Recap of our endorsements for mayor, City Council and school boards
April 2, 2011 3:08PM
Updated: July 31, 2011 12:18AM
The following is a brief summary of the editorial endorsements made last Wednesday and Friday for Tuesday’s election.
For the board of education of Naperville School District 203 The Sun endorses the three incumbents seeking re-election — Terry Fielden, Mike Jaensch and Suzyn Price.
We base the endorsements on the solid work the board has done in negotiating labor contracts, remodeling Naperville Central High School and other schools, and hiring Mark Mitrovich as the district’s new superintendent.
We consider District 203 to be well run and successful, and Fielden, Jaensch and Price have had a lot to do with that.
For the three seats up for election in School District 204, The Sun endorses incumbents Curt Bradshaw and Alka Tyle as well as challenger Lori Price.
We like Bradshaw’s business background and his enthusiasm for wanting to make District 204 the “best in the state.”
Tyle has adopted “living within one’s means” as a core value, which is a good value for a school board member, or anyone else in this overspending society.
Price is the president of the Indian Prairie Special Needs PTA and a member of the Indian Prairie Parents Council, and she would bring to the district a dedication to special needs students that is fitting in a district that has a large number of such students.
The Naperville City Council has four council seats and the mayor’s position up for election.
For the four council member positions, The Sun endorses incumbents Bob Fieseler and Grant Wehrli and challengers Joe McElroy and Steve Chirico.
Fieseler and Wehrli have proven themselves to be very able council members with each bringing a decided perspective to that body.
Fieseler is an attorney, the only one on the council, and his take on issues like the police contract and Scott Huber are important for the council to hear.
Wehrli comes from a large Naperville family that has had many members active in local public service, and his generally commonsense approach to things and his deep Naperville roots make him a valuable council members.
For the other two open slots, we endorse challengers Steve Chirico and Joe McElroy.
Chirico is a small-businessman and wants to make it easier for businesses to navigate the city’s bureaucracy. That makes a lot of sense to us.
McElroy is a former plan commissioner and one of the founders of the Naperville Development Partnership. Now he is the owner of a public relations firm, but in the past he was an urban planner for the city of Aurora.
He has significant experience in both private industry and government and we think he would bring both in a significant fashion to the City Council.
For mayor of Naperville, The Sun endorses longtime incumbent A. George Pradel.
Though his ebullient manner has led some to criticize him as a cheerleader for the city, Pradel fits well into a council-manager system in which the mayor is but one vote on the nine member council, has no veto power and holds no sway over individual city jobs.
The mayor of Naperville is not a job suited for one who would be a suburban Richard Daley, but it is one that Pradel, with his appreciation of the ceremonial and human relations aspects of being mayor, fits like a glove.
