History Repeats Itself in Crystal Lake City Council Election

Two years ago a Crystal Lake Planning and Zoning Commissioner ousted Howie Christensen from his city council seat.

Yesterday another Crystal Lake Planning and Zoning Commissioner defeated incumbent Dave Goss.

When swearing in time comes, Carolyn Schofield will join her former commissioner colleague Brett Hopkins in the council chambers.

This is the second time for this engineer’s name has been on the council ballot.

She ran two years ago and placed sixth out of six candidates.

Schofield ran first, undoubtedly aided by her being first on the ballot and her being a woman.

Second place went to incumbent Jeff Thorsen, while incumbent Ralph Dawson took third.

Goss, who placed fourth, was partially responsible for his loss in that he chose to file in the middle of the week, rather than at the beginning or at the end of filing.

That resulted in a less than ideal ballot position of fifth out of eight for Goss.

He got only 55% of Dawson’s votes.

The top three candidates on the ballot won. I’ve been calling them, perhaps incorrectly, the anti-McHenry County College baseball stadium slate.

Of course, part of Goss’ loss might be attributed to his having voted for the 75% city sales tax increase. But, so did Dawson.

The other five candidates received the indicated votes:

  • Kay Stanish – 647
  • Mike Shorten – 474
  • Sal DiBenedetto – 414
  • David Bradford – 399

Now, to the losers, I would suggest you take heart. Re-read the paragraph that says the top vote getter in 2009 was the lowest vote getter two years ago.

If you are a man, you can’t change your gender and get the five percentage point advantage that I am sure exists in this area, but you could get lucky and obtain first ballot position like Schofield did.

And you could be as determined to win as she was.

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The winners appear from highest vote on down. Carolyn Schofield is on top, Jeff Thorsen second and Ralph Dawson third.


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