Round Lake mayor reflects on election losses

Round Lake Mayor Bill Gentes lost his second election within five months Tuesday, but only one result was a surprise to him.

Unofficial vote totals show James Dietz cruised to victory over Gentes, who became Round Lake's mayor in 2001. In addition, three village trustees and a clerk candidate on Gentes' Round Lake United Party slate lost to Dietz's team.

Before Tuesday's race, Gentes ran in the November election as a Democrat in the 26th State Senate District against Republican Dan Duffy of Lake Barrington. Duffy mauled Gentes in that contest.

Despite his name recognition in the Round Lake area, Gentes said he was a longshot to win the state senate race against Duffy because the 26th District is mostly in traditional Republican territory in parts of Lake, Cook and McHenry counties.

Gentes said another factor in the state senate race was Duffy's financial muscle.

But Gentes said Wednesday he expected his re-election effort for Round Lake mayor to be successful because of his accomplishments. He said campaign financing and political party preferences weren't in play like in the senate race.

"I was pretty confident (Tuesday)," Gentes said.

Duffy's strong financing came back to somewhat haunt Gentes in his effort to remain as Round Lake's mayor. Duffy's campaign committee donated $1,000 to Dietz's United for Change slate.

"I thought it was interesting," Gentes said of Duffy's contribution. "I'll leave it at that. He should worry more about what's going on downstate (in Springfield) and not in Round Lake."

Gentes, 49, said he achieved much as mayor, including creation of a more professional village staff, and fixing what he called a "broken" police department through the appointment of Chief Cliffton R. Metaxa and an accreditation process.

Another accomplishment was Gentes' launch of a mayor's blog for village topics, which has moved off Round Lake's official Web site. He said he was unsure if he'll still operate the blog when he departs the public eye.

Gentes said he enjoyed being known as the blogging mayor. He said he edited comments posted on the blog only when they were obscene.

"I'm being called every name in the book on there today," Gentes said with a laugh.