Sharon Chung (D) representing the 91st District in the Illinois State House recently introduced House Bill 3337which was passed on March 24th and is now headed for the Senate. The bill attempts to clarify state legislation regarding what offices in the the Town of Normal should be elected.
Normal Councilmember Stan Nord has problems with an amendment made to the originally proposed legislation called amendment three. Nord spoke out against this amendment at Monday evening’s council meeting.
Nord read the amendment into the record, “Town of Normal Officers. For the Town of Normal a President must be elected every four years at the General Municipal Elections with other offices to be elected or appointed as set forth by ordinance of the corporate authorities.” The office of President is synonymous with Mayor.
According to Nord, “What this means is if the only required elected position that we have is the Mayor, the other ones all can be appointed.” Nord argues the matter should have been heard before the council so the public could have been involved in the issue.
Nord objects to the fact that the council never voted to approve the state passage of such a bill and he objects to, as he tells it, Councilmember Kevin McCarthy going to Chung speaking on behalf of the Town of Normal as Mayor Pro Tem saying the Town supported the bill.
Normal Corporate Attorney Brian Day disagrees with Nord’s interpretation of HB337 saying it is an incorrect interpretation.
According to Day, “That’s an interpretation that would lead to absurd results that would conflict with numerous other provisions of the Illinois Municipal Code. And obviously it would be a ridiculous situation if this were ever to go to court it would get laughed out of court if somebody tried to say you don’t have to elect your council.”
Day continued, “So the general rule in Illinois law is you don’t interpret statutes that would lead to absurd results which that interpretation certainly would. The Illinois Municipal Code itself frequently distinguishes between aldermen, trustees and other executive or administrative officers.”
“Probably the most prominent example I can think of is the one Mr. Nord brought to our attention Section 3.1-25-95, Day said. Remember that is the one that was supposed to apply only to the town of Cicero. That statute is titled incorporated town officers and goes on to list those officers as the President, Clerk, Assessor, Collector and Supervisor.
“For the eagle eared among you, you will notice that there is something missing from that list of incorporated town officers and that is of course, the council, Day pointed out. “So if you apply the exact same analysis to this statute then you wouldn’t even have a council under that statute for any municipality which is supposed to follow that statute which again of course is absurd and belied by other positions of the Illinois Municipal Code.
So certainly that is not a reasonable interpretation that HB337 would eliminate the need for elective council,” Day summarized. “We’d still have an elected council. Having said that if that is the objection to this and people are concerned about that I am sure there is a way to work with the state legislature to correct what is obviously not an intended result.”