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Garcia, Burroway and Sabbe for Carpentersville Village Board

Editor's note: The Daily Herald has rescinded its endorsement of Humberto Garcia for Carpentersville village board after he admitted lying to a question on our candidate questionnaire about prior criminal charges. For a text of our new endorsement in the race, click here.

Carpentersville faces a host of post-recession problems, including a tight municipal budget, a rising property tax rate largely driven by declining overall property values and a desire to improve the town's reputation and bring in more businesses. We believe Humberto Garcia has the energy and knowledge to tackle those problems, and we strongly endorse him for one of three open seats on the Carpentersville Village Board. A member of the village Audit and Finance Commission and the owner of a business in town, he says property taxes are too high and an added one-half percent village sales tax should be allowed to expire as scheduled in two years. Some assistant manager positions at village hall could be cut, he says, but not fire and police staffing. Along with Garcia, we endorse incumbent Don Burroway and challenger Jeffrey Sabbe. Burroway's experience on the village board, as well as on the Planning and Zoning and Audit and Finance commissions, will benefit Carpentersville as it moves forward. Sabbe is relatively new to town, but his involvement in the Northern Kane County Chamber of Commerce and other civic groups shows his commitment to the area. Among the other candidates, Christopher Scholl knows the village well and has some good ideas, but he is a full-time union firefighter employed by Carpentersville at a time when the firefighters' contract is about to come up for renegotiation. State law allows him to hold office and he pledges not to vote on matters of firefighters' collective bargaining, but we oppose such a conflict of interest and cannot endorse him. Sara Miller, married to a Carpentersville firefighter, lacks knowledge about local government and is not endorsed. Incumbent Paul Humpfer was found guilty of domestic battery in 2008 for hitting his wife in the legs with a baseball bat, and we cannot endorse him.

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