Bartels out as president in East Dundee
It’s the end of an era in East Dundee politics.
Village President Jerald Bartels lost to Trustee Lael Miller by 19 votes, according to unofficial results. With all precincts reporting, Miller had 265 votes, while Bartels had 246 votes.
When it came to the trustee race, voters only returned one of the two incumbents who were running and welcomed two new comers. According to unofficial tallies, Rob Gorman won a third term in office with 337 votes, and newcomers Kirstin Wood and Dan Selep had 316 and 253 votes respectively. Incumbent Paul VanOstenbridge had 248 votes and challenger Mark Poynor had 167 votes. Poynor said he’s happy for those who won and that he’ll likely try again in two years. VanOstenbridge couldn’t be reached for comment.
Gorman, whose main focus is economic development, said he was proud to be the top vote-getter.
“I’m very humbled that the community re-elected me with that kind of energy,” Gorman said.
Wood, 44, a federal government employee, said she was running to increase community involvement that she says is sorely lacking in the village. She will be the only woman on the board when she’s sworn into office.
“I don’t necessarily like to play that up, I think that my ideas and my perspectives don’t necessarily have anything to do with my gender,” Wood said.
Selep, 44, a building engineer, said his main goals in office, are to bring a Starbucks, Wi-Fi and LED streetlights to the village.
“I think the people would love to have that stuff and I’m definitely going to try to get it,” Selep said.
Meanwhile, neither Bartels nor Miller, a one-term trustee, could be reached for comment Tuesday night.
Bartels, 44, has name recognition in East Dundee. His late grandfather, William Bartels, was in village government for 48 years and served as a trustee and village president.
Bartels was a village trustee from 2001 to 2005, and was elected president in 2005. Two years into his term, Bartels stepped down due to new job duties. He was elected president again in 2009.
Miller, 53, has been a trustee since 2009 and was on the village’s planning and zoning commission before that.
Miller has a background in real estate. Both men agree on most policy issues, but Miller took issue with Bartels’ leadership style, one he says focuses too much on getting involved in divisive personal matters. He pointed to Bartels’ attempt to remove Frank Scarpelli from the plan commission over Scarpelli’s perceived conflict of interest over Walmart moving out of the village and on to land his family owns in Carpentersville.
Bartels said attempting to remove Scarpelli was the right thing to do.