Democratic Kane chairman contenders wage low-key campaign

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Democratic candidate for Kane County Board chair Sue Klinkhamer of St. Charles visits Friday at a legislative luncheon hosted by the St. Charles, Geneva and Batavia chambers of commerce. | Mary Beth Nolan~For Sun-Times Media

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Republicans Lauzen and Burns seem to be at odds on almost everything.

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Updated: March 20, 2012 8:06AM

There are slightly more than a half-million people living in Kane County and most of them live in a city that takes care of plowing snow, repairing streets, hiring police and picking up garbage. On a typical resident’s tax bill, county government services represents about 5 percent of the total.

That means for most residents who stay out of the court system and don’t use social service agencies, their only interaction with the county is on property assessments, visits to the forest preserves and Election Day. And yet, County Board chairman is a high-profile, sought-after position. The person in that seat is seen as a party leader and political voice for the county. Even without a vote on most issues, the chairman can influence hiring and set the public agenda for spending the county’s $250 million budget.

After eight years as chairman, Karen McConnaughay announced she is leaving that position, and is running for a new state Senate district in northern Kane County. The open chairman’s seat has drawn four experienced candidates into the field: Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns and longtime State Sen. Chris Lauzen of Aurora in the Republican primary; and two former mayors, Sue Klinkhamer of St. Charles and Bill Sarto of Carpentersville, for the Democrats.

Since the first sentence of the first debate, the campaign has been heated, particularly between Lauzen and Burns.

Putting aside personality conflicts, the issues in the race have largely centered on whether to increase the county’s tax rate, whether to hire an administrator and whether the county needs an economic development department. With a month until the March 20 primary, the candidates have run vastly different campaigns for a job that paid $101,765 in 2011.

The Klinkhamer-Sarto winner will face an uphill battle going into the November general election: Republicans hold all county-wide elected positions except sheriff, and there has never been a Democrat in the chairman’s seat.

Today, we will preview the two Democrats running for County Board chairman. On Monday, we will profile the two Republicans.

Sue Klinkhamer, Democrat

Sue Klinkhamer wants to make it clear: she thinks she’d do a good job as County Board chairman, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to beg for your vote.

In fact, she’s gone beyond that: she’s raised no money, put out no campaign signs and made no calls to constituents. She’s running an intentional anti-campaign, born from years of frustration.

“I know I can do the job,” she said. “I’m qualified to do the job. But it’s the process to get there. You have to sell your soul to win the primary.”

Klinkhamer sees her current campaign as a political experiment. Voters say they hate negative ads, campaign signs and robo calls. She says she’s essentially trying to find out whether that’s true.

So, the St. Charles resident offers her qualifications as a campaign ad. She was mayor of St. Charles from 1997 through 2005. She then worked with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley as the city’s liaison to Washington, D.C. From there, she worked as the district director for former U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, until he lost a re-election bid. Since then, she’s been enjoying her life as a grandmother and candidate.

At several election forums, she has advocated for hiring a county administrator. Klinkhamer pointed out that nearly all other suburban counties — including Kendall and Will counties — use an administrator to handle the day-to-day administration of the board’s policies. The administrator could also handle economic development issues, she said. Critics, including her primary opponent Bill Sarto, have questioned why she’d run for a position, only to hand authority to someone else.

Klinkhamer says having a non-political administrator would eliminate some of the fights with county officials that have plagued the county — and cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars — over the last few years. To pay for this new position, she is in favor of reducing the County Board from 24 to 18 members; cutting the health, retirement and medical benefits offered to board members; and reducing the chairman’s pay.

Klinkhamer sees promising to cut or freeze the tax levy as a fool’s errand: it handcuffs the county in case of future emergencies.

Klinkhamer’s not sure a low-key campaign would work for the general election, but for right now, she’s content with her non-traditional approach.

“If I win this job, I don’t want to be going to the county by day and going to fundraisers at night,” she said. “We’re a constituent services office. That’s the way I would like to see the county run.”

Bill Sarto, Democrat

Bill Sarto isn’t worried about being the leader of a sometimes fractious Kane County. He’s been in the middle of contentious boards before, as YouTube will attest.

Sarto was village president in Carpentersville during heated debates about illegal immigrants, and plenty of videos are posted online as evidence. Through all the shouting, Sarto, 63, says he was able to stabilize the village fiscally and emotionally before losing his re-election campaign handily.

“Because of what I went through in Carpentersville for those four years, I’m probably better prepared than anyone else running (for Kane County chairman),” he said. “You have to come into these positions with the attitude that we can work together and cooler heads will prevail.”

Sarto is hoping a tough, practical attitude will resonate with voters in Kane County, who rarely elect Democratic officials. Before being elected Carpentersville village president in 2005, he worked 28 years as an auditor for the state. He considered running for Kane County auditor until he saw that no Democrats were getting into the chairman’s race.

In the campaign, he has focused on economic issues, advocating for starting an economic development department to work with the towns and local businesses. Sarto said when he was village president in Carpentersville, a truck company wanted to move into town, but the deal broke down because of the county’s impact fees. It was a lost opportunity that’s stuck with Sarto.

Sarto, who does not support hiring a county administrator, doesn’t believe the county takes enough advantage of the economic opportunities along the Interstate 88 and Interstate 90 corridors. He’d also like to work with community colleges to provide more opportunities for job training.

Sarto has been the lone candidate to pledge to lower the county’s tax rate, although he can’t say what he would cut until he gets into office and finds inefficiencies. Right now, the county’s tax rate is pushing people out of their homes, he said.

Sarto is retired. He got interested in politics at 12 years old after he chased after presidential candidate John F. Kennedy’s car as it passed through Carpentersville. Since then, whenever he’s run for office, he’s tried to live up to his campaign slogan: People before politics.

“I consider myself to be a natural leader,” Sarto said. “People recognize me as a leader, and it’s always been that way.”