Itasca voters to decide mayor, 3 village trustee seats
Itasca voters will decide the position of mayor and three village board trustee seats in the April 6 municipal elections, where a couple of important issues will be up for discussion.
Incumbent Mayor Jeff Pruyn faces a challenge from retired investor Thomas Pawlicki, and seven candidates have filed to seek three village trustee seats with 4-year terms.
Incumbent trustees Jeff Aiani and Frank Madaras are running for reelection. Newcomers on the ballot are Patrick J. Powers, Jenn Troutman, Dustin Sneath, Joshua Beauchamp and Eric Swets.
Pruyn, Powers, Madaras and Village Clerk Jody A. Conidi are running together on the Itasca First Party slate. Conidi is unopposed.
Swets, who is CEO of Swets Construction Inc., is the brother of Itasca Country Club owner Larry Swets, who is at the epicenter of a proposed data center on the Itasca Country Club golf course. Eric Swets has served on the village planning commission for 10 years, but both Swets brothers say there is no potential for conflicts of interests regarding development.
"My brother and I have worked together, but we are separate people," Eric Swets said. "When it comes to the matter regarding the data center, I absolutely will recuse myself from them."
Two issues that will be of significance in the village board races involve proposals for the data center and the Haymarket drug treatment facility.
The 34-acre data center proposal met resistance from residents who live in the area of the golf course. The proposal's formal submission to the village was delayed last November.
The proposal to turn a former Holiday Inn into a 240-bed Haymarket treatment center for people with substance-use disorders has generated controversy, with hundreds of viewers watching every meeting virtually on YouTube.
Opponents say a town of less than 10,000 residents lacks the necessary infrastructure of police, fire and EMS services to support a treatment center that would serve roughly 4,750 patients a year.
Incumbents Anne O. Boehne, Sharon Laughlin, Olia Mladenova and newcomer Patricia Schumacher are running for four, 4-year terms on the Itasca Community Library Board.