Huntley deadlocks on trustee appointment
A move to appoint a former Huntley trustee who’d lost his village board seat in the last election, hasn’t gone over very well.
The board deadlocked by a 3-3 vote last Thursday on the nomination of Jayant Kadakia, who was a one-term trustee before losing his seat in the spring election.
He was hoping to serve out the two years remaining on Paul Mercer’s term. Earlier this fall, Mercer moved out of his home in Sun City, Huntley, and relocated to Sun City Vistoso in Oro Valley, Ariz.
Kadakia acknowledges he approached Village President Chuck Sass for the nomination because he’s interested in building on the work he started during his term, which includes a focus on ensuring the village’s water system can handle the construction boom he expects once the Route 47 interchange with I-90 is completed.
Kadakia, a retired environmental engineer, already represents Huntley on the McHenry County Ground Water Task Force and on the Northwest Water Planning Area Alliance.
And he’s confident he would have been the best pick for the trustee job.
“They don’t have my expertise and my background,” Kadakia said of whoever eventually gets the seat. “I can bet on that.”
Even so, trustees Nick Hanson, John Piwko and Pam Fender voted against Kadakia’s appointment.
Fender doesn’t have an issue with Kadakia, but the way the matter came up Thursday leaves a bad taste in her mouth. In her view, Sass tried to push the matter through, knowing he didn’t have the board’s full support.
“He knew we rejected his first choice weeks ago and I was expecting a second choice to be out there,” Fender said, adding that Kadakia’s possible appointment was discussed and essentially rejected in closed session just before Mercer left the board. “Personally, I like Jay and he’s a nice man and I’ve had a good working relationship, but several of us didn’t like the way Chuck handled this.”
Fender also pointed out that Kadakia lost his re-election bid for one of three open seats in the spring — he placed fourth in the contest — and that there was feeling among the dissenting trustees that the voters wanted new blood.
But Trustee Niko Kanakaris backs Kadakia and sees his fourth-place finish in another light.
“He was the next highest vote-getter ... and the people of Huntley voted for him for a reason,” Kanakaris said. “He qualified to be on the ballot and he knows a lot of the way we run our things there and he’s qualified to do a great job.”
Sass did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.
The board has 60 days from Mercer’s Sept. 22 resignation to seat a replacement.