Part 2 – The McHenry County Chairman’s Circle

When McHenry County Republican Central Committee Chairman Bill LeFew decided to abandon the chairmanship after embarrassing himself and the Republican Party with his unsuccessful attempts to keep secret his efforts to oust McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi, LeFew did his best to surround consensus choice for chairman Mike Tryon with LeFew loyalists.

He pushed his Chief Deputy Treasurer Glenda Miller for party secretary to replace Crystal Lake Mayor Aaron Shepley and Brent Smith, who was active in the LeFew-backed Dan Regna for state’s attorney campaign for treasurer.

Long-time Crystal Lake precinct committeeman decided to run against Miller, pledging to open the central committee’s financial books.
Wickham won by a 2-1 margin, ushering in a new era of financial transparency.

When I was looking at State Rep. Mike Tryon’s six-month report, I noticed a $500 June 16th contribution to the McHenry County Chairman’s Circle.

I had heard rumors about it, but this was the first hard evidence that it existed.

No campaign disclosure had been filed for the committee when I looked, but a friend of McHenry County Blog found an announcement of the committee’s formation on July 23rd.

Mike Tryon is listed as chairman, Ken Koehler as treasurer and Blake Hobson as secretary. Tryon named Hobson, incidentally, as vice chairman in charge of finance for the central committee.

Tryon listed the committee’s address as Box 723 in McHenry, the same address listed for the foundation committee, the central committee and the Republican Women’s Club of McHenry County.

Interestingly, when the paperwork was filed for the Chairman’s Circle, it listed Ken Koehler’s home address, rather than the McHenry post office box.

I figure Tryon is soliciting $500 checks to be spent…well, we won’t know until sometime in January.

We will be able to find out who contributes, however, in the pre-election report before the general election.

I figure that every dollar the Chairman’s Circle gets is one less dollar the Central Committee receives.


Comments

Part 2 – The McHenry County Chairman’s Circle — 2 Comments

  1. Mr. Wickham is probably the finest, kindest, most ehtical men I have ever had the pleasure of meeting in my lifetime. My family has known he and Mrs. Wickham for about 30 years. David J. Bachmann

  2. Sorry Cal, did not have my reading glasses on on the first post. Let me correct my spelling please.
    ” Mr. Wickham is probably the finest, kindest, most Ethical Man, I have ever had the pleasure of meeting in my lifetime.

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