Young blood comes to DuPage County Board

Tony Michelassi just got promoted.

The 23-year-old grocery store photo clerk from Aurora was as surprised as everyone else when he became one of three Democratic candidates to seize a seat on the all-Republican DuPage County Board Tuesday.

"Honestly, I hoped that I would perform admirably and pull a decent third place finish and get my name out there for a race in the future," Michelassi said.

Of the 10 Democratic candidates seeking seats on the county board, Michelassi was the longest of long-shots. Young, inexperienced and hailing from an area of the county that is considered a local GOP stronghold in an already-dark red county, Michelassi's chances looked slim, even with the Barack Obama factor.

But county Democratic leaders saw something.

"If you ever listen to Tony Michelassi speak, he's very intelligent and a quick learner," said DuPage County Democratic Party Chairman Bob Peickert. "He said, 'Put me in there, I can do the job.' When someone like Tony comes and says they want to run, the age thing certainly causes us to think about whether he'll be able to compete, and he's shown us he could."

Peickert isn't too far removed himself from being the guy on the bench asking to carry the ball.

Earlier this year he was an outsider in his own party.

It wasn't until the day after the Feb. 5 primary that the leader of a splinter group of Democrats called Operation: Turn DuPage Blue put on the full-court press for power of the county party.

Seizing on the simple fact that more DuPage voters pulled Democratic ballots than Republican ballots for the first time in anyone's memory, Peickert made a name for himself promoting the party's newfound prominence and went to the county party's convention in March looking for a larger role.

He unseated party chairman Rob Bisceglie by a wide margin.

"I think that was huge," said Dirk Enger, a Democrat from Winfield who also won a county board seat Tuesday. "It brought this broad base that we've never had with the local Democratic Party."

Peickert's first order of business after taking over the chairman's post was finding bodies to fill holes on the November ballot. He found three more county board candidates - including Michelassi - and two candidates for countywide jobs. With the success of Tuesday night, Peickert is hopeful that Democratic ballot spots in the future will be easier to fill.

"I think people will see it's possible for us to get Democrats elected," he said. "People are already talking to us about running in two years."

Enger, Michelassi and fellow Democrat county board member Rita Gonzalez of Addison will be sworn in Dec. 1. Enger said he's ready to get to work.

"When I went door-to-door I heard about the concerns people were expressing to me," he said, "and there's a lot of people hurting out there."

That's partly why he said he's pledging to take just $38,000 of his $50,000 county board salary and give the rest to a charity. He said he hasn't picked the charity yet.

Michelassi said he would also only take part of the board salary and donate the rest, even though he plans to quit his grocery store gig and make the county board his full-time job.

"One of the first things I'd like to do is put together a resolution lowering our salaries," Michelassi said.

County board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom has reached out to the Democrats to congratulate them on their victories. He said having multiple Democrats on the board for the first time since the 1970s isn't much different from having anyone new on the board.

"Everyone who comes onto the board is different from who we've seen before," he said. "Philosophies are not as important as problem-solving."

Schillerstrom said the "fates aligned" to help the Democrats win three seats Tuesday. The combination of being in Obama's home state, the poor economy and being atop the ballot helped, he said.

"But if you look at it, of the 12 open seats only one incumbent was not re-elected," he said. "I don't think that's a referendum for change in local government."

In fact, only board member Yolanda Campuzano was unseated Tuesday by Gonzalez. In Michelassi's and Enger's districts retiring board members opened seats there, and the two incumbent Republicans in those races also won.

"It could have been much worse," said former DuPage GOP Chairman state Sen. Kirk Dillard. "Losing just three out of 18 board seats along with keeping every countywide elected office would be the envy of virtually every county Republican organization elsewhere."

Michelassi said the pressure of being a Democrat on the board is lessened because of the two colleagues joining him.

"I definitely didn't want to be the only Democrat on the board," he said. "I could say the pressure is going to be massive, but there are three of us to handle that."