Candidates Make Case for County Board Appointment

Candidates vying to finish out the unexpired term of DuPage County Board Member Debra Olson pressed their case to County Chairman Dan Cronin during a candidate’s forum at the county administration building in Wheaton on Tuesday night.

In December, Olson her position on the board to helm the DuPage Homeownership Center, a non-profit agency. Olson’s abrupt resignation left no time for potential candidates to gather the necessary petitions to get on the ballot. Of the 11 candidates vying to finish Olson’s term, only Amy Grant had been circulating petitions and will be on the primary ballot in March. Incumbent board members J.R. McBride of Glen Ellyn and Grant Eckhoff of Wheaton will also be on the ballot. Voters select three representatives from District 4. 

Olson’s replacement will be selected by DuPage County Chairman Dan Cronin. By the end of the week, Cronin said he will choose the candidate he believes will best serve District 4, and will make his nomination to the county board next week.

The 11 candidates seeking to fill out the rest of Olson’s term are Grant; William Bedrossian of Wheaton; Alan Bolds, a former Wheaton City Councilman and former School District 200 board member; Erin Birt, vice chairman of the College of DuPage Board of Trustees; Winfield Fire Protection District Commissioner Chris LeVan; Patricia Kermend of Glen Ellyn; Nick Cipriano of Glen Ellyn; David Molitor of Glen Ellyn; Kaaren Oldfield of Glen Ellyn, a former DuPage Airport Authority board member; Glen Ellyn Village Trustee Pete Ladesic; and Ronald Almiron, an attorney from Glendale Heights. Cipriano did not attend the forum.

Each candidate fielded three questions posed by McBride and Eckhoff, including naming their top priorities if they were appointed.

David Molitor said his top priority would be to lower operational costs for the county.

Bolds suggested the board should adopt financial trans-management, a tool using budget and demographic data to predict the short-term financial future of the county.

Grant said she supports Cronin’s agenda of shrinking government.

“I like the way the board is going and I want to be a part of it,” she said.

With limited financial resources Oldfield said the county board must look for ways to increase partnerships with businesses and non-profit organizations to provide some services.

Kermend said she wanted to be an advocate for families with special needs. She said many of the agencies who help those families have not received support from the state and she wanted to see what the county could do to support them.

The candidates also agreed they would not have any problems working with Cronin and his agenda of streamlining county government. Each candidate praised Cronin’s efforts to consolidate overlapping government services and said they would support his efforts. Almiron and Kermend said they would like to see more public private partnerships in an effort to get the “best bang for the buck.”

Ladesic suggested the board should adopt a cost benefit analysis for all county expenditures to justify every dollar spent.

“Every dollar counts,” Ladesic said.

Each of the candidates said they would make themselves available to constituents during the 10 months they would be in office by publishing their email addresses and cell phone numbers. Birt touted the benefits of social media and said she would create a blog or website to share her thoughts with constituents.

The candidates also said they would have no problems working with McBride and Eckhoff on the board.

Ladesic said if he is selected, the duties of the county board would not interfere with his duties as a Glen Ellyn trustee. He said he checked to make sure it was legal to serve on two boards at the same time and then to see if meetings and duties conflicted.

By statute a candidate appointed to the board to finish a previous board member’s term must be a member of the same political party as the outgoing member. Olson is a Republican.