Barrington 220 race tight with most votes counted

Incumbent Penny Kazmier will retain her seat on the Barrington Unit District 220 school board but the race remains tight for the other three slots.

Kazmier, the board's vice president, leads the way with 3,127 votes. Less than 200 votes separate the candidates currently in 2nd through 5th place in the race to fill four board seats. The unofficial votes have been counted in all of the precincts but not all of the early votes or mail-in and provisional ballots have been counted.

Challenger Michael Shackleton has 2,457 votes and incumbent Sandra Ficke-Bradford has 2,456 votes. Newcomer Gavin Newman has 2,363 votes, just ahead of incumbent Christopher Geier, who has 2,265 votes.

Newcomer Christopher A. Karam is currently in 6th with 1,946 votes. Anissa Cyhaniuk received 890 votes despite dropping out of the race in March.

School start times was perhaps the most heated topic in District 220 last year, so it's not surprising the issue surfaced as an issue in the race.

The six candidates were split on whether the board made the right choice, but no one said they would actively try to repeal the decision if elected.

Ficke-Bradford and Kazmier voted for the option that ended up being chosen while fellow board member Geier voted for one of the cheaper alternatives. Newman, Shackleton and Karam said they wouldn't have voted with Ficke-Bradford and Kazmier.

Kazmier has been a board member since 2005 and this will be her fourth term on the board.

Kazmier accepted victory at around 10:30 p.m. and said she is really looking forward to the next four years.

"I'm a servant leader and I'm honored that they've entrusted me with this position," Kazmier said.

She said she was especially looking forward to working with community toward developing the Blueprint 220 plan, the district's new master facilities plan. The school board has set themselves a goal to adopt the new facilities plan which will include a lot of community feedback.

Kazmier, a South Barrington resident, has spent a lot of that time serving on the board's facility subcommittee where she oversaw design of the $1.3 million renovation to Hough Elementary school which was completed over the summer and enhanced the safety at the 52-year-old building.