Saying goodbye; five county board members left their mark

Robert Schroeder is looking forward to a weekly bridge game he usually has to skip.

Pam Rion is planning to spend her newfound free time traveling.

The soon-to-be-former DuPage County Board members wasted no time shoring up the extra hours on their schedule now that their lengthy runs as elected officials are coming to an end.

"I got 51 years out of a political science degree," Schroeder joked. "How much more do people want?"

Schroeder, a Naperville resident, spent 20 years on the board representing District 5 on the county's southwest side. Rion, of Bloomingdale, put in 14 years as a District 6 representative, covering the northwest part of the county.

"I had promised my family certain things when I first ran and I am already beyond that time," Rion said. "For me, the timing was overdue.

Beside the two retirees, the board is losing Yolanda Campuzano, from Addison, and Tom Bennington of Downers Grove - who were voted out of office Nov. 4 as Democrats captured those two seats plus one other. Michael Connelly of Lisle won a state representative seat in Springfield.

All told, five seats will need to be filled.

"I don't think I've ever had more than this," board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom said. "We've dealt with it before, but maybe not to this level."

Connelly doesn't have to resign until January, but the other four have just one board meeting left.

"I'm not only losing a colleague, I'm losing my best friend," Linda Kurzawa, a longtime District 6 board member, said of Rion.

Kurzawa joked the two were often mistaken for each other and had been dubbed "the twins" and "double trouble" by folks at the county administration building in Wheaton. Kurzawa said Rion's departure will change many things for her.

"When you lose your wing man, life changes," she said. "Pam and I are like hand and glove working together."

For a decade, Rion has led the board's transportation committee. She even admitted that finishing the Army Trail Road project was just about the only reason she stayed on so long. Schillerstrom said losing Rion's experience is rough.

"She's very opinionated and very well-informed," he said. "So when she comes to render an opinion, you know her arguments are going to be well-researched, and that's why I relied upon them."

Experience and history is also being lost with Schroeder's retirement.

"There is a lot of institutional memory with Bob," Schillerstrom said. "He brings perspective to the board that you can only have with lots of years being there."

Schroeder came to the county in 1988 after more than 30 years teaching social studies at Lincoln Junior High School in Naperville, where he taught some of Schillerstrom's siblings and even some current county workers.

"If I had lost that race I would have stayed teaching," Schroeder said. "I love teaching. Politics is not an element of love, it's an element of responsibility."

He is widely regarded as the architect of the county's human services program. He developed and championed several initiatives that provide funding for social programs that continue to this day.

"When I first came on the board and analyzed the budget, less than one quarter of one percent of local taxpayer dollars went to human services," he said. "I think today, it's more than one percent."

Fellow District 5 board member James Healy said Schroeder always worked to help everyone in the county, not just his constituents.

"He is a wonderful, big-hearted person who did great things for the county and his district over the years."

Come January, Healy could be the only District 5 representative with more than a few weeks of experience. It's unknown who is replacing Connelly to serve the remaining two years on his term.

Connelly left the Lisle village board in midterm to take the county board job, too. Healy doesn't think voters will take issue with Connelly leaving in midterm again.

"Mike Connelly is a person who is limited only by how far he wants to go," Healy said. "It's a sign that you're doing a good job when people want you to move forward."

Connelly said he went after the state seat for the same reason he went after the county job two years ago: To help more people.

"I know I can be more helpful," he said. "I figured if I didn't take the shot I'd always wonder."

As for Campuzano and Bennington, they aren't ruling out the possibility of running in 2010 for the seats they just lost. Bennington is a 10-year veteran of the board and Campuzano spent the last six years in that post.

"I am feeling a sense of loss from the standpoint that I was really enjoying what I was doing," Bennington said. "I really don't have any regrets, and can't think of anything I'd do differently other than climbing up a hill at Boy Scout camp and busting my knee up and being unable to get out and campaign as much as I wanted to during the primary."

Schillerstrom lamented Bennington's departure because of his reliance on the District 3 board member as a liaison to the board.

"He was really a good adviser to me," Schillerstrom said. "I came to rely a lot on his advice on what I was doing with the board."

Campuzano leaves another hole in human services advocacy on the board, Schillerstrom said.

"She brought a different perspective than anyone else being the first minority elected to the board," he said. "Being a Latino woman on the board brought her that different perspective, but she was never defined by that. She had tremendous insights that will be missed."

Campuzano said she would continue working to help others in the county while she mulled her options.

"If there's any opportunity for me advocating for health and human services I'm going to do that," she said. "I enjoyed serving people in my district and throughout DuPage County."

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=250968">County board losing half century of experience</a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=250967">Saying goodbye; five county board members left their mark</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>