Lockport Alderwoman King’s candidacy challenged by former alderman

Lockport — Mark Lobes, a candidate for a Lockport City Council seat currently held by Susan King, has filed a petition challenging the incumbent’s candidacy petitions, claiming they are defective.

Lobes previously served as an alderman in Ward 3 and then as an alderman-at-large from 2018 until 2023, when he lost his election bid for a Ward 1 seat to Jonathan Pugh.

King was appointed earlier this year to finish term of Patrick Sheehan who stepped down as a Ward 1 alderman to fill the vacancy left by State Rep. Tim Ozinga, R-Mokena, following his resignation in May.

While King dismissed the challenge to her paperwork as “a technicality” she was not concerned about, Lobes notes what he said is multiple errors in the forms including a lack of page numbering.

According to Lobes' complaint, the pages of the nominating forms lack page numbers and several do not include the date of the election - which is April 1, 2025 –or the specification that the candidate is seeking placement in the consolidated election as opposed to a primary.

Illinois law states that petition pages must be numbered and bound together when they are submitted to prevent tampering with the pages and to make referencing pages easier, something which Lobes’ objection petition itself struggled with at times due to the error.

Additionally, Lobes claims that too many individuals were asked to sign the forms, and that signatures of voters on two pages failed to properly identify where in the city they were from, which is needed to determine if they are qualified to sign. He further claims that one of the petition sheets also fails to identify which ward King is running in.

In his petition, Lobes claims that none of King’s 56 signatures are valid due to these errors, and states “even if this board were to give the candidate the benefit of the doubt, something that the board cannot do given the candidate’s given the candidates violation of mandatory provisions of the Election Code, all but 10 of the signatures must be stricken.”

When asked for comment, King reiterated that the issue was a “minor technical error.”

“My main concern when filing my petitions was the validity and integrity of my signatures, making sure I had the required amount and abiding by the election process deadlines,” King said in an email statement. “There were some minor technical errors, but they would not impair the integrity of the election.”

King said Lobes is trying to deny the residents a choice in the election, by attempting to remove her from the ballot and then giving him an unopposed run for the seat.

“What is more concerning to me is my opponent. Mark Lobes, is trying to get me kicked off the ballot for these trivial technical reasons and not allowing the voters in Lockport’s 1st Ward to have a choice in the voting process. This is more egregious than any minor technical error because he is forcing 1st Ward residents to choose him as their representative, even though they just voted him out of office two years prior,” King stated.

The challenge to King’s candidacy was initially set to be heard on Dec. 3, however, the hearing was postponed until Dec. 16.

This delay was caused in part by a second motion filed by Lobes to recuse Mayor Steven Streit from the board that would hear the petition.

Lobes argued that Streit has a conflict of interest in the proceedings, having appointed King to her seat and having already expressed support for her candidacy.

Lobes accused Streit of having “an unacceptable level of bias” regarding King in his motion, stating “board member, Steven Streit has a personal relationship with the Respondent-Candidate [King], has helped raise funds for the Respondent-Candidate and has hosted a ‘Re-Election Reception,’ promoting the candidacy of Respondent-Candidate, Susan King, and has an unacceptable level of bias and cannot act as a fair and impartial fact finder in this matter.”

The motion officially requests Streit be recused and replaced on the electoral board.

Lobes said this week that since the initial hearing on Dec. 3, “there has not been any indication that Steve Streit will remove himself from the committee.”

Streit opted not to comment on the situation, saying he believed it would be “inappropriate to discuss an active case.”