Democratic Board of Review candidate Marty Stack (Courtesy Illinois News Network)

As the election nears, political signs are everywhere in Cook County, but some candidates’ campaign workers are more brazen than others, planting signs on public parkways, attaching them to street signs and placing them on abandoned property.

Such is the case for Marty Stack, a commissioner candidate for an obscure race near the bottom of the Nov. 8 ballot: The Cook County Board of Review. Stack’s blue, green and white signs pop up again and again across the county like campaign mushrooms, even when they’re removed by municipal workers.

It’s a problem for incumbent Dan Patlak, a Wheeling Republican who worked his way up as a real-estate appraiser and senior analyst at the Board of Review for eight years. Patlak was finally elected in 2010 to fill the shoes of his mentor, the late Republican trailblazer Board Commissioner Maureen Murphy, of Evergreen Park, who died of cancer at age 55.

“They’ve been putting signs in the public parkways all over the district and violating city codes,” Patlak said. In Patlak’s hometown of Wheeling, village employees removed 175 signs, Patlak said.

In other towns city workers are pulling hundreds of Marty Stack signs down every week.

“I imagine they cost about $2 apiece,” Patlak said.

Patlak said his own signs are only planted where homeowners have given permission.

Someone wants Marty Stack to become a household name — it’s easy to remember after all — and if you look at the campaign’s donors, Stack has lots of support from a ring of interconnected politicians and attorneys in suburban Cook.

It all started with a March primary vacancy on the Board of Review ballot that no Democrat wanted to fill. A candidate needed to be chosen by local democratic township committeemen.

Stack, 58, of Western Springs, told the Riverside-Brookfield Landmark he had been on the sidelines of politics all his life and decided to jump in.

“Primary numbers were way up from the last election, Democratic numbers,” Stack said. “I think [a Democrat in is] doable in a presidential year.”

Incumbent Republican Board of Review Commissioner Dan Patlak (Courtesy Board of Review website)

Patlak is one of the few elected Republicans in county-wide races and he has consistently won by around 20,000 votes. In 2012, that margin was slim — Patlak received just over 51 percent of ballots cast. Stack and his supporters seem to be betting that Democratic momentum down the ballot will pick up those votes and more, based on name recognition.

Who is Marty Stack, and who is putting his signs all over Cook County? The question may be answered by looking at Stack’s connections and campaign contributions.

Stack is an attorney who formerly worked for the Cook County Sheriff’s office. In the 1990s, Stack worked as FOIA officer for the City of Chicago, sometimes frustrating journalists and others who sought documents from the city, according to Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader reports. Stack also worked a short stint in 2009 as in-house counsel for Amalgamated Transit Union No. 241, but was let go after missing a court deadline, according to a complaint filed with the State of Illinois Labor Relations Board. In 2012, the IRS filed a federal tax lien judgment on Stack’s assets for $25,682, which was released in 2014. Stack is divorced from Celeste Stack, a Cook County State’s Attorney, who is “still my best friend,” according to campaign literature. The two have three grown daughters.

Stack formerly worked for Evergreen Park-based law firm Odelson and Sterk, whose partners are now heavily contributing to his campaign. The law firm donated $4,000 to Citizens for Marty Stack and partner Mark Sterk pitched in $2,000.

Marty Stack signs are a common sight in Lyons, where village workers allow them to stay put. Lyons Mayor Christopher Getty has donated almost $1,000 from two different committees from the very beginning of Stack’s campaign in April. Some of Getty’s biggest donors, such as Bruce Liimatainen and Reliable Materials of Lyons, LLC have donated $5,000 and $1,000 to Stack respectively.

A total of $3,000 in donations came into Stack’s campaign fund from the campaign coffers of Getty ally State Sen. Steve Landek (D-Bridgeview), who is also mayor of Bridgeview. Landek kicked in $1,500 to Citizens for Marty Stack from his Citizens for Steve Landek committee and another $1,500 from the Democratic Organization of Lyons Township, where Landek serves as committeeman.

A Marty Stack sign in Lyons (Courtesy Facebook)

Stack is employed in Lyons, as a part-time HR administrator for the Lyons Elementary School District 103. His hiring seems to have occurred in a convergence of the same political forces now working to support his candidacy.

After a slate of Getty-backed school board candidates took over the D103 school board in April 2015, Odelson and Sterk, the Lyons village attorneys, replaced the district’s longtime attorneys.

