Two Democrats who have represented Naperville on the DuPage County Board for the past seven years will be vying to keep their seats in next year’s midterm elections.
Sadia Covert and Dawn DeSart have confirmed that they will be running for reelection in District 5. Covert will be seeking a four-year term while DeSart will be running for a two-year term.
District 5 comprises most of Naperville and sections of Aurora in DuPage.
Covert’s and DeSart’s intentions to run come in the wake of Naperville City Councilman Ian Holzhauer announcing last week that he will be challenging Covert for the four-year District 5 seat as a Democrat.
Holzhauer was just elected to a second term on Naperville City Council. He announced his bid for county board hours after being inaugurated.
“We work hard for our seats,” Covert said in a call last week. “We paved the way and we have to fight. We always have to fight to retain our seats. This is my first primary on the county board, so it’s very different for me. … All I do know is that women have to stand tall and strong.”
Covert was first elected to the board in 2018. A Naperville resident for more than a decade and a half, Covert is a licensed attorney and one of the founding partners of Covert Marrero Covert LLP. She initially ran for county board to expand the body’s representation, she said.
Before Covert was elected, “there were absolutely zero South Asian and Muslim Americans on the board,” she said.
Asked what she would do with a third term, Covert listed off several priorities. She wants to focus on continuing to ensure community members have access to housing and basic necessities, she said. She’d also said she’d like to see through ongoing work to preserve cultural diversity and cultural heritage in the DuPage County Historical Museum in Wheaton.
As chair of the Technology Committee, Covert is also interested in exploring how artificial intelligence can be integrated into the board’s work, a project that has already started, she said.
“Being in the midst of things, it’s important to have the same people working on these initiatives and just seeing them through,” Covert said.
Covert also said she was surprised to hear about Holzhauer’s bid for board.
“He didn’t even have the courtesy to give me a call to let me know,” she said.
The county’s 18-person board is divided into six districts, with three seats apiece. Alongside Covert and DeSart, District 5 is also represented by Saba Haider, of Aurora, who was elected to the board last fall after unseating former Naperville City Council member Patty Gustin. Her term continues through 2028.
Seats are elected separately. When more than one candidate from a party vies for a seat, there’s a primary election to decide who gets the nomination.
Covert emphasized that she wants to focus on her own race.
“We work very well together as a board,” she said. “I’m just happy to serve. It’s been an honor to serve all my constituents.”
DeSart, who has likewise sat on the board since 2018, said in an email Monday that she “never considered not running for my seat.”
“I’ve accomplished so much through my work on the board that I feel compelled to continue the work,” she said.
A graduate of Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora, DeSart is former reporter for NBC-TV Channel 5 in Chicago. She continues to work as a journalist in the radio broadcast industry, she said. DeSart first moved to Naperville in 1980 with her family. She later moved to Aurora in 2016.
Prior to serving on the board, DeSart was a member of the Indian Prairie District 204 School Board from 2009 to 2013.
To her, the biggest issue facing the county right is “all of the federal government’s cuts to the food insecure, to heating grants, to homelessness,” DeSart said.
“It’s going to be up to the county to help those most in need,” she said.
Asked if there are any initiatives or issues she hopes to focus on should she be reelected, DeSart said, “Food insecurity is number one, and the need will only get greater.”
It’s a subject that’s addressed at almost every meeting of the board’s Human Services Committee, of which she’s a member, she said.
She added that working “with our state legislators has never been more important.”
DeSart serves as chair of the board’s Legislative Committee, which advises and provides recommendations to the board relating to state and federal legislation, according to the county’s website.
“There are many initiatives I’d still like to accomplish,” she said.
