Longtime DuPage board member Kurzawa won't seek re-election

One of the longest-serving members of the DuPage County Board won't seek re-election next year.

District 6 board member Linda Kurzawa, who will have served for 18 years when her term expires, said she is moving on to the next phase of her life.

"I was going to run again, but for the two-year term and then I began to think it just doesn't feel right to be a placeholder," she said. "It feels like it's time to go."

Kurzawa arrived on the board in 1992. It was an election dubbed "the year of the woman" as it saw 10 women on the 24-member board, the most of any time in the county's history.

The Republican Kurzawa rode a wave of popularity built as a leader of the fight in West Chicago to get radioactive thorium removed from the city. She has seen little opposition to her candidacies since her first election.

"Her motives for wanting to be on the county board and health department are only the motives we hope all elected officials have," said Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom. "One of her great strengths is that she's able to work with people and deal with them to get her point across and advocate strongly without being disagreeable."

Colleagues said Kurzawa's institutional knowledge will be a great loss to the entire county. Her District 6 counterpart Jim Zay said Kurzawa was gifted at making people understand her positions and decisions without holding a grudge.

"I think Linda worked hard at everything," Zay said. "She never held anything back and always told the truth whether you wanted to hear it or not, but she had a way of putting things and getting people to understand what she thought was best for the county."

Kurzawa said a key to her decision to retire was to be able to spend more time with her grandchildren. However, she has said goodbye to two of her good friends on the board in the past year with the retirements of former board members Pam Rion and Kyle Gilgis.

"You can blame it on the girls," she joked. "I had lunch with them on Tuesday and I announced to the board on Wednesday that I was leaving."

As the board seats have shrunk since 2002, so have the number of women. Including Kurzawa, only three of the 18 current board members are female.

"I absolutely do think it's important to have more women on the board, at the very least because 50 percent of the electorate is women," she said. "Women have a different perspective they bring and sometimes when there's a conflict, women can even the balances out there."

There are six seats on the board up for election in 2010, including Kurzawa's. There's also going to be a new board chairman as Schillerstrom is making a run at the governor's seat. Kurzawa said it's telling that two of the four GOP chairman candidates are female.

"I think it says we've come a long way," she said, "but I do wish that more women were showing interest in government and coming up through the ranks."

<p class="factboxheadblack">Filing for county races starts today </p> <p class="News">Filing begins at 8 a.m. today for all county races at the DuPage County Election Commission offices at 421 N. County Farm Road in Wheaton ahead of the Feb. 2, 2010, primary. </p> <p class="News">Beside the county chairman and board posts, three forest preserve commission seats, forest preserve president, regional superintendent of schools, sheriff, county clerk and treasurer are all up for grabs. A lottery to determine ballot placement will be held at 10:30 a.m. Nov. 10 if multiple candidates are in line for the same post before the commission opens its doors.</p> <p class="News">The deadlines for ballot questions is Dec. 3 for taxing bodies. Citizen-generated ballot questions have to be to the appropriate taxing body for approval by Nov. 16 and those governmental groups have to approve to question by Nov. 30 for it to appear on a February ballot, election commission officials said.</p>