The board hired Interim Superintendent Kyle Hastings, who is also mayor of tiny Orland Hills (pop. 7,200). Hastings created a new position of HR director and hired Stack at the district for $75,000 a year. Hastings also supports Stack’s campaign: Citizens for Kyle Hastings transferred $500 to Stack’s campaign in August.

In July, some school board members complained that the board’s monthly meeting was cancelled and rescheduled around a Marty Stack fundraiser. Stack’s school district job was changed to part-time, with a salary of $45,000 but he kept his health insurance, the new superintendent said.

What is the Board of Review anyway and why would Cook County politicians want their friend elected commissioner?

The Board of Review is a three-member elected adjudicate panel that provides a “second chance” for property tax appeals after they have been turned down by the Cook County Assessor’s office. Powerful lawyers such as Chicago Alderman Ed Burke appeal to the board to lower property taxes for corporate clients. But homeowners appeal residential property taxes before the board pro se as well. The board has a $9 million budget and employs about 125 people, including employees at satellites at five county courthouses. The board hears about 300,000 property appeal cases per year, according to its Annual Report.

Property tax appeals are decided with evidence examined by analysts hired by each board member, not board members themselves, incumbent Patlak said. Nevertheless, Patlak said supporters like having a Republican on the board to provide the appearance of political checks and balances.

As an attorney, Stack has filed numerous tax petitions with the Board of Review, listed on the board’s website, to attempt to reduce his clients’ property taxes. One of Stack’s criticisms of incumbent Patlak is that Patlak is not an attorney and therefore unqualified to even appear before the board. The two Democrat Board of Review members Larry Rogers, Jr. and Michael Cabonargi are both attorneys.

Patlak said Stack had little knowledge of how the board works and was using the race as “a political opportunity, that’s all. No one wanted to run, so he ran. That’s not a guy that really wants to be at the Board of Review,” Patlak said.

Stack says the board’s staff is too large and if elected, he wants to close the courthouse offices, according to candidate statements he’s supplied to the League of Women voters. Stack also believes Patlak is politicking under the guise of the board’s “outreach seminars.”
“Dan’s understanding of the board is limited to his unquenchable need to fundraise in a very vulgar manner,” Stack said in a text. An editorial written by Lyons municipal publicist Ray Hanania called Patlak  “a rightwing Tea Party extremist.”

Patlak disagrees and insists audiences have been given helpful information at the more than 200 seminars he’s given in the past six years.

Patlak points to updates in the board’s website and more transparency; every board decision made in the past five years is posted online. Streamlining the appeals process online has resulted in much less paper used. Cook County taxing bodies are receiving their levied tax dollars on time, Patlak said.

But Stack is not impressed.

“Patlak believes the board’s computer software and website were free; he has no idea the taxpayers paid for it,” Stack said in texted comments. Stack has said he wants more transparency where all paperwork for every board decision is available on the board’s website without a Freedom of Information request.

Patlak called Stack’s campaign a “power grab from that group [of mayors and attorneys] to take over the Board of Review.”

But Stack pointed to Patlak’s campaign war chest of more than $572,000 cash on hand.

“Dan Patlak has amassed more than half-a-million dollars in donations and has vowed to continue his power grab unabated,” Stack texted.

Patlak’s recent campaign contributions include $5,000 from the Illinois Liberty PAC and $2,000 from the Realtor Political Action Committee. Politicians also support Patlak. Village of Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens’ campaign fund transferred in $1,000 to Patlak’s campaign committee fund, and Patlak got a $2,500 donation from the committee of former 27th Dist. State Sen. Matt Murphy (R-Palatine) who stepped down in September.

Stack’s campaign has not yet updated his committee expenditure reports with the Illinois State Board of Elections. Although there is a $1,200 in-kind donation listed for T-shirt printing, and a $1,500 cash donation from Stars and Stripes printing company, the election records don’t yet show how Stack’s many, many signs are being paid for. Records also don’t answer the question of whom, if anyone, is being paid from the campaign to stick signs in parkways all over Cook County.

Stack and his local backers are wagering that drivers passing hundreds of campaign signs will be influenced to vote for Stack.

But the sign-overload strategy seems to have backfired for at least one voter.

“Apparently I’m not the only one who is offended with the abuse of your campaign signs,” wrote Cook County resident Peter Mayhew on Stack’s campaign Facebook Page. “Seeing them every 50 ft. on Hicks Rd. south of Northwest Hwy does NOT make me want to vote for you. In fact, I now plan to find who out is running against you.”

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