Only 1 Elgin council candidate favors ward system
Only one out of 10 candidates in the race for Elgin City Council advocates changing the city’s election format to a ward system, with one other admitting the idea is growing on him and another saying it could be a possibility down the road.
Because 2010 Census numbers officially show Elgin’s population exceeding 100,000, the council will grow by two members in the next election. Some Elginites are pushing for a referendum so the community can decide whether to keep the at-large election system where residents across the city vote for all the candidates, switch to a ward system where residents only vote for council candidates running in their specific districts or decide on a combination of the two.
Candidate Michael Curtin supports a modified ward system where some council candidates are elected at-large and others represent certain districts. Curtin said Elgin is one of the only cities of its size in the region that doesn’t have a ward system.
“The problem is people automatically start thinking of Chicago,” Curtin said.
Curtin believes the mixed system would be more stable and help give better representation throughout the city.
But other candidates disagree.
Tish Powell, Anna Moeller, Manfred Czymmek and Shane Nowak joined incumbents Mike Warren and John Steffen in opposing the ward system, citing the need for council members to represent the entire community rather than small districts.
Warren said in his last two years as a councilman he has never asked where a person lives before addressing his concerns.
“If I get an e-mail, I don’t say, ‘What is your address so I can figure out if I want to work on it’ or not,” Warren said. “In a ward system, your allegiance is more to your ward than to the whole community.”
Toby Shaw said a ward system would divide the city rather than bring it together, pointing to the election cycle as an established way to address issues of representation.
“If citizens feel we need a change, this is the opportunity to do that,” Shaw said. Manfred Czymmek, also opposed to the ward system, suggested a “shadow ward” that would function as a round table of neighborhood groups advising the council and airing concerns on a monthly or bimonthly basis.
He said the lack of actual power in the shadow ward system would be the key to its success.
“It’s the power that the ward system has that makes it corruptible,” Czymmek said.
Tom McCarthy opposes the ward system, but more because of geography than anything else. He said Chicago’s ward system works because of closed boundaries, but Elgin’s fluid western boundary would cause problems.
“(When) Elgin finally closes their city borders and growth builds up and you have established communities ... then maybe the ward system would be nice,” McCarthy said.
Mike Robins said as time goes on, he leans more toward wards, supporting a full rather than modified system if wards come at all.
“We do not want a majority of the council living in the same area,” Robins said, “which may happen after this election.”
The census results were released too late to incorporate the extra two council positions in this election but in 2013, the council will grow from seven to nine members.
The final decision about wards must come from voters in the form of a referendum. None of the candidates opposed putting the question to residents, but Warren, who voted against including a nonbinding referendum on the April ballot as a councilman, said it must come from a grass-roots effort to put it to a vote.