This is one in a series of stories looking at contested races in the Aurora area in the Nov. 5 election.
The race for the Kane County Board seat in District 14 in the November election is between Democrat Brenda Englehart and Republican Jonathan Gripe.
The general election is set for Nov. 5.
Engelhardt, 60, of St. Charles, said concerns in the district include safety, taxes and mental health.
The safety issue, she said, includes gun safety.
“There seem to be generalized concerns about violence,” she said.
Regarding taxes, Englehardt said that residents say “taxes are too high.” She also said there “is a lot of misinformation about the tax bill.”
“The flip side is that people are concerned about losing services, especially when it comes to mental health,” she said. “And what I’m hearing on the other side of taxes is hey, I pay taxes because I moved to this community and I don’t want people taking services away from this beautiful county that we have.”
With mental health, residents are talking about its importance and expressing concerns about suicide prevention, Engelhardt said.
“We have too high a rate of suicide in St. Charles, per capita, and we need to keep those services supported,” she said.
If elected, Engelhardt said she wants to work on “communication from constituents to the board and back – open lines of communication.”
“I’d like to go more digital, so things like Facebook Live. I think meet and greets are important, but I think you reach more people by trying somehow to get on digital media,” she said.
“My second goal is the things I talked about at the doors – mental health, suicide prevention, gun safety, taxes and the Forest Preserve District,” she said. “With taxes, for one thing, we have to get in and see what, exactly, the situation is but it’s not going to be easy.”
She said she would be “fighting for keeping programs.”
In regards to the Forest Preserve District, Engelhardt said her focus “is to maintain funds.”
Gripe, 69, of St. Charles, said voters in the district are concerned about taxes and spending in the county.
In regards to taxes, Gripe said constituents are concerned about taxes being high and “are not reflective of real values.”
“The appraisal process is being brought into question and just the increases in the taxes,” he said. “Everybody knows those things go up, but the speed at which they are going up is beyond what people like. I have heard from a boatload of people saying, ‘If this keeps up, we’re out of here.’ I’ve also met many people who are moving or have already made arrangements to move out of Illinois.”
He said people have also raised concerns about the County Board spending too much money.
Gripe also said people have concerns about the schools in the area.
“People moved here from other cities and they are saying we came here for the schools, but what we’re seeing in the schools and what the school board is proposing and the part of our real estate taxes that are going to that school board, there’s a real disconnect,” he said.
If elected, Gripe said in addition to addressing constituents’ concerns, he wants to focus on things like “doing what I can to help the board work more effectively.”
“The word I have heard from board members is that the board is ‘dysfunctional’ and my goal would be to make it more functional – meeting structure, the way people speak and so forth,” he said.
A second goal would be to develop “more cooperation on the board.”
“I think there is a great deal of ‘us and them’ and that’s got to stop because nobody is going to be able to serve the people as I and, I believe, most of the board members want to do if we can’t realize now we’re on the board and we need to work together,” he said. “It sounds simpler than it is, but I’ve always been one for collegiality.”
Finally, Gripe said he also wants to focus on “getting the rest of the county” better organized.
“Forget the board for a moment, it’s getting the other (county) departments to work together better and help the board do its job better,” he said. “There’s a lot more room for communication and cooperation so we all work together for the people.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
