In the upcoming Nov. 5 general election, Republican incumbent Rob Russell faces Democratic challenger Monica Silva in the race to be Kane County’s coroner.
The job of the coroner is to investigate deaths within the county and also to oversee the coroner’s office, which in Kane County has 12 employees, according to the office’s website.
Both candidates recently spoke with The Beacon-News about their backgrounds, their policy positions and their visions for the future of the Kane County Coroner’s Office.
Rob Russell, Republican incumbent
Russell has been the Kane County coroner for the past 12 years, and he told The Beacon-News in a recent interview that a lot of his successes in that time have been because of the team he has built, not because of any special skills he has.
“I’ll be the first one to admit it, and it’s actually true: I don’t know everything,” Russell said. “But I do know how to build a team, and I do know how to solve problems.”
During his time in office, Russell said he has accomplished a number of things he can be proud of, and the thing he is most proud of is the good team he has built, he said.
One of his other accomplishments in office has been the Coroner’s Office’s new facilities, Russell said. Those facilities are located within a relatively new multi-use building on the Kane County Judicial Center campus in St. Charles.
Another of Russell’s accomplishments is the International Association of Coroners and Medical Examiners accreditation of the Kane County Coroner’s Office in 2014, according to Russell. He said his office was the first in the state to receive that accreditation.
The office was then reaccredited in 2020, he said.
It was a daunting task taking over the Kane County Coroner’s Office when he was first elected because the office was a “Pandora’s box” of issues, from the office’s facilities to the way employees were paid, Russell said. Those problems have now largely been solved, he said.
Now, despite the tough subject matter, few employees leave the office because of the “great team atmosphere” that makes people want to work there, according to Russell.
He said that, when a union came into the office, he didn’t fight it because he knew the union could get his employees better raises from the Kane County Board, which controls the budget, than he could. Since then, he has worked well with the union, he said.
Before being elected to be the Kane County coroner, Russell was a deputy sheriff at DuPage County, he said.
In 2010, he ran for Kane County sheriff but narrowly lost the primary to Don Kramer, according to Russell. While he was “obviously devastated at the time,” it sparked an interest in trying to find a place he could help to make a difference, he said.
He was then approached to run for Kane County coroner but was unsure, so he did some research and came to the conclusion that a coroner is also a law enforcement position, an area he had experience in, he said.
Now coming into the upcoming election, Russell said that conclusion is one of the things that sets him apart from his opponent in the Kane County coroner race.
He believes the coroner position is about investigation and administration, which he has a track record of doing in the position, and that medical knowledge does not give a person any advantages in the role, he said.
“Even if she was a forensic pathologist, she still has to hire a doctor to do the autopsies by state statute,” he said.
If reelected, Russell said he would continue the progress that he has made at the office. The office is up for reaccreditation, which he said is one of the things he would be focused on.
Another thing he would do is continue the progress that has been made in creating a Kane County forensics laboratory, he said.
The county has a great opportunity with the lab because many law enforcement agencies in the region, including Cook County, currently send their toxicology samples out to a lab in Pennsylvania to get tested, he said.
While that lab does great work, it often takes three to six weeks to get results back, and in cases like drug deaths it is important to get that information back as quickly as possible, Russell said.
“It helps speed up all the processes, not just for the family but also for law enforcement to look for suspects and things like that,” he said. “If we can do that here, not only does it help with the timeline but it also has a potential to be a source of revenue for the county because we would be a regional lab.”
Kane County is also facing “some violence that needs to be dealt with,” since the county is averaging 15 homicides a year over the past few years, the same homicide rate as DuPage County, which has almost double the population, according to Russell.
To help address the violence, Russell said he is partnering with Dr. Robert Renteria, the author of an anti-violence, anti-gang series of books and curriculum.
His vision for the future of the Kane County Coroner’s Office is a top-tier, professional organization that others look to learn from, and the office is already on the way to becoming that because of the team he has built, he said.
