County Clerk responds to Philpott's objection

Early this week I contacted the McHenry County Clerk to raise the possibility that Keith Nygren was ineligible to run for re-election, because his wife and he receive a homestead exemption on their Cape Coral, Fla. home, making Florida his legal residence.

County Clerk Katherine Schultz wrote me on September 22 that she does not possess the unilateral power to remove a name from a ballot for any reason. She added that I had five business days after the last day for filing to raise the question.

That's all fine and good, except for this fact. The issue of the Nygren homestead exemption did not come to light until earlier this year, in 2010, far after the end of the filing period.

Does this mean that a candidate can run for office, even if he is not eligible, and keep his fingers crossed that no one will find out that he does not meet basic eligibility criteria until after the five days have passed?

Surely, this cannot be the case! But, wait, this is, after all, Illinois...

What if it turned out that Keith Nygren was not yet legally 18 years of age? Well, OK, that one is out.

What if it turned out that Keith Nygren was a felon? If information surfaced now that Nygren was a felon and therefore ineligible to run for the office of Sheriff, would he stay on the ballot, since more than five days have passed? What would the public say then? (OK, so we don't know of any felony conviction.)

So that leaves residency. If Nygren is a de facto resident of Florida, by virtue of his claim and his enjoyment of reduced property taxes on his homestead, isn't he ineligible to run for re-election?

And shouldn't the State of Illinois be the interested party here, rather than one of the other candidates?

Oh, and mentioning felonies? What level of crime is it, when you claim a property tax exemption to which you are not entitled? When you cheat a township/County out of its lawful property tax, is that tax fraud? Is tax fraud a felony?

When Nygren's illegal homestead exemption on the Hebron property was discovered, shouldn't there have been an investigation and charges? Who would investigate and charge a property owner who defrauded a township and a county of taxes? Would that be the Sheriff's Department of the County?

But look at what happened. A new land speed record was established in the Assessor's Office with Donna Mayberry's own letter to the Florida Assessor saying, basically, that Nygren made a mistake and didn't remove his puny Illinois homestead exemption, so that he could collect the significantly larger Florida homestead exemption.

All this happened more than five days after the end of the filing period. It's the State's responsibility to step in and remove him from the ballot, now that the matter has been called to their attention.