With two times the number of offices open required to trigger a February primary election, from filings today, it appears that all who file for office will fight it out in the April general election.

Presenting their petitions at the same time were the following candidates for the three city council seats:

• Ralph M. Dawson
• Mike Shorten
• Jeffrey T. Thorsen
• Carolyn Schofield

Dawson and Thorsen are incumbents. (Dawson can be seen on the left; Thorsen on the right.)

They, plus Brett Hopkins, put the kabosh on McHenry County College’s idea of building a baseball stadium on the watershed of Crystal Lake.

Carolyn Schofield is a member of the Crystal Lake City Planning and Zoning Commission.

The engineering graduate ran two years ago. She was one of three members of the commission who challenged the incumbents.

Hopkins was the only one who won, barely edging out (by 14 votes) Howard Christensen.

She voted with all of her colleagues to kill MCC’s publicly financed minor league stadium. (The financing aspect, of course, had nothing to do with her decision.)

The last time I saw her was in the audience of the park board meeting on the T-Moble cell phone antenna proposed for Ken Bird Park on the south side of Crystal Lake.

The man who will be a mystery to most is Mike Shorten.

He ran for governor as a write-in candidate two years ago. If you click on that link, you will find a refreshing outsiders’ look at politics. Here’s the first plank of his gubernatorial platform:

“I’ll promise not to screw up things too badly.”

Shorten received 69 votes in McHenry County; 98 statewide.

I wonder if he will campaign for repeal of Mayor Aaron Shepley’s 75% city sales tax hike, which took effect July 1st.