Trustees weigh run for Mount Prospect mayor’s office

Now that Mount Prospect Mayor Irvana Wilks has announced she won’t run for another term in 2013, the question is who will run for her office.

A pair of possibilities have emerged in village trustees Arlene Juracek and Paul Hoefert.

“I am giving serious consideration to running for mayor of Mount Prospect,” Juracek said this week. “My family and I are weighing options and opportunities, and I will announce my decision after the Labor Day holiday.”

Juracek said she is up to the challenge of facing the issues confronting the village.

“I believe I bring the commitment to public service, depth of experience and demonstrated leadership capability to address the complex challenges we face as a modern municipality in an urban region,” she said.

Hoefert, 56, said he would make his decision within the next month after considering how serving as mayor would impact his work as a senior vice president with the Northern Trust Bank in Chicago.

“The village is one of my first loves,” said Hoefert, a village trustee since 1991. “But there is a lot of ribbon cutting and face time that goes along with that role. Irvana has done a great job and (former Mayor Gerald “Skip” Farley) before her. You want to make sure you live up to the demands of the office.”

Juracek, 62, worked 34 years for ComEd, retiring as vice president of energy acquisition in 2007. She now serves as director of the Illinois Power Agency, a position she was appointed to late last year by Gov. Pat Quinn.

As director of the IPA, she develops and submits annual competitive electricity procurement plans, including the use of conventional and renewable energy and clean coal resources, to the Illinois Commerce Commission.

A Mount Prospect resident since 1977, Juracek was elected to the village board in 2007. A decade prior to that, she served as an interim trustee, temporarily filling a vacancy created when former trustee Michaele Skowron resigned. Juracek has also served on the village’s planning and zoning commission, which she led as chairwoman.

Wilks announced this week that she will serve the rest of her term but not run for re-election. First elected mayor in 2005, Wilks served 14 years as a trustee prior to that.