Quincy School Board President Melvin "Bud" Niekamp supports Bill Daniels to be elected vice president of the School Board, but Daniels doesn't want the post. Click here for the story.
By HOLLY WAGNER
Herald-Whig Staff Writer
Local CPA and former Quincy School Board member Dennis Koch has officially begun the steps to challenge Melvin “Bud” Niekamp’s seat on the Quincy School Board on the grounds that serving
on both the School Board and Adams County Board is incompatible, but Niekamp says he won’t quit fighting to keep both seats.
State’s Attorney Jon Barnard said he also has received several informal inquiries about challenging the seat.
Niekamp could not be reached for comment.
“I just want this decided one way or another,” Koch said. “This is a distraction right now. If the office is legitimately his, then so be it and let’s move forward. ... If it’s not his, then get the heck out and let’s get somebody in there and move forward.”
Niekamp said a challenge in the courts, and even a friend’s advice that “I should resign because a freight train’s coming,” are not enough to sway him. Instead, he’s more interested in his agenda for a 4 p.m. meeting today in the Baldwin Round Room at which he plans to encourage the public to speak and vent their frustrations with the School Board.
“(The train is) a long ways off yet,” he said. “It’s not going to make no difference to me. They’ll have to take me to court. That’s where it’s going to end up.”
A "quo warranto" (meaning "by what authority") process is “the mechanism provided by law to challenge the legality of the tenure of anybody occupying a public office,” Barnard said.
The state’s attorney has first right to mount a challenge, and once that office refuses, the Illinois Attorney General’s office has the right to a challenge. If it refuses, then a citizen may file a complaint.
Both Barnard and the Illinois Attorney General’s office indicated informally before the Quincy School Board met in May that they are not interested in pursuing the case further. Barnard formally restated his position on Tuesday in response to a written inquiry. Koch now is waiting for a similar formal response from Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office.
When that is received, Koch plans to file a civil case complaint with the court.
“That puts Bud on notice that ... the burden of proof is on him to show why, in spite of state law, he has the authority to hold the office of school board member,” Koch said.
After the last School Board election, Barnard asked the attorney general to clarify which of the incompatible offices was invalid. He received the response immediately before the May School Board meeting that a county board member in a county of 40,000 or more may not hold the office of school board member.
Barnard, legal counsel for the County Board, then said he would not pursue the matter further. Niekamp declined to step down, and the School Board said it would continue “business as usual.”
The board’s attorney, Dennis Gorman, said Niekamp’s vote was subject to challenge. The board’s bonding agent, Chapman and Cutler, said it would not count Niekamp’s vote on bond issues.
According to the Illinois Municipal League on the “Incompatibility Of Office,” incompatible offices occur in a variety of combinations.
“However, incompatibility arises where the Constitution or a statute specifically prohibits the occupant of one office from holding another ... Furthermore, the acceptance of an incompatible office by the incumbent of another office constitutes an ipso facto (by the fact itself) resignation of the first office.”
A similar situation to Niekamp’s was challenged in the court in 2005. In that case, the Rev. Elmer E. Wilson was a member of the Kankakee County Board when he was elected to the School Board. The circuit court ruled that his election to the School Board meant he had resigned from the County Board. On appeal, the higher court ruled that Wilson would have to step down from the School Board instead.
Niekamp was first elected to the School Board in 1989 and to the County Board in 1992, when his seat on the School Board was first questioned. The School Board tried to oust him, saying his acceptance of the County Board seat was tantamount to a resignation from the School Board. Another attempt to prove incompatibility was derailed in 2004 when James Carlock appeared at a School Board meeting to say there were people who would fight for Niekamp in the courts.
Koch process expects the suit to unseat Niekamp to succeed.
“You’ve got a stated regulation, you’ve got case law, and you’ve got an attorney general’s opinion,” he said.
— hwagner@whig.com/221-3374
