Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of stories looking at contested races in the Feb. 25 primary election.
The race for Aurora Township highway commissioner in the Democratic primary election is between North Aurora resident Jason Owens and Aurora’s Donald Ishmael.
The primary election is set for Feb. 25. The winner in the Democratic primary race for highway commissioner will move on to compete in the general election on April 1.
Owens, 49, is currently finishing out an appointed term replacing the former highway commissioner and said the main roles of the position include “road maintenance, the right-of-way, drainage issues and snow removal,” which are all overseen by the commissioner.
“I have run for this position before. I’ve worked here with the Township Highway Department for 14 years and the commissioner oversees the maintenance of the roads as well as the edges or the right-of-way of the road and drainage and snow removal – that’s a big one,” Owens said.
Maintenance is the major focus, Owens said, “as Aurora Township is pretty well built-out and we’re maintaining existing roads.”
“It could be repairing, resurfacing where you grind out and replace – there’s not a lot of new roads that we’re doing,” he said. “Drainage is stormwater drainage and we’re trying to move water from areas where it could go under the road and damage it and move it downstream.”
Snow removal is a function, he said, “where we get the most feedback when the roads aren’t clear and we’ll hear about before anything else.”
“It’s up to the highway commissioner to make sure the guys get out and the snow removal gets done,” he said.
If elected, Owens said goals “are similar to the job description” which includes “continuing to improve drainage which is the largest thing related to climate change.”
“I’ve been here 14 years and a lot of these things are already in place,” he said. “We want to continue to be excellent with snow removal and continue to fine tune our ability to replace and repair roads.”
A future challenge, Owens noted “is that we are a consumables-driven organization.”
“We have asphalt and salt and oil and gas, those types of things that inflation is causing to be more expensive,” he said. “I would say finding new and better ways to do some of these repairs to the roads in a cost-effective way is a goal because we’re in a rising-cost environment – to keep the same and better services cheaper and more efficient.”
Ishmael, 48, said this is his first time running for highway commissioner and that the top three functions of the job include “clearing snow during the winter, correcting drainage problems the township is responsible for, and community outreach.”
Snow removal, he said, is all about the preparations made when the weather is good.
“We do hear about snow more than anything but this is something that we prepare during the nice weather months when you have a salt supply and making sure you have equipment that’s not going to break down or you have backup equipment,” Ishmael said. “You have mechanics and shops ready and being prepared when it’s nice out and you’re not even thinking about snow.”
The drainage issue, he said, “involves issues being a township and there’s not as much oversight as there is in more incorporated areas.”
“You could have people that are doing things on the property that are detrimental to the neighbors or downstream of them or a couple of hundred feet away,” he said. “The next thing you know a person has flooding in their yard that they’ve never had before because someone did something else which they didn’t realize would hurt their neighbor.”
If elected, Ishmael says he wants to “make the office more accessible to the public and having good customer service to the citizens.”
Ishmael said he also wants to do an assessment of equipment and other things.
“I want to go through everything the highway commission has on hand as far as equipment and updating the website and equipment we need and laying out a plan for the future and where the department will be in four years,” he said. “On top of that, being a good steward of tax dollars.”
Ishmael also wants to form partnerships “with other municipalities that we touch borders with.”
“I would love to see some type of intergovernmental agreements for purchasing salt or vehicles,” he said. “If we could piggyback on other purchases that help save us money – we’re a very small department – every dollar counts. We need to work with everybody.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
