Jeff Wartman

In a strikingly illiterate decision, an “election board” in south suburban Calumet City has ruled that Mayoral candidate Pam Cap cannot run for Mayor.

The board ruled Cap should have resigned or taken a leave of absence in order to run for mayor.

“It’s disheartening,” said Cap, who is taking the issue to Cook County Circuit Court on Tuesday when she says she will ask a judge to rule she can run for mayor. In 2005, no one questioned her candidacy when she ran for mayor in the primary, Cap said.

The electoral board—consisting of the city clerk and the two most senior aldermen—based Thursday’s decision on a legal opinion that candidates must have the same qualifications as office holders. The reasoning is that because state law prohibits police from holding the position of mayor in the city where they work, a police officer cannot run for mayor.

But Cap’s attorney, Jeff Jurgens, said no state law bars police officers from running for municipal office where they work. Such a law, he said, would be “patently unfair.”

The obvious distinction that the board failed to understand is that there is a big difference between being mayor and running for Mayor. The law says she can’t be both mayor and a police officer, and the board ignores the clear fact that if Pam Cap were elected mayor, she’d resign as a police officer.

This action points to a larger problem in Calumet City. For years, this was a town known as “sin city” for the various unsavory activities that went on, and the town had their own Blagojevich-type scandal when Mayor Jerry Genova was sent to prison.

Any assertion that because Cap is currently a police officer she is prevented from running for municipal office is absurd and shows a clear misunderstanding of the law.  The “board” claims she cannot be both a police officer and mayoral candidate in Calumet City.  What is the difference, other than residency, between Cap and Tim Baldermann, who is both the Mayor of New Lenox and the Chief of Police in Chicago Ridge?

Mayor Michelle Qualkinbush and Clerk Gloria Dooley are keeping people off the ballot because they fear competition. Want proof? In the same action, that “board” also removed the name of Kellie Nelson, a Cap supporter running for City Clerk, because on her petition forms she listed her the office she’s seeking as “Clerk” instead of “City Clerk”.

This un-American activity by the City of Calumet City illustrates clearly why people are moving out of the town, and why most good people have given up on helping Calumet City.