NEAR WEST SIDE — A hearing on the objection aiming to bounce veteran Ald. Walter Burnett Jr.'s only opponent in the 27th Ward race has been postponed — again.
Hearing officer Barbara Goodman will next consider the objection challenge against candidate Gabe Beukinga at 5 p.m. Wednesday in the eighth floor conference room at the Chicago Board of Elections, 69 W. Washington St.
After a Monday hearing, Beukinga said he expects Goodman to make her ruling in the case Wednesday.
At the Friday hearing, former state Sen. Rickey Hendon testified he didn't pay circulators to gather petition signatures for Beukinga. Instead, Hendon "compensated" the circulators when he could, he said.
"I don't consider it pay. I compensate people for lunch, gas, food," Hendon said, and sometimes with "refreshments at the end of the night."
The Friday hearing, which also included testimony from more than a dozen petition circulators supporting Beukinga, stretched on for 12 hours.
Hendon testified Friday after being served with a subpoena earlier in the week ordering him to answer questions about his role in circulating Beukinga's candidacy petitions. Hendon is also a former 27th Ward alderman.
Former Ald. Wallace Davis Jr. also faced a subpoena, but said this week that he was able to avoid being served by tripping over his dog.
Some Beukinga circulators said they were paid nothing to circulate petitions, others said they were paid $10 per sheet and one circulator testified she was paid up to $25 per sheet.
While it is not against election rules to pay petition circulators for every signature they collect, the objection challenging Beukinga's petitions argues that the petitions show "a pattern of fraud," contain forged signatures and were "roundtabled," alleging that the same people were signing the petition sheets multiple times.
Beukinga, 31, contends that more than 1,000 of his petition signatures were deemed valid in the Board of Elections' records examination process, but the objectors' attorneys are challenging that analysis. A candidate had to collect 473 valid signatures to land on the 27th Ward ballot.
Burnett, 51, is seeking his sixth term in office.
The diverse 27th Ward includes parts of the West Loop, Greektown, Garfield Park, the Near North Side, Old Town, West Humboldt Park, West Town, the Medical District and Goose Island neighborhoods.
The election is Feb. 24.
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