Terry Vorderer Faces Opposition In Oak Lawn Mayor's Race

OAK LAWN, IL — Oak Lawn’s mayoral race is now contested. Long-time resident Tom Karones squeaked under the wire on the last day of filing to run for mayor in the April 2021 consolidated election. Tr. Terry Vorderer (Dist. 4) filed his candidacy papers to run in the mayoral race on Dec. 14.

Karones, 91, moved to the village a few months after the 1967 Oak Lawn Tornado. He decided to run because he didn’t like the fact that the mayoral and village trustee races were uncontested.

“Just the thought of running invigorates the hell out of me,” Karones said.

>>> Oak Lawn First Slate Files First For April 2021 Election

Karones said a friend called both the Oak Lawn and Evergreen Park village clerks to find out how many signatures he needed for his nominating petitions. Neither would provide the answer, Karones claimed.

“It’s another example of how screwed up our system is,” said Karones, a retired electrical engineer. “That’s a written law, any elected official is indebted to give that [ballot] information to citizens. We’re electing the wrong people in office that don’t know a damn thing.”

According to the Illinois Election Code, the required number of signatures on a nominating petition must be equal to 5 percent and no more than 8 percent of the total number of persons who cast ballots in the last regular election.

In 2017, 9,289 votes were cast in the Oak Lawn mayoral election, 5 percent of which amount to approximately 465 signatures needed to get on the 2021 ballot.

The state’s election code also states that the number of signatures of electors residing within the same village as the candidate equal to at least 1 percent of to the total votes cast at the last preceding election for president. The code does not spell out if this applies to a village president or the President of the United States, making it confusing for candidates.

Karones went with the 1-percent rule, although the Oak Lawn First candidates filed petitions based on 5-percent of ballots cast for individual village board in the 2017 election.

“This all came up in three days. In two days we got 100 signatures," he said. "My granddaughter went up and down the block.”

Karones cites the various positions he’s held on church, scout and youth sports boards as giving him the skill set to serve as mayor, in addition to his 60 years in the field of engineering. He is also a past commander of American Legion Post 1039 associated with Greek Orthodox Church of the Assumption on the West Side of Chicago.

“I have a fairly high IQ,” he said. “If I get someone who is trying to put me away verbally, I enjoy dismantling them.”

He points to the village being drawn into the red light camera scandals and former village manager Larry Deetjen retiring with a pension after being involved in a hit-and-run accident that left a pedestrian severely injured as the need for fresh leadership.

Karones also criticized the village board’s ongoing battle with the Oak Lawn firefighters union.

“The Oak Lawn Fire Department saved my in 2012 when I had a heart attack. I have a very warm spot for them,” Karones said. “The money [the village] has wasted fighting the fire union is money going down the tube.”

He describes himself as a conservative and member of the NRA, who supports Second Amendment rights to bear arms.

If he can’t get his name on the ballot, Karones says he will run as a write-in candidate. He hopes to put together a whole slate of write-in candidates to run with him.

The last day to file a notarized declaration of intent to run as a write–in candidate with the Cook County Clerk’s office is no later than 5 p.m. Feb. 4. Only eligible candidates who filed declarations of intent with each local election authority will be counted. In other words, your write-in vote for Bart Simpson or Jill Munroe from “Charlie’s Angels” won’t be counted. The county clerk's office will provide a list of eligible write-in candidates to each precinct on the day of the consolidated election so votes cast for them can be counted.

“These guys don’t realize they riled up a lot of people,” Karones said of the Oak Lawn First slate. “I want to make sure these guys know they have opposition that we’re going to be watching them.”

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