Newcomers say 'change' won in defeat of old guard in Barrington Hills

In a Barrington Hills trustee race that could be seen as a midterm assessment of Village President Martin McLaughlin, the results were decidedly in his favor.

The slate of Brian Cecola, Bryan Croll and Michelle Maison which McLaughlin supported beat the slate of incumbents Karen Selman, Patti Meroni and their running mate Mary Naumann.

With all 10 precincts reporting, Cecola had 658 votes, Croll 696, Maison 670, Naumann 555, Selman 573 and Meroni 566, according to unofficial results.

"I attribute this to all our supporters out there, people who believe in us and want to see a change in this town," Cecola said.

"I think the silent majority spoke in this election," Croll added.

The victorious candidates said they hoped to resolve many of the long-running issues of public debate, like commercial horse boarding.

"We're all three of us excited to move this village forward," Maison said. "That's always been our goal."

Selman was philosophical about her slate's defeat.

"If the other side wins, it's because the community decided they wanted change," Selman said. "I couldn't have asked anyone to have worked harder than they worked."

Selman said she also took comfort in what she considered strong voter turnout in the community, based on observation of one particular polling place. She considered that evidence that the outcome of the election reflected the true will of the community.

Selman and Meroni, along with Naumann, have been largely critical of McLaughlin, while Cecola, Croll and Maison have been generally supportive of him. But their individual priorities and perspectives were far more complicated than that.

One of the defining moments during the campaign season was the village board's approval of a text amendment aimed at resolving Barrington Hills' long-running horse-boarding controversy and McLaughlin's subsequent veto of it.

Croll agreed with McLaughlin that requiring a special-use permit for horse-boarding was a better solution than changing the text of the zoning code in the midst of a private lawsuit between two neighbors and thus inviting the village into the litigation.

The approved text amendment allowed one boarded horse per acre for properties between five and 10 acres, and two boarded horses per acre for properties larger than 10 acres. The village was sued after making the change.

Selman and Meroni said they believed better policy would result by not trying to avoid the public debate.