McHenry County State’s Attorney designee to stay on electoral board; Two new members appointed for Colatorti candidacy hearings

MCHENRY COUNTY — April 5 marked the continuation of the hearings conducted by the McHenry County Electoral Board, who are currently in the process of reviewing a petition challenging Antonio “Tony” Colatorti’s candidacy for the office of McHenry County sheriff.

The most recent hearing also saw the debut of two new electoral board members, Samuel J.H. Weyers and Steve J. Cuda, attorneys who were appointed by McHenry County Chief Judge James S. Cowlin to replace County Clerk Joe Tirio and Circuit Court Clerk Designee Debra Schmitt after they voluntarily stepped down from the board.

Shortly after the hearing began, Weyers was named as the new chairman of the board by a unanimous vote from the other members.

With a fully constituted board, the next topic of discussion was whether or not McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally’s designee on the board, Lake County Assistant State’s Attorney Lisle Stalter, would be disqualified.

“Our allegations with respect to the state’s attorney are that first of all, he contributed cash to the candidate (Colatorti), who is before the board and in addition, the candidate gave money to the state’s attorney. So, those are two salient pieces of information that pose a problem. In addition, the candidate lists the endorsement of the state’s attorney on his website,” said Keri-Lyn Krafthefer, one of the attorneys representing the objectors against Colatorti’s candidacy. “We are not claiming that there is a statutory disqualification for Mr. Kenneally because the only statutory disqualification is that he’s a candidate for the same office and he’s not…Our issue is that there’s a conflict of interest with respect to his office.”

Krafthefer emphasized that she and her team do not have a personal objection to Stalter serving on the board, with the only issue being the fact that Kenneally personally designated Stalter to be his replacement on the board as opposed to being appointed by Cowlin.

After some lengthy discussions amongst the parties on the motion pertaining to the disqualification of Stalter, Cuda eventually moved to deny that motion.

“Everyone agrees that it’s appropriate that Ms. Stalter sits on the board. I don’t think it matters how we got to that point but you know, we can debate it until the cows come home but there’s a tight schedule we’re dealing with and I prefer to get this board set so that we can move onto the matters that are really important,” said Cuda. “I don’t believe a campaign contribution from August 4, 2016, gives rise to a conflict of interest today, April 5, 2022.”

Weyers agreed with Cuda stating that he believes Stalter will be fair and impartial in terms of her ability to assess the evidence and witnesses presented by all parties throughout the hearing proceedings.

Despite Stalter having abstained from voting, she will be able to remain on the electoral board thanks to Cuda and Weyers being in favor of denying the objectors’ motion to disqualify her from sitting on the board.

Next on the agenda, the board had to figure out what the next steps would be to decide on a motion that Colatorti’s attorneys entered to dismiss the objectors’ petition, as well as move forward with discussions on the petition filed against Colatorti.

“I am not a content area expert in police training. I’m an attorney. So, just based on the four corners of the petition and the motion to strike and dismiss, I’m not qualified to ever make a ruling about whether or not Exhibit B overrides the petition,” said Weyers, talking about Colatorti’s part-time law enforcement training certificate. “I think no matter what happens I’m going to need to hear some testimony about whether or not the final grades of candidate Colatorti received before May 20, 1999, are the minimum standards basic law enforcement officers training course or a substantially similar training program.”

To further expedite the hearing proceedings, Stalter made a motion that authorized Weyers to sign several general subpoenas so that the attorneys from both parties can hand them out to their respective witnesses and be able to subpoena documents needed for the next hearing.

After the subpoena motion passed, Krafthefer told the board that she would be able to file a response for the motion to dismiss the petition by April 8. Colatorti’s attorneys agreed to have their responses and other documents to Krafthefer and her team filed no later than 11:59 p.m. on April 12.

The attorneys from both sides agreed to exchange documents amongst themselves instead of filing a motion for discovery through the McHenry County Clerk’s Office.

Troy Owens, one of Colatorti’s attorneys, told the board that he and his team are planning on bringing forward two to three witnesses for testimony, which include individuals by the names of Joe Schweiss, April Morris, and John Keigher.

Krafthefer mentioned that her team planned on calling on Colatorti to testify.

The next hearing will include a discussion on the motion to strike and dismiss the petition against Colatorti. If that motion is denied, then there will be a hearing concerning the Verified Objector’s Petition originally filed on behalf of McHenry residents William Brogan and Joel Brumlik.

The electoral board will reconvene on Thursday, April 14 at 9:30 a.m. in Conference Room A of the McHenry County Administration Building in Woodstock.