Campton Hills seats elected leaders

Eight Campton Hills residents made local history Tuesday in being seated as the first elected leaders to serve the village since its controversial incorporation last spring.

Among those sworn into office were newcomer trustees Laura Andersen, Susan George and John Strauss, and Village Clerk Carolyn Higgins. Village President Patsy Smith and trustees Jim Kopec, Mike Millette and Al Lenkaitis Jr., who have filled appointments to those posts for a year, renewed their oaths.

For many in attendance, the brief ceremony was a momentous occasion for the newborn town, which spent much of its first year fighting efforts to either secede parts of the village or disband it entirely.

"(The new board) is going to bring new life, new eyes to the village," Kopec said. "These are people who've been active in the community for 10 years or more and now it's their time to make a commitment to the village."

The officials were elected at large Feb. 5 after a bitter campaign season in which 17 candidates ran largely on promises to either support or dismantle the municipality, which supporters say is needed to fend off encroaching towns nearby and to allow the rural community to make its own decisions. Higgins was the only village opponent to win.

On Tuesday, a lottery determined that Millette, Lenkaitis and Strauss will serve until 2009, while Andersen, George and Kopec will serve until 2011. The lottery was necessary because election code requires village board members to have staggered terms, although the trustees were elected simultaneously. Smith and Higgins each will serve until 2011.

While each official has been elected for at least the next year, there's a possibility Andersen, George and Higgins could be ousted early because their neighbors have petitioned a judge to secede their subdivisions from the town.

Andersen and George each oppose the detachment of their neighborhood, Fox Mill, but Higgins was among those to sign a petition in support of having hers, Bridle Creek Estates, removed. Because Higgins is involved in "litigation adverse to the village," village code bars her from attending private meetings to discuss legal matters, Village Attorney Bill Braithwaite said. Andersen and George, meanwhile, can attend.

Higgins protested the situation before being sworn in, but she said later that she wouldn't raise the issue again once in office.

"I'm worried about the conflicts of interest that aren't being addressed because they involve pro-village people," she said. "They (Andersen and George) are parties (to litigation), too, whether they're for or against it. I felt I had to say it when I did."

Outgoing appointed trustees Bern Bertsche, Charles Cappell and Roy Pollack, who did not seek election, received a round of applause and kind words from board colleagues before turning the meeting over to the new board.

In return, Cappell left the new board with a few words of his own: "Long live the village of Campton Hills."