Back when Crystal Lake Park Board members wanted to talk among themselves without violating the Open Meetings Act, they decided to increase the size of the board from five to seven members.

A referendum was proposed and passed for a seven-member board.

Running a park district, however, didn’t seem to interest enough people to run for office at the last election, however.

There were only three people who ran for the four four-year terms this past spring.

There was one write-in, however, Michele Hartwig.  She registered ahead of time and got 17 votes.  That’s less than the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot, but there is no minimum required number of votes in situations like this.

Crystal Lake Park Board election results for four four-year terms.  The three on the ballot own, as did the one person who registered her intentions to be a write-in candidate.

Elected to four-year terms were C. Bachour-Chemaly, Thomas Aquilina, Angel Collins and Hartwig.

For the two-year term, no one ran. Since there was no registered write-in candidate, there was no line on which to write-in one’s name. That made no difference, because only those registering ahead of time to run as a write-in would have their votes counted.

When I pulled this image off the Crystal Lake Park District’s web site photos of the new Board members had not been posted.  I am pleased to note that there are email addresses for the Board members.

The Board decided to draft (appoint) outgoing Park Board Commissioner Debbie Gallagher. Before being elected, Gallagher had served as the District’s Business Manager.

Terms expiring in May of 2015 are Deborah Gallagher, Larry Wheeler and Paul Myer.