almost two years.  To some people, including a few current Park Board members, it looked like the union was trying to pack the Board to get the kind of contract it hadn’t been able to achieve through negotiations.

That became a moot point, however, when the candidacies of Giordano, Mizialko and Wachowski, along with SEIU-unaffiliated candidate Meredith Wisniewski, were successfully challenged by current Park Board commissioner and candidate for re-election Nick Milissis and candidate Rick Biagi.  Those four were kicked off the ballot for petition errors (Wisniewski) or the failure to file the required “Statement of Economic Interest” (Giordano and Wachowski, both attorneys, and Mizialko). 

Another unaffiliated candidate, Stephen Vile, overcame a challenge to his candidacy and will be on the April 7 ballot.

Some people, including the editorial board of the Herald-Advocate, have branded those challenges as dirty pool and a petty way to deprive the voters of choice.  And in some ways they are.  Some of those same people have raised concerns that Milissis, Biagi, and candidates Scott Duerkop and Pawel Matula, are running as an “alliance” that is rumored to be  backed by retiring Park Board president Dick Barton and former Maine Township honcho Bob “The Dude” Dudycz.  

But we don’t have much sympathy for people who want the voters to entrust them with multi-million dollar budgets, multi-million dollar bonding power, and stewardship of substantial civic assets, yet who can’t follow simple candidate petition rules: how tough can it be to bind your petitions, to file a statement of economic interest, or to identify the correct number of years of the term of the office you’re seeking?

So while we might not be getting that 10-candidates-for-4-offices race that looked so promising back in January, it looks like we’ll still have six candidates battling for four spots on the Park Board.

And that’s two more choices than the General Caucus is giving us for the District 64 School Board.