This is one in a series of stories looking at contested races in the Aurora area in the Nov. 5 election.
The election this fall for a seat on the Kane County Board in District 12 is between Democrat Ricky Rivard and incumbent Republican Bill Roth.
The general election is set for Nov. 5.
Rivard, 43, of St. Charles, said constituents in the district are concerned about mental health, budget constraints and taxes and the future of the Kane County Forest Preserve District.
“I’ve knocked on thousands of doors and people are concerned about mental health and that’s coming off the back of COVID and children having increased anxiety,” Rivard said. “There are a lot of questions about mental health and the services of the health department and that we invest in that as well.”
Regarding the budget, Rivard believes the county is “facing a fiscal cliff and I know that that is something we are going to have to deal with and I will deal with it when I am on the board and look forward to shepherding the county through that.”
Rivard notes there is a Kane County Forest Preserve District referendum on the ballot in November.
“I try to talk to folks about maintaining our natural beauty and providing affordable and attainable housing that makes sense to folks without sacrificing our green space,” he said.
If elected, Rivard said he wants to work on improved communication with constituents and having bipartisan cooperation on the County Board.
“Communication can be improved – there are coffees or town hall meetings that are held and I’d like to invite my constituents in to talk,” Rivard said. “With my background as a professor and someone who worked in the restaurant industry I’m able to take complex ideas and distill them and communicate them to a wide audience.”
Regarding a bipartisan board, Rivard said “issues like mental health, pedestrian safety and the forest preserve are value-based, non-partisan issues.”
“I would like to connect where our values overlap and work in that space,” he said.
Roth, 67, of St. Charles, is running for a second term on the board and said that issues in the district include government overreach and unfunded mandates from the state.
Overreach includes “laws being passed and the referendums on the ballots this year,” Roth said.
“The state put three referendums and a lot of them are silly,” he said.
Mandates, he said, include the General Assembly in Springfield passing laws without adequate funding. He cited the SAFE-T Act as an example.
“There are some good things in the act, but it’s costing the county almost $3 million more in payroll,” he said, adding that the state “provided no funding for it. That’s all on our budget and the reason why we’re in a crisis.”
If reelected, Roth said he wants to works on “our whole budget process.”
“The last two years it’s been a disaster. I was in information technology my whole career and I used to give quotes because businesses remember quotes and half the board members don’t even understand the whole budgeting process,” he said. “There was very little training for new members when I came in two years ago.”
Roth also wants to “identify where we are wasting money at the county.”
“We need to cut expenses and an example I’ve pointed out, the county has not updated all its lights to LED and it is costing us $980,000 a year in expenses,” he said. “My point is that should have been done 10 years ago. It’s too late now, but let’s move forward and save us nearly $1 million a year that it’s costing the taxpayers.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
