Lake Bluff residents will see a mixture of incumbents and newcomers on the ballot in next April’s municipal elections.
Vote Lake Bluff, the village’s version of a caucus, has formally endorsed candidates for village president, village trustee, park board, library board and the two local public school boards after two meetings held on Nov. 12 and 13.
Receiving the support of the caucus is viewed as a crucial step toward election as the candidates often run unopposed in the municipal election.
The park board slate includes four residents seeking to become commissioner including McCamie Cole, Andrew Henkel, and Carrie Welles, who have served on park district committees.
The fourth endorsed candidate is Ben Grum, who declared his candidacy for the park board after an unsuccessful run for the Lake County Board earlier this month.
They are set to replace incumbents Niki Walsh, Susan Raymoure, Scott Weber, and Ann Rieder who all chose not to run again after serving one four-year term.
Their decision comes as the volunteer park board has taken on two controversial issues in recent years including the future of the Lake Bluff Golf Club and an ongoing dispute with the village board over pickleball play.
Despite all the departures, Park Board President Jennifer Beeler said she was not concerned about residents being reluctant to join the park board.
“Everybody has their personal lives and things they have to move on to,” she said.
Welles said she was not concerned about joining the park board, despite the recent turbulence.
“You never know what is going to pop up, but I think this current park board is on the right financial path,” she said. “I feel there are some heavy, heavy issues that are behind us. I feel really good about it.”
Finding candidates to serve on the local public school boards became a challenge for Vote Lake Bluff officials.
Under a longstanding informal agreement, the Lake Forest High School board is composed of five Lake Forest residents and two from the Lake Bluff area. The two Lake Forest Community High School District 115 incumbents from Lake Bluff – Sally Davis and David Burns – are not running for re-election – leaving Vote Lake Bluff to find two people to serve on the high school board.
While village resident Gail Gamrath declared her candidacy and received the Vote Lake Bluff endorsement, finding a second person proved to be difficult.
To address the issue, Vote Lake Bluff officials originally planned to endorse Amy Donohue to run simultaneously for both Lake Bluff Elementary School District 65 (where she is already on the school board) and the Lake Forest High School board.
Vote Lake Bluff Chairman Paul Blahunka said both school board superintendents signed off on the plan, but legal counsel later advised against it.
“Both districts were told in no uncertain terms that there was a 100 % chance of that being challenged in court,” Blahunka said at the Nov. 13 meeting.
Forced to make a choice, Donohue decided to run for the high school board.
“I think it is a fantastic school and I would like to support it,” she said.
Blahunka said just ahead of the Nov. 18 filing deadline, resident Kim Saccaro was set to file her petition packet with the Lake County Clerk.
For the rest of the District 65 board, Vote Lake Bluff endorsed incumbents Lauren Hirsh, Tim Penich, Carrie Steinbach, and Richard Driver for new terms.
On Nov. 18, Kimberly Saccaro and Andrew Carlson filed petitions establishing their candidacies for District 65, according to Lake County Clerk Anthony Vega.
That means there will be five candidates for four slots for full four-year terms.
Driver, who was appointed to the board fill a vacancy due to a resignation, is running unopposed to fill out the last two years of the term.
Incumbent Village President Regis Charlot was endorsed for a second four-year term without any opposition, Blahunka said.
For the village board, incumbent Village Board member Taryn Fisher was endorsed for another term and incumbent Village Clerk Raffi Elchemmas was endorsed to join the village board of trustees.
Incumbent trustee Susan Rider said she would the nominating petitions and was set to run for another term, but chose to do without the Vote Lake Bluff endorsement.
“The way Vote Lake Bluff ought to be running is to encourage people to run as opposed to picking winners and losers themselves,” Rider said.
Blahunka responded by saying the organization has always supported all interested in running for the various local boards.
“Vote Lake Bluff exists to provide an open forum for the candidates to share their statements of candidacy and for Lake Bluff area residents to ask questions of the candidates,” he said. “For any contested board seat, attendees can vote for their preferred candidates which would then gain the endorsement of Vote Lake Bluff.”
For village clerk, Graham Hallen was endorsed without opposition, Blahunka said.
Finally, at the Lake Bluff Public Library, incumbent board president Bonnie Shaul received the Vote Lake Bluff support as well as resident Courtney Heck.
Blahunka said there could be a need for two appointments to the library board as he was not certain whether incumbent Matt Zaute would run for re-election. He said there was another open slot on the board due to a departing member, but no one had formally expressed interest in running for that seat.
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
