As the referendum objection hearing continued before the city of Naperville’s electoral board Monday, in some ways it felt like a showing of the movie Groundhog Day. The same questions were asked, the same objections were made and at the end nothing was resolved.
One of the few things decided at the hearing was that the parties would meet again at 1 p.m. today when testimony will continue.
During the daylong hearing, which began at 10 a.m. Monday and continued until after 4 p.m., the objector called eight witnesses to testify before the board comprised of Mayor George Pradel, most senior city council member Doug Krause and City Clerk Pam LeFeber. City Attorney Margo Ely provided the board with advice and moderated the hearing.
All of those called to testify had circulated petitions on behalf of the Naperville Smart Meter Awareness group. Attorney Kevin McQuillan on behalf of his client, William Dawe, filed an objection to the group’s attempt to have a non-binding referendum placed on the March election ballot.
On Dec. 27, Dawe, filed an objection to the Naperville Smart Meter Awareness group’s proposed question seeking to ask residents if they want the city of Naperville to halt the Naperville Smart Grid Initiative, a $22 million project funded partly by a federal matching grant that the city has said will use the latest digital technology to increase reliability, reduce operating costs, improve efficiency and reduce waste. The city plans to install 57,000 of the meters in homes and businesses. The installation of the smart meters began last week.
Last week, the electoral board allowed McQuillan to subpoena eight volunteers who had circulated petitions on behalf of the Naperville Smart Meter Awareness Group. All eight witnesses testified at the hearing Monday.
Before the testimony began, attorneys for both parties had filed motions prior to the hearing that needed to be resolved. After more than an hour of debate by the attorneys the board denied the motions, including two emergency motions to quash subpoenas that Doug E. Ibendahl, the proponent’s attorney filed.
Ibendahl was seeking to prevent the petition circulators from having to testify before the board.
“This is unprecedented – circulators have never been brought in on petitions,” Ibendahl said. “These people did nothing wrong. … I oppose it on the grounds of principal and it’s destructive to our electoral process. Who in their right mind would want to go out and collect petitions in the future.”
With the motions denied, the board allowed attorney McQuillan to call the eight petition circulators.
McQuillan’s line of questioning was tied to the objections raised in Dawe’s court filing, particularly that some of the petitions were altered making them invalid and that a large number of the petitions didn’t comply with the Illinois Notary Public act, invalidating the petitions.
Without much deviation, McQuillan’s line of questioning was similar for all eight witnesses. Among the questions asked were: whether the circulators had ever circulated petitions before, if they knew that addresses that began with a number followed by a letter followed by a number were addresses in Naperville Township, if they asked those signing whether they were registered voters who lived in Naperville, if they had added information to the petitions after they were signed by a notary and who was present when the petitions were notarized. He also asked if the circulators met to discuss the petitions and check them for accuracy.
During her testimony Jo Malik explained why some of the petitions had the county added.
She said many people were used to writing their address, city, and zip, but they were supposed to write county where many wrote the zip code, she said. If the signers hadn't walked away when she noticed the discrepancy she would sask them to write it in, but if they had already walked away she would write it in the county, she said.
McQuillen asked her if she checked the signers signatures – because some names were printed.
“I assumed these were adults I was talking to and when I asked them to sign the petition that they would sign the petition,” she said.
Throughout the hearing Ibendahl repeatedly objected to many of the questions that were asked, particularly those asking the circulators whether they knew whose handwriting was on the petitions in specific places. He also repeatedly asked that the board dismiss Dawe’s objection, to which the city’s attorney Margo Ely repeatedly explained that the electoral board reserved ruling on the motion to dismiss.
Just as McQuillen had a set series of questions he asked, Ibendahl would respond to the questioning by asking each of the witnesses if they reaffirmed the petitions they circulated during the hearing.
Ibendahl did try to raise other issues, which Ely said were outside the scope of the hearing and to which McQuillen objected.
As the hearing dragged on Ely became more direct with both parties and denied objections repeatedly. Though in some of Ibendahl’s attempts to raise what he said were underlying issues tied to his case, Ely denied his attempts saying they were outside the board’s scope.
Tuesday afternoon the hearing will continue with the three proponents of the Smart Meter Awareness group being called to testify.
The hearing will be held in the city council chambers in the city of Naperville's municipal center.