Hastert, Grabarek, Gualdoni win seats on Elburn board

It’s not likely that a candidate for the Elburn Village Board ever entered a campaign with better name recognition than Ethan Hastert.

Hastert, the 32-year-old son of the former Speaker of the House, secured a seat on the village board Tuesday night by capturing the most votes with 410 in a five-candidate race for three seats.

The other two seats were secured by incumbent William Grabarek with 387 votes, and Dave Gualdoni with 275 votes, topping other challengers Audrey Symowicz with 262 votes and Richard Garcia with 165 votes, according to unofficial totals.

Hastert showed significant financial background and a knowledge of government processes during public forums and interaction with voters.

“Throughout the campaign, I said my No. 1 issue was the budget, and it will remain that way because it essentially all starts and ends there,” Hastert said. “But this board has done a great job of cutting back where necessary to be able to get things done that the community needed, and also to save for future projects.”

Grabarek used his solid eight years of thoughtful contributions to the village board as his main selling point in seeking re-election.

“I’m flattered, humbled and pleased that the voters have given me another term,” Grabarek said. “It’s a challenging time and I’ll be looking at what other sort of partnerships we can do with nonprofits or whoever to get projects completed.”

Grabarek said he has many ideas he would like to continue to pursue, including the establishment of a historic preservation group or committee to have a voice in community decisions.

Gualdoni was able to parlay his experience as a former village employee, and a current public works employee in Geneva, into a campaign that showed he had a thorough understanding of the challenges facing Elburn in the future.

“The people went out and voted, but I wish more of them would have voted,” Gualdoni said of the 18 percent turnout in Elburn’s precincts. “There is not a lot of money available, but there are a lot of projects to deal with. I’ve been around a long time, so I am hoping that will be valuable to the board.”

A hot topic for the candidates during the campaign was the Shodeen Corp.-proposed Elburn Station project on the village’s east side near Anderson Road.

Grabarek, 71, made it clear he is not fond of the Elburn Station plan, but voted in favor of the concept after Shodeen Inc. promised it would invite residents to participate in the design of Elburn Station.