River Forest voters may have the opportunity to address the question of term limits for elected officials at the April 1 election after all.
Barring the filing of a last-minute objection, the April 1 ballot in the village will ask voters whether they want to limit the terms of all eight elected officials after River Forest resident Susan Foran filed 63 petition sheets containing 564 signatures requesting that a referendum on the subject be placed on the ballot.
The petitions were filed Dec. 30, the deadline for filing. The required number of signatures is 396. By state statute the number of signatures required is not less than 8% of the number of total votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election. In 2022, 4,941 votes were cast locally in that election.
As submitted, the binding referendum would ask voters, “Shall the Village of River Forest, after the April 1, 2025, Consolidated Election, enact term limits for the elected offices of Village President, Village Clerk, and the six (6) Village Trustees for no more than two (2) four-year (4-year) terms total as follows: for each of three (3) Trustees beginning with the April 3, 2027, Consolidated election, and for the Village President, Village Clerk, and three (3) Trustees starting with the April 6, 2029, Consolidated election?”
The deadline for filing an objection to the petitions is Jan. 7 at 5 p.m. No objection had been filed as of the morning of Jan 3.
Foran’s filing comes after a divided village board was unable to reach a consensus in December on moving toward placing a term-limit referendum on the April 1 ballot.
Although Trustees Erika Bachner and Katie Brennan advocated at the Dec. 16 Village Board meeting that staff members be asked to work with the village attorney on creating a draft referendum to be presented at either the next regularly scheduled village board meeting on Jan. 13 or a special meeting before then, Trustees Lisa Gillis, Bob O’Connell and Respicio Vazquez cautioned against moving too quickly. Trustee Ken Johnson did not attend.
That discussion came after an effort to place a term limits referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot by citizen petition was ruled invalid by the River Forest Electoral Board primarily because the language was too vague and ambiguous.