DuPage board settles leadership battles

The skirmish over DuPage County Board committee leadership posts ended in a draw.

A slim majority of board members led by James Healy, Paul Fichtner and Brien Sheahan fought board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom's recommendations to force board members to fill the committees themselves.

Much of the fight centered on leadership posts for several influential committees - such as transportation and finance - that help guide county policy. Healy wanted the chairmanship for the transportation committee and Fichtner wanted to lead finance.

Fichtner is getting his wish, but Schillerstrom's original choice for transportation chairman, Don Puchalski, cobbled together enough votes to keep that post.

Healy will serve as vice chairman, the same post he has held for nearly a decade on that panel. Unlike Healy, Puchalski is currently not a member of the transportation committee.

The board approved the new committee assignments unanimously, but not without some last-minute controversy.

District 5 Democrat Tony Michelassi complained he was sharing two of his committee assignments with Republican District 5 board members. He argued that in the past, development and public transit committee assignments featured just six members, one from each district. However, now there are two District 5 board members on development and two on public transit.

There are no rules that say the committees must be empaneled with only six members or that membership must come from each of the districts.

Healy, a fellow District 5 board member, said it was considered tradition for new board members to serve on the development committee and since there are two new board members from District 5 they were both seated on the panel. However, rookie board member John Curran is not on the development committee. Curran is a Republican.

"I think that's baloney," Michelassi said. "I'm not much a stickler for tradition. I was being singled out. It was very obvious."

Michelassi's attempt to remove incoming board member John Zediker from the development committee failed.

Fellow Democrat Dirk Enger accused the Republican majority of playing politics with the committee assignments. The development committee would have featured three Democrats and three Republicans, he said, but now features four from the GOP.

"It's right to keep it at six people," he said. "We just felt it would be more fair to have one member from each district."

The committee assignments will stay in place until after the next board election in November 2010.