Geneva candidate says he has time, interest, skills for two boards

Why does Jay Moffat of Geneva want to sit on two local government boards?

He doesn't; he wanted to serve on four.

Moffat will be on the April 9 ballot for library trustee and park district commissioner. If he had his druthers, you would also find his name on the lists of candidates for school board and township trustee.

“It's not a power trip, as some people say,” he said last week. And everything but the township trustee post is unpaid.

It has more to do with interest in local government and a belief in serving the community, combined with free time now that he has retired from two jobs.

Moffat was an air traffic controller at O'Hare International Airport; he also worked as a banker. “Now I do none of that. I have all the time that many of the other people do not have,” he said.

Moffat has served on the plan commission for many years.

He wanted to run for township trustee but learned the office is legally incompatible with the other offices he wanted to hold. He filed nominating papers for the school district but withdrew after finding out the state considers that incompatible with serving on a park board. Withdrawing from the park board instead didn't appeal to him because it would have left the race for two seats uncontested, whereas there were eight other candidates for four school board slots.

Moffat isn't the only one in his family interested in elected office. His son-in-law, Geoff Carreiro, intends to run as a write-in candidate for township clerk.

And they aren't the only in-law duo on the Kane County ballot in the spring. Geneva Township Supervisor Patrick Jaeger is running for re-election, and his father-in-law, Robert Mann, is running for Geneva Library board.