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CARPENTERSVILLE, Ill. (WBBM) - A Carpentersville village trustee who got into hot water for a comment that some interpreted as racist says she is NOT resigning as a delegate for Barack Obama after all.
WBBM's Regine Schlesinger has the latest on the story.
Ben Labolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, says that, on Monday, Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski told the campaign she would step down as a delegate for the Senator at the Democratic National Convention.
That came after Carpentersville police issued Ramirez Sliwinski a $75 disorderly conduct ticket for calling some African-African neighborhood children "monkeys" as they were climbing a tree.
Carpentersville Mayor Bill Sarto says he talked with Ramirez Sliwinski today and she told him she has no intention of resigning as an Obama delegate.
Sliwinski has said her remark was in no way, intended to be a slur on blacks.
Mayor Sarto says the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot and the Obama campaign says it's her choice whether to remain as a delegate.
Sarto tells Newsradio 780 he also he wishes police in his town had not given Ramirez-Sliwinski the $75 disorderly conduct ticket for referring to African-American boys as "monkeys" as she ordered them out of a tree near her home.
Sarto said Ramirez-Sliwinski is definitely not a racist. He says she has never once uttered a racial slur in the three years he's worked closely with her. Ramirez-Sliwinski is a Carpentersville village trustee.
Sarto said "I hear parents every day refer to their kids as 'little monkeys.'"
Sarto said the officers did what they think was right on the scene, and he won't try to intervene in a police personnel matter, but he says he believes Ramirez-Sliwinski did nothing wrong.
"This is an injustice to her. I support her in this cause," he said.
He said the Obama campaign was wrong to ask her to step down as a duly elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Sarto noted Carpentersville is 40 percent Hispanic and that Hispanics are not Obama's strongest bloc.
"While they are in a heated campaign for delegates, it would behoove Obama to hold on to the support of his delegates, and not alienate any group of delegates,” Sarto said
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