Hazel Crest voters may be asked to extend term limits for village officers to five terms

A binding referendum that could give Hazel Crest’s elected officials seats at the table extending into the early 2030s appears headed toward next spring’s primary election.

The question, to be considered by the Village Board in September, would set term limits for mayor, clerk and village trustees to five consecutive four-year terms, with the clock starting with those elected in the spring 2025 election.

One Hazel Crest resident involved in an earlier term-limit campaign said he would organize a campaign aimed at defeating the new proposition.

Under the village’s existing term limits, Mayor Vernard Alsberry Jr. would appear to not be eligible to seek reelection in 2025 unless the referendum is approved. But he said Wednesday the referendum isn’t about him remaining in office.

“I’ve already been mayor 20 years,” said Alsberry, first elected in 2013 after two terms as a village trustee.

He said continuity in village government is important as far as municipal leaders working with prospective business owners or state legislators.

“It’s the important thing to do for stabilization of a community the size of Hazel Crest,” Alsberry said. “It’s not about me, it’s really about the community.”

Regardless of the outcome, Alsberry said voters can already limit politician’s terms with their votes at local elections.

“I can live without term limits,” he said.

Hazel Crest voters in April 2017, approved limiting the mayor, clerk and trustees to two consecutive four-year terms, starting with those elected that year.

Alsberry was a trustee before being elected mayor in 2013, and was reelected in 2017 and 2021.

Alsberry ran unsuccessfully for 5th District commissioner in Cook County, losing in the June 2022 primary. Monica Gordon was elected to fill the vacancy in the seat created by the retirement of Deborah Sims.

Hazel Crest voters in 2019 rejected a binding referendum that would have undone the 2017 limits and stretched term limits to four consecutive four-year terms.

The referendum was considered by village trustees at a committee meeting Tuesday and advanced for a vote to the Village Board, Alsberry said Wednesday. He said the board does not meet in August and the first meeting in September would be the soonest it would be considered.

The referendum document considered by the committee is confusing, however, as the introductory paragraph notes the binding public policy question would appear on the ballot at the consolidated election of April 11, 2025.

Wording in the body of the resolution, however, notes the question would appear on the March 19, 2024 presidential primary ballot.

The limit of five terms would begin with whoever is elected to municipal office starting in the May 1, 2025, election, according to the proposed question.

John Murphey, Hazel Crest village attorney, said Wednesday the new question is meant to “repeal and replace” what voters approved in 2017, and acknowledged the confusing language.

He said the language would be “cleaned up” before presentation to the Village Board.

Alsberry, who turns 68 in October, could, along with fellow municipal officials, conceivably be elected to terms lasting into 2035.

“That’s insane,” Hazel Crest resident Max Solomon said Wednesday of the potential term limit allowing up to 20 years in office. “We don’t need career politicians.”

Solomon organized the original term-limit question in 2017, and said Wednesday he would monitor the progress and “mount a campaign against” the term-limit question.

Solomon is an attorney and adjunct professor of political science at South Suburban College in South Holland. He ran as a Republican for governor last year.

Solomon said he was not at the meeting where the ballot question was considered, but noted the confusing wording and questioned whether, in that form, it could withstand a legal challenge should it proceed.

State legislation approved in 2019, and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, prohibits municipalities from counting the years a politician has served before enactment of a term limit law from disqualifying them from running for or holding elected office.

The law did away with a provision of years served in office counting toward term limits. Solomon said the 2017 Hazel Crest referendum was not affected by the law.

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“If our referendum had been retroactive, then Alsberry would not have been able to run in 2021,” Solomon said.

The new law also requires term limits only be applied to terms for the same office or category of municipal office. That means, for example, that a term-limited alderman or trustee cannot be barred from running for or serving as mayor.

Hazel Crest is also involved in the potential redevelopment of the Calumet Country Club, formerly in Homewood, then in unincorporated Cook County before Hazel Crest officials voted in February to annex the property.

The 130-acre site, northwest of Dixie Highway and 175th Street, has been proposed as a location of a factory to build components for manufactured homes as well as an indoor water park, hotel, retail space and restaurant.

Alsberry said that developers have not brought any plans recently to the village.

“We have not heard from them,” he said.

mnolan@tribpub.com