After judge rules Niles Ethics Board cannot be elected, citizens file an appeal
Although a Cook County judge ruled that Niles voters could not elect the members of the village’s ethics board earlier this spring, the primary backer of the change and a candidate for the board are asking a higher court to reconsider the decision.
Joseph Makula, who advocated for a referendum allowing Niles citizens to elect their ethics board members, and David Carrabotta, a former Maine Township Trustee who ran for one of the seats, filed paperwork to begin the appeal process in late May, court records show.
Mayor George Alpogianis said when the elected board was ruled unconstitutional that the most recently seated board would be reconstituted.
He told Pioneer Press trustees would take up appointments to the ethics board at the June village board meeting, but said he was not yet able to speak about who would fill the five seats.
The paperwork marks yet another twist in a three year legal and political quest to establish an elected ethics board in Niles, where memories of corruption are still relatively fresh from the 2008 indictment of longtime Mayor Nicholas Blase.
The village ethics board is charged with making advisory recommendations to village trustees and investigating potential cases of unethical conduct, per village ordinance.
Makula first tried to place a referendum allowing for an elected ethics board on the November 2020 ballot, arguing that it would create more of a check on power in the village and keep board members accountable to citizens.
Good-government advocates and scholars from Reform for Illinois, the Chicago Ethics Board and Northern Illinois University have told Pioneer Press an elected board of ethics would be very unusual, possibly a first in Illinois or the nation. It could either enhance or kneecap ethics enforcement in the village, they said, because elections by themselves create a certain degree of politics in that candidates have to campaign. They also noted that members of an ethics board should have some background in the areas of law and government to understand the cases that come before them.
Village Clerk Marlene Victorine refused to certify the ballot question in 2020, touching off the first round of court wrangling, and the question only came before voters in the April 2021 consolidated election.
The results of the referendum then remained under wraps until June of that year. Just a few weeks before voting was set to begin on 11 candidates for a five-person board in the 2023 consolidated election, Niles resident Anthony Schittino filed a new lawsuit arguing that to elect an ethics board would create two competing forms of government in Niles.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Araceli De La Cruz ruled in favor of Schittino April 25.
“The position of village ethics board member does not appear to be provided in the governmental structure chosen by the village,” De La Cruz said in her ruling.
Makula and Carrabotta, who filed the appeal, are established political allies: when Makula was treasurer of the Niles-Maine District Library Board of Trustees, Carrabotta made frequent public comments in support of Makula’s priorities for the library.
Another familiar figure in Makula’s political circle, Robert Zalesny, circulated nominating petitions for Carrabotta when he ran for the board, records show. Zalesny also signed onto Makula’s lawsuit seeking the removal of another trustee on the Niles-Maine Library Board in 2021.
