Villegas leading in the Democratic primary race for Kane County recorder

Marisela Villegas of Aurora was leading over Brenda Rodgers of Elgin in the Democratic Party primary for Kane County Recorder of Deeds Tuesday evening.

As of 9:45 p.m., Villegas had 9,848 votes to Rodgers’ 9,426, according to unofficial results.

The winner will face Republican Sandy Wegman of Elgin in the November general election.

Wegman has been recorder for 28 years. She was unopposed in the Republican primary.

Villegas has worked for the recorder for two years. This is her first run for elected office.

Rodgers is a real estate agent with her own firm. She also is a former Elgin city councilwoman. This is her third run for recorder.

The recorder’s office maintains a permanent archive of records, particularly property transactions such as mortgages and deeds. It also records liens, court judgments, plats of subdivision, ordinances and annexation agreements, articles of incorporation, records related to dissolution of corporations and Uniform Commercial Code filings.

Rodgers said she wants to make the public more aware of what the recorder does, including that the office can maintain people’s military discharge records. She also said the office should accept debit and credit cards for payments.

Rodgers said the recorder should do more to publicize how people can avoid real estate scams and frauds, including the Property Watch service the office has offered for eight years. Property Watch notifies the owner of record if somebody tries to record something against a property.

Villegas said she wants to move images of older documents onto the recorder’s website so people could view them without having to come into the Geneva office. She said the current website only shows documents going back to the 1960s.

Rodgers expressed no opinion on whether the recorder’s office should merge with the county clerk’s office. She noted more than 80 Illinois counties have combined offices, but that in many recording is a separate division or department.

Villegas said she didn’t see how it would improve efficiency, given that county clerk employees would have to be taught how to record and maintain documents.