Huntley School Board President certainly has an interest in the legislative process.

Just look at the agenda for the District 158 Committee of the Whole meeting coming up June 9th:

Skala is the Chairman of the Legislative Committee and giving a report on June 9th.

Of course, the newly-reconfigured 66th District in which he lives has an incumbent–Mike Tryon.

Tryon’s political base has been split by the Illinois Democrats’ reapportionment map. He lives in the northernmost precinct in the district, just south of my precinct, which abuts the South Shore of Crystal Lake (the lake).

Mike Skala

While the 66th District has 67% of Republican primary voters, the rest are in Kane County.

The district in which my Algonquin 7 precinct is the southernmost precinct, on the other hand, has almost all of its residents in McHenry County. It does dip enough into Lake County to reach JoAnn Osmond’s home in Antioch, however.

Osmond has not decided whether she will run in the district whose number she now represents or the McHenry County-dominated one.

Tryon is considering whether he and his wife should downsize from their Four Colonies home into something smaller located in the district in which Osmond lives.

If Tryon does decide to move, that would leave the 66th House District empty.

Being an elected official in the governmental body that probably has more constituents than any other located in that part of McHenry County, Skala would seem to be well-positioned to run for State Representative.

After being narrowly defeated for school board when he was last President by Aileen Seedorf and his ally Jim Carlin, Skala was reappointed to the board when Carlin resigned about six months into his term.

In the next election, Skala then matched himself against arch-foe Larry Snow and beat Snow. The campaign saw Tryon endorse Skala and was akin to a state rep. campaign in intensity. He even had the same campaign manager that Tryon used.

Skala has been a large contributor to Tryon’s campaign war chest and participates in a now annual fish boil fund raiser for Tryon in Huntley.

So, if Tryon decided to run in the northern district, his blessing would undoubtedly be bestowed upon Skala.

No other possible candidates for the lower House have been brought to my attention should Tryon abdicate the seat, but, if one should arise, Tryon’s school board leadership could cut both ways.

Skala was one of those who pushed for the school district tax rate hike and, while apparently legal, I’m told he voted for the teachers’ contract before the current one, even though his wife teaches French at Huntley High School.

His wife is a former Co-President of the Huntley Education Association. That would mean to me that teachers would be favorably inclined to support Skala throughout the district, a nice geographically spread base.

When he was Minority Leader, Lee Daniels was known for recruiting those with school board or school administration backgrounds.   They were called “IEA Republicans.”