Carpentersville Trustee Sigwalt says goodbye to politics
When retiring Carpentersville Trustee Judy Sigwalt moved to town in 1982, she hadn't been involved in politics.
But a threat to her child care business ultimately pushed Sigwalt from community volunteer work to a position on the village ordinance committee. From there she went to the zoning board of appeals and then on to the village board in 1999.
Sigwalt was state certified as a home child care provider for up to eight children back in 1989. She was taking care of five kids when she found out she was in violation of a village ordinance that allowed only three.
Fighting to get that ordinance changed and winning helped Sigwalt develop a vested interest in politics that she has kept to this day.
But after 21 years, Sigwalt said, it's time to shift gears. With her husband on the cusp of retirement, Sigwalt has decided against running for a fourth term on the village board.
“I gave a lot of my good years to everybody else,” Sigwalt said. “It's time for us.”
There have been challenges and frustrations for Sigwalt as a trustee but she looks back fondly at her years on the board and thanks the residents for continuing to support her.
When she started, Sigwalt said, the village finances were a mess, there was little stability in the staff, and problems among strong personalities caused a roadblock for progress.
Her previous experience on the board of the Jaycees didn't prepare Sigwalt for these types of problems.
“Your first and main priority is to get your goals accomplished,” Sigwalt said. “The (Jaycees) board always worked harmoniously because we had the same goals.
“Politics is different.”
But Sigwalt learned. She helped straighten out the finances, staff turnover decreased and things did get done.
Sigwalt said her main joy in office was helping raise funds for projects that didn't fit into the budget a $10,000 piece of playground equipment and enough money to keep the DARE program going.
There were hard votes, including a recent one to raise taxes, but Sigwalt said she has tried to remain true to her own convictions as well as receptive to public input.
Fellow Trustee Kay Teeter said Sigwalt's research has always been an identifying trait of her time in office.
“Hopefully we find that in the next person who is going to fill her spot,” Teeter said. “That they, too, care enough to do their own research and get the feedback from the residents.”
Sigwalt said she is proud of the action she took in 2006 against illegal immigration, though the ordinance she and Paul Humpfer advocated has been tabled pending the results of a lawsuit out of Hazleton, Penn., whose local ordinance was the model for Carpentersville's. The ordinance aimed to address illegal immigration by making it a crime to rent to or employ undocumented immigrants.
Humpfer said Sigwalt has been helpful and supportive throughout his five years on the board, both when he worked with her and when he worked in opposition to her. He said she has done a “terrific job.”
“We don't always agree on everything, of course, but still even though we don't agree we still get along,” Humpfer said.
Sigwalt thinks the Winchester Glen subdivision was a great accomplishment, and that the commitment to a new public works facility was completely worth the money.
Sigwalt also is proud to be part of a team that brought big businesses like Dominick's, Menard's, Fresh Market and Tractor Supply Co. to Carpentersville and the veterans memorial to Carpenter Park.
The next stage of her life will likely be outside of Carpentersville and Illinois, where Sigwalt has lived her whole life. The plan is to move to Tennessee in the next couple of years with her husband to be closer to family. She wants to go back to school to study geriatrics and open a senior day care home with her younger sister.
But Sigwalt will always have plenty of framed certificates and plaques highlighting the major accomplishments of her public service career.
“It's been a wonderful, wonderful chapter of my life, but it's time to move on,” Sigwalt said.