Russell also said he finds joy in solving problems, has had the chance to do that while serving as the Kane County coroner and would “like to continue to do it for a little while longer.”
Monica Silva, Democratic challenger
In both her hometown of Aurora and in Kane County more broadly, Silva has long been active in trying to make her community a better place, she told The Beacon-News in a recent interview.
Those efforts began soon after she graduated from the National University of Health Sciences with a doctor chiropractic degree and went into her own private practice in Aurora, according to Silva.
She got her start in politics when she was elected to the Aurora Township Board in the late 2000s, and then went on to be elected to the Kane County Board in 2010, she said.
During her time on the County Board, where she still serves as the District 7 representative, Silva has chaired the Public Health Committee and vice-chaired the Judicial and Public Safety Committee, which she said are two of the things she is most proud of from her time in the position.
Silva said she is also proud of many things Kane County has done with the County Board’s support in her time as a board member, such as distributing Narcan through free vending machines and offering gun safety locks for those who want them.
But her biggest personal accomplishment in her time as a Kane County Board member has been her accessibility to her constituents, and that she has listened, advocated and represented them the best she could, she said.
“I can name off things that other board members can name off, but I really think one thing that can be said about me, that I’ve heard, is that I’m available,” she said. “I’ve gone to their homes late at night. I’ve taken calls at 11 o’clock on a Saturday because there’s an issue with people playing loud music.”
Now Silva said she is running for Kane County coroner because she believes that she is “uniquely qualified” for the position based on her clinical background: 20 years of seeing patients and 20 years of being the administrator of her own practice.
Something that sets her apart from her opponent is her belief that the coroner is not only an administrative position but also a medical position, she said.
While the coroner does not themselves perform an autopsy, that is only one piece of the puzzle, according to Silva. She said the coroner also considers laboratory analysis, past medical history, family history and social determinants to determine cause of death.
“Taking a look at all these pieces of the puzzle and then coming up with a diagnosis is something that I’ve been doing for 20 years, and it’s the same thing with the Coroner’s Office,” Silva said.
Her strength, she said, will be knowing which questions to ask, what to look at and what is important in a patient’s history to determine a person’s cause of death.
The idea is to have all the evidence so that the office can correctly say whether a person died of natural causes or if there were other reasons for their death, Silva said.
“That’s where it’s so very much a public health issue. We want to make sure we don’t miss anything,” she said. “By the same token, we don’t want to contribute to somebody’s unjust treatment by providing the wrong information.”
Silva said she also disagrees with her opponent because she does not see the coroner as a law enforcement position. While there is a law enforcement aspect to the role, it is more medical than law enforcement, she said.
“I have a lot of respect for law enforcement, and because I have that respect for them, let’s let them do their job,” Silva said.
Another of Silva’s strengths is communication, she said, and as coroner she would make an effort to communicate with the community, law enforcement partners and the County Board, she said.
Communication is important because the Coroner’s Office is using taxpayer money so it should be transparent about what it is spending those funds on, but also because the coroner can use their voice to make people aware of issues in their community and get people more involved, according to Silva.
“I think when the coroner speaks, sometimes, people will listen,” she said.
While the Coroner’s Office is tasked with determining causes of death, the coroner themselves can take a look at the community more broadly to help reduce preventable death, Silva said. In particular, she spoke about deaths due to suicide, particularly among veterans and youth, domestic violence, traffic accidents and vaping.
To help lower the number of preventable deaths in Kane County, she would work with other elected officials and community organizations, she said.
In fact, Silva said she’s already started doing the research and connecting with local organizations because of her experiences in public health and as a clinician.
As a part of her focus on communication, she would also have a goal of reporting fentanyl-related deaths within 24 to 48 hours of receiving blood analysis from a lab, she said.
Silva would also advocate to the County Board for those who work in her office to get the resources and training they need, she said. At the same time, she said she will strive to be fiscally responsible.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
