Though control of the McHenry County Republican Party is fought most fiercely at the precinct committeeman level, that fight also partly explains the battle in this year’s March 21 primary election for County Board.
Twenty-six Republican candidates are running for 12 seats in Districts 1 through 6.
Most of the candidates have the backing of one of two factions of the Republican Party: one led by Algonquin Township Highway Commissioner Robert Miller and the other by outgoing party chairman Jack Schaffer. Neither group, though, makes formal endorsements in primary elections.
Miller’s group calls itself the Coalition. It consists of Republicans who are challenging the party leadership as represented by Schaffer and County Treasurer William LeFew, who has Schaffer’s backing to be his successor. The county’s 188 Republican precinct committeemen will pick either Miller or LeFew as their next leader.
“This is definitely a fluke,” LeFew said of the large number of candidates seeking the party nomination for a County Board seat. “I’ll bet we won’t see 20-plus people running for the board for another 20 years.”
One-sixth of the 24-member County Board is guaranteed to change, as incumbents John Colomer of Johnsburg, William Dwyer of Crystal Lake, Alex Orsolini of Richmond and Donna Schaefer of McHenry have decided not to seek re-election.
LeFew said control of the party and interest in other issues, such as rapid growth, urban sprawl, traffic congestion and taxes, account for the large number of candidates. He said the strong economy also could be a factor because it may be giving some people more of a chance to exercise outside interests.
Miller said much of the reason for the fronting of candidates by his group and the Republican Party organization “comes down to quality of life issues,” with his group tending to be more skeptical of growth than the established party leadership.
“Generally, our people believe in creating the infrastructure such as roads before bringing people here,” he said. “The current policies are clogging the roads and overcrowding the schools.”
Miller’s group also tends to oppose the McHenry County Economic Development Corp., an organization supported by about 225 local businesses that has backed several controversial proposals in recent years, including a new highway bridge over the Fox River near Algonquin, “peaker” electric-generating plants and a doubling of the county gasoline tax.
The bridge was never built, and the County Board last year rejected an application for a peaker power plant outside Woodstock. But the County Board doubled the gasoline tax to 4 cents a gallon in late 1998.
The Republican Party organization and the development agency are on much friendlier terms. LeFew, for instance, was Harvard’s mayor in the mid-1990s when that city and the corporation worked together to line up some $40 million in financial incentives to lure a Motorola manufacturing plant.
“I would say voters are getting a good representation of what’s going on throughout the county–peaker plants, gravel pits, business development, highway bypasses,” LeFew said. “People on all sides of those issues are running.”
The District 4 race could be especially interesting because it is the only district in which both incumbents are not seeking re-election.
Lowell Curt Johnson of Johnsburg and Peter Merkel of McHenry are running together with the support of the Republican Party. The Coalition is backing Sandra Salgado of McHenry.
“Transportation is a hot topic with us. We need more roads, and we think the county needs to lobby for more money for roads,” Merkel said.
He said he and Johnson also support using the county to bring municipalities together to develop boundary agreements to keep one town from playing itself against another to attract developments.
Salgado said she became interested in the race because of the peaker plant issue. She agreed with the County Board’s decision to deny the Woodstock plant, believing it should have been located in an industrial park instead of an agricultural area.
She said she does not oppose growth but believes better planning needs to be done.
“I’d like to see it happen with more concern for our roads and schools,” she said.
County Board Chairman Michael Tryon said he doubts that major board policies will change, regardless of the election’s outcome.
“Last year we passed a balanced budget for the first time in years,” he said. “We’re making decisions based on need and whether we can afford it. I don’t think that philosophy will change. The land-use plan we’ll approve in the next year will be for low-impact type of growth, and I expect whoever gets elected to support that.”
Candidates for the Republican nomination for two open seats in each district are:
District 1–Mark W. Guerra, Cary; Dan Shea (incumbent), Fox River Grove; Donald R. Brewer (incumbent), Algonquin; Joe Powalowski, Cary; Richard Evans, Algonquin.
District 2–Kenneth D. Koehler, Crystal Lake; Lyn Orphal, Crystal Lake; Jim Heisler (incumbent), Crystal Lake; Joe Murawski, Lake in the Hills; Iris W. Bryan, Crystal Lake.
District 3–Edward J. Dvorak (incumbent), Crystal Lake; Bruce Hupfer, Crystal Lake; Wendy M. Czyzewicz, Oakwood Hills; Richard A. (Dick) Meyers (incumbent), Crystal Lake; Gerald D. Rhea, McHenry.
District 4–Sandra Fay Salgado, McHenry; Lowell Curt Johnson, Johnsburg; Pete Merkel, McHenry.
District 5–John S. Jones, Woodstock; Mike Schultz, Richmond; Virginia Peschke (incumbent), Woodstock; Michael J. McCleary, Woodstock.
District 6–Don Larson (incumbent), Harvard; Ersel Schuster (incumbent), Woodstock; Richard M. Klasen, Marengo; Kenneth R. Marunde, Woodstock.
