Defeated Kane County Board incumbent Shepro blasts opponent, vows to run again in 2024
WAYNE - Incumbent Kane County Board member Kenneth Shepro, who appears to have lost his Republican primary Tuesday to Bill Roth in unofficial results, blasted his challenger for winning with "a campaign of character assassination" and declared he would run again.
"It's a two-year term and at this point, my intention is to get a head start and seek to be reelected in 2024," Shepro said.
All county board seats were up after the 2020 census, with even-numbered districts being 2-year terms and the odd-numbered districts being 4-year terms, so the terms going forward would be staggered.
Shepro, of Wayne, and Roth, of St. Charles, were vying for the 12th District, which includes Wayne and parts of St. Charles and Geneva.
According to unofficial results, Roth had 930 votes to Shepro's 720 votes.
"He won with a campaign of character assassination, false information and hid from any accountability or public discussion of his qualifications or his platform," Shepro said. "He says in his mailing that it's time for new ideas, but he didn't propose a single one other than a general statement that the county needs to have more communication. ... He avoided every opportunity to publicly discuss his positions or answer questions."
In an email response, Roth said that the primary is over and he is now focused on the Nov. 8 General Election.
"Politicians hate to lose their grip on power. This all sounds like sour grapes to me," Roth said.
"I took my campaign door to door and house to house," Roth said. "My record of community involvement, work history and building personal relationships over the years with my neighbors, church and area businesses made this possible."
Shepro also took to task the supposed involvement of former county board chairman Chris Lauzen, who was unopposed in the GOP primary to run for county treasurer.
"Mr. Lauzen basically recruited, financed and backed Mr. Roth, and the avalanche of false information was late and effective and with no opportunity to really respond to it," Shepro said. "The fact is, when you inundate voters with information that's wrong, some of them are going to believe it. This was a good primer on how to run a stealth campaign successfully."
Roth did not comment on whether Lauzen was involved in his campaign, and Lauzen did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Referring to the 2016 election when Lauzen defeated Shepro in the GOP primary for county board chairman, Shepro called Lauzen's support of Roth as a kind of rematch.
"Mr. Lauzen is out for revenge and he won this round," Shepro said.
Though all the mail-in ballots have until July 12 to be received and the official canvassing of primary votes is July 19, Shepro said he did not think there would be enough additional support for him to make a difference.
Barring any ballot upset via mail-in votes, Roth will face Democrat Stephen Bruesewitz in the Nov. 8 general election.