McHenry County Blog

Maybe it was the $20,000 salary, plus full and generous health coverage, but whatever the motivation, all the incumbents but District 4 incumbents Sandy Salgado and Pete Merkel, both from McHenry, drew challengers.

Twenty-three people are vying for twelve spots on the fall ballot.

Thirteen are women; ten men.

In District 1, incumbents Anna May Miller and Yvonne Barnes are being challenged by Cary’s Bob Nowak.

In District 2, incumbents Ken Koehler and Lyn Orphal will face not only MCC Board member Donna Kurtz, but Crystal Lake City Councilwoman Ellen Brady Mueller, but also Sandra DePaul.

Mueller likes to be last on the ballot, but she didn’t wait long enough this afternoon. DePaul gets the coveted spot, worth an extra 5% in a six-person race, probably less in this five-person race.

In District 3, newly energized entrepreneur Craig Steagall, who lives just north of Crystal Lake will take on incumbent Barb Wheeler, former county board member Nick Provenzano and newcomers Veronica Armstrong and Karen Tynis.

Steagall is known for his full-page ads in the Northwest Herald in opposition to Metra’s purchase of 17 acres next to the old 84 Lumber (new Alexander’s Lumber) on Country Club Road.

Those ads have attacked McHenry County Board Chairman Ken Koehler. Less well known is that he put together the people who built Prairie Ridge High School’s soccer field.

In District 5, Dave Frederick filed his nominating papers. The veterinarian will be running against incumbent Tina Hill and former county board member John Jung. The announced candidacy of John Vrett did not materialize.

In District 6, incumbent Mary McCann filed her petitions Monday. She joins incumbent Dan Ryan and challengers Richard Draper of Wonder Lake, Dianne Evertsen of Hartland Township and Victor Naursis of Woodstock.

Confirmation has been received that Woodstock’s Frank Wedig will again run for the McHenry County Board in District 5.

That district covers Dorr Township, which covers most of Woodstock and Bull Valley, plus the eastern part of Grafton Township, including parts of Huntley, Lake in the Hills, Lakewood and Crystal Lake.

Wedig ran two years ago. You can find out how well he did here.He then ran for Dorr Township Trustee.

Wedig was competitive, running 158 votes behind the lowest Republican, Joseph Evanoff.

Wedig received 84% of the votes of the lowest Republican vote getter. (That is the margin prior to adding in absentee and early voting results, which were not tremendous in this election.)

Most recently,. the Green Party came out against the Woodstock baseball stadium’s being allocated $15 million in Federal Stimulus Recovery Zone Bonds.

There are four Republicans who have taken out primary petitions in District 5:

• Tina Hill (incumbent)
• John Jung (who lost to Democrat Paula Yensen last year)
• Dave Frederick
• John Vrett

The winners will face Democrat Jim Kennedy and Wedig.

Not only may the most rural McHenry County Board district, District 6, have a four-way Republican primary, but District 5 (the one covering most of Woodstock, Huntley and a lot of Lake in the Hills and some of the southwestern part of Crystal Lake) may also.
This is the district in which all four Republicans holding office during most of the first decade of this century had Woodstock zip codes and lived in Dorr Township, while the population center of the district was south in Grafton Township.

With all the new residents in western Lake in the Hills and Huntley, Democrats saw an opening four years ago, running Lake in the Hills Trustee Jim Kennedy.

In a slash and burn campaign, combined with lots of shoe leather, I learned later, incumbent Perry Moy was defeated.

Two years later Lake in the Hills Trustee Paula Yensen ran an extensive door-to-door campaign and unseated Republican incumbent John Jung.

Now, Kennedy is up for re-election, looking apprehensively at the upcoming reapportionment by his GOP county board colleagues.

District 5 Democratic Precinct committee met after the August Democratic Party Central Committee meeting.

With the Barack Obama phenomenon wearing off and groups like Patriots United, while not a participant in partisan politics, drawing over 500 people to a hot button meeting on the Democrats health care reform program, you can imagine that District 5 Democrats are wondering if they can re-elect Kennedy.

Republicans apparently don’t understand that Kennedy’s seat is a “Democratic” one.

Besides incumbent Tina Hill, three others have picked up nominating petitions at the county clerk’s office.

You know about John Jung.  He lost to Yensen, but is running again.

Two others are apparently gathering signatures:

• John Vrett
• Dave Frederick

I hope each will send me a bio, but let me tell you what I know about them.

Vrett served on the Woodstock Unit School District 200 school board. Although he taught in the Marengo Grade School District and Carpentersville’s District 300, his school board service reflected a “protect the taxpayer” point of view. He is an avid hunter and lives on Bull Valley Road just east of Woodstock. Vrett is now retired.

Frederick has served on the McHenry County Regional Board of School Trustees.  He has also run for the District 200 Board. He lives on Mt. Tabor Road about halfway between Route 176 and Lucas Road. He is a veterinarian, specializing in horses.

Both can accurately be described as conservatives.

It should be noted that all of the Republican candidates live in the Woodstock zip code, although Frederick’s children have attended St. Thomas School in Crystal Lake and he lives right on the edge of the Crystal Lake-Woodstock zip code.

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Facing the camera in the photo of District 5 Democratic Party activists at their party’s last Central Committee meeting are McHenry County Board members Jim Kennedy and Paula Yensen.

And wins, in my opinion.

Frederick chides nationally syndicated Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak for not reading Tim Novak’s 3—part series on Barack Obama’s Tony Rezko’s involvement Rezko’s failed low income developments and with the purchase of Obama’s home.

Concerning the side lot, Frederick writes,

“I also take issue with Robert Novak’s contention that Obama paid “above-market-value” for a slice of his side yard.

“Obama paid exactly one-sixth of the price Rezko paid six months earlier for a sixth of the lost. Selling a sixth of the lot to Obama serverely restricts any opportunity Rezko or any subsequent owner of the lot would have to ever build a comparable home on the now undersized lot.

“The sale destroyed the value of the separated lot and removes any notion that Rezko purchased it as anything other than a favor to Obama.”

Veterinarian Frederick sounds like he could pass the test for Certified Illinois Assessing Officer.

And wins, in my opinion.

Frederick chides nationally syndicated Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak for not reading Tim Novak’s 3—part series on Barack Obama’s Tony Rezko’s involvement Rezko’s failed low income developments and with the purchase of Obama’s home.

Concerning the side lot, Frederick writes,

“I also take issue with Robert Novak’s contention that Obama paid “above-market-value” for a slice of his side yard.

“Obama paid exactly one-sixth of the price Rezko paid six months earlier for a sixth of the lost. Selling a sixth of the lot to Obama serverely restricts any opportunity Rezko or any subsequent owner of the lot would have to ever build a comparable home on the now undersized lot.

“The sale destroyed the value of the separated lot and removes any notion that Rezko purchased it as anything other than a favor to Obama.”

Veterinarian Frederick sounds like he could pass the test for Certified Illinois Assessing Officer.