With new campaign contributions in tow, Elk Grove mayor announces reelection bid

Already Elk Grove Village’s longest-serving mayor, Craig Johnson announced Tuesday he will seek an unprecedented eighth term in next year’s election.

At the same time, longtime Trustee Chris Prochno — who has been Johnson’s right hand on the village board as long as he’s been mayor — announced she won’t seek another term, wrapping up a 28-year tenure a year from now.

Trustees Jeff Franke, on the elected panel since 2007, and Joseph Bush, appointed to fill a vacancy last year, said they are running.

The village board members announced their intentions at their meeting Tuesday night — practically a year to the date of when their current four-year terms end. Candidates in the April 1, 2025 local elections will start collecting signatures this fall and submit nominating petitions in December.

Elk Grove’s village board — once known for having one of the longest streaks of continuity in the Northwest suburbs — has changed dramatically over the last five years. Trustees Jim Petri and Nancy Czarnik stepped down and passed away shortly thereafter. Sam Lissner didn’t seek another term, and Pat Feichter moved out of state.

“I thought my time was starting to really wind down,” Johnson said. “The amazing thing is I never realized we’d have such a turnover on this board. … We’ve lost a lot of experience and guidance as we move on.”

“My thought was, as we bring new board members on and we work together and learn from each other and understand things, you do need some experience and some mentorship involved in that,” he said.

Johnson is planning to formally kick off his reelection campaign at a fundraiser May 9. Already in the first three months of the year, he collected $77,500 in campaign contributions, and has a total of $224,165 in cash on hand, according to his campaign committee’s quarterly report filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

The latest contributions came from a host of companies that do business with village hall, including $7,500 each from Nicholas & Associates and Wingspan Development Group, the Mount Prospect-based developers Johnson and the village board chose to redevelop the southeast corner of Arlington Heights and Higgins roads.

Other big-dollar donors include developer Mario Gullo of George Gullo Development Corp. — Johnson’s one-time bitter rival in an annexation dispute — who gave $10,000. The Daily Herald reported last month that the developer inked redevelopment and purchase agreements with the village that will allow him to build a full-service truck stop and two warehouses on opposite ends of the Higgins Road commercial corridor.

Also giving $10,000 was Gullo International, a different development firm that is run by a cousin of Mario Gullo.

Johnson, first elected as a village trustee in 1993 and then mayor in 1997, hasn’t been challenged at the ballot box since he defeated Roger Bianco by a 3-1 margin in 2005.

It was only a 2019 term limits referendum campaign led by Johnson critic Tim Burns that was the closest to upsetting Johnson’s elected streak. The Illinois Supreme Court later invalidated the referendum.

The term limits effort was launched just after Johnson surpassed Charles Zettek in April 2019 as the longest-serving mayor of Elk Grove.