Municipal Minute

On July 12, 2024, the Illinois State Board of Elections (ISBE) released its Abbreviated Calendar of Dates for the 2025 Consolidated Primary Election and the 2025 Consolidated Election which can be found here. While the ISBE abbreviated calendar can be a helpful guide for local elections, candidates for local government office and local election officials are encouraged to check with their legal counsel if they have questions regarding specific filing dates and whether they are required to file for the consolidated primary election or for the consolidated election, which will depend on a variety of factors.

The calendar takes into account two recent statutes (P.A. 103-0586 and P.A. 103-0600) that modified the petition circulation and filing periods of municipal offices for the Spring 2025 elections. Candidates and local election officials should note that many of the circulation and filing dates were moved up about a month from what they may have been used to in past elections.

The below important dates are for the 2025 Consolidated Election to be held on April 1, 2025. These candidate circulation and filing dates apply to those offices that do not require a primary. 

Post Authored by Katie Nagy, Ancel Glink

     

Related Stories

• Appellate Court Declines to Decide Challenge to Ballot Proposal
• Court Finds Substantial Complaince with Election Code
• Court Disqualifies Township Trustee From Office Over Felony Conviction

 

A plaintiff sued a municipality claiming that the city violated his civil rights when a city inspector shouted racial epithets at him when he was removing a tree from a residential lot in the City. According to the opinion, the city inspector was upset that the plaintiff parked his truck in the alley while he removed the tree. The lawsuit alleged violations of plaintiff's due process rights, the Illinois hate crime statute, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The district court dismissed his due process claims, leaving only the state law claims which the federal court declined to rule on. Plaintiff appealed and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of his due process claims, finding that the plaintiff's complaint failed to allege the violation of a fundamental right. The Court found no fundamental right to "movement without harassment," and also noted that neither defamation nor a derogatory racial epithet will rise to the level of a deprivation of liberty under the due process clause. Finally, the Court held that verbal harassment, threats, or annoyances do not rise to the level of conduct that "shocks the conscience" to trigger a substantive due process claim. The Court concluded that "while despicable," the city inspector's use of racial epithets did not rise to the level of conduct that would support a due process claim. Robbin v. City of Berwyn.

     

Related Stories

• Supreme Court Upholds Ordinance Prohibiting Camping & Sleeping on Public Property
• Court of Appeals Upholds Injunction Against a Library's Removal of Controversial Books
• Defamation Claim Against City Inspector General Dismissed

 

In another reminder of "what you say on social media can affect your job," a South Dakota school district recently terminated one of its employees for posting the following on her personal social media page after the shooting incident at the former president's rally:

Shoot if only he would’ve had his scope sighted in correctly.

Employees can be disciplined and even terminated from their positions if their personal social media activities violate their employers' social media policies, so long as those policies are lawful. And, employees should be aware that their social media posts are rarely private, and even if they are not "friends" with their employer, an employee's post can be forwarded to the employer by a co-worker, customer, client, or member of the public. 

     

Related Stories

• Court Upholds Officer's Termination for Violating Department Policies in Social Media Activities
• Quorum Forum Podcast: Ep. 85 ADA Reasonable Accommodations
• Supreme Court Issues Ruling in Mayor's Appeal of his Bribery Conviction

 

An Illinois Appellate Court upheld a ruling in favor of a city finding a 19.5 foot shared boundary between annexed property and the city to meet the contiguity requirements for the annexation to be lawful. Neighbors Opposed to Annexation of Parcels v. City of Joliet

An owner purchased three connected parcels of land, one of which was connected to the city boundaries via a shared boundary with plaintiff’s property. In October 2018, the three parcels owned by the owner were annexed into the city. Plaintiff filed a lawsuit asking the court to invalidate the annexation because he claimed the annexed property was not sufficiently contiguous to the city’s boundary as required by law. Although there was some dispute whether the annexed property abutted the city by 19.5 or 33 feet, the circuit court held that even if the annexed property only bounded the city by 19.5 feet, that was sufficiently contiguous for purposes of satisfying the annexation statute.

On appeal, the plaintiffs argued the circuit court's ruling should be overturned because the court failed to provide reasoning for its ruling that the properties were substantially contiguous to the city, there were issues of disputed facts (i.e., the distance of the contiguity) that should have been decided at trial, and that the properties were not, in fact, contiguous to the city.

First, the appellate court held that it was irrelevant that the trial court failed to provide reasoning for its decision. Second, the appellate court held that although there was some dispute as to the nature of the shared boundary (19.5 versus 33 feet), it was undisputed that the properties shared a boundary with the city of at least 19.5 feet. The appellate court acknowledged there is no set rule for how long a common boundary must be, but agreed with the circuit court that in this case, 19.5 feet was sufficient to satisfy the contiguity requirement of the annexation statute. Although the shared boundary between the city and annexed property was small, the appellate court found that it was parallel and adjacent to the existing municipal boundaries in a way that courts typically found annexed property to be contiguous. Additionally, the annexed property was located in a position that would allow the city to gradually and naturally extend services such as fire and police protection in a manner that favored annexation, and was not the type of strip, corridor, or cornering annexation that courts disfavor. Finally, the appellate court noted that it was not adopting a set standard of 19.5 feet of common boundary to satisfy the contiguity requirement for an annexation, stating that a contiguity determination will depend on the individual circumstances and facts of each case.

Post Authored by Daniel Lev & Julie Tappendorf, Ancel Glink

     

Related Stories

• Court Upholds Zoning Approvals for Wind Farm Project
• In the Zone: Court Rejects "Class of One" Equal Protection Lawsuit in Land Use Case
• In the Zone: Changes to Building Code Statutes

 

Ancel Glink's Quorum Forum Podcast recently released Episode 85: ADA Reasonable Accommodations. In this episode, Ancel Glink attorneys Katie Nagy and Daiana Man discuss when the American Disabilities Act (ADA) requires an employer to make reasonable accommodations for an employee with a disability, how the interactive process between employers and employees works, as well as the impact of remote work on the changing work environment. 

     

Related Stories

• School Employee Fired for Social Media Posting
• Supreme Court Issues Ruling in Mayor's Appeal of his Bribery Conviction
• Time is Money: U.S. Department of Labor Raises the Bar on Overtime Exemptions