Burke, newcomers win in District 211

Incumbent Mucia Burke won re-election to the Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 board Tuesday night while fellow incumbent Richard Gerber lost his bid to remain on the board to three newcomers.

Lauanna Recker, Peter Dombrowski and Will Hinshaw will join Burke as winners for the four 4-year seats. With 149 of 149 precincts unofficially reporting, Burke had captured 6,722 votes, Recker had 6,003 and Dombrowski had 5,907 votes. With 5,439 votes, Hinshaw was 219 votes ahead of Gerber.

Edward Yung was next with 4,929 votes, while Robert Lithgow had 4,656 votes. Roman Golash was well out of the running with just 2,368 votes.

"I think people like people who are balanced," Burke said. "I have every intention of working well with others, and I hope everyone else will do the same thing."

Though there was more than one issue in the strongly contested race, one of the most passionate debates concerned whether the district's current financial and taxation policies were overcautious at the expense of taxpayers.

During the campaign, Dombrowski characterized these policies as preparation for a "zombie apocalypse."

Among the aspects of the district's past financial practices debated during the campaign was the use of reserves to begin building new swimming pools at all five high schools.

Critics called the practice excessive, though incumbents Burke and Gerber said the stewardship of the current board has been strong in both balancing the budget and providing programs for students.

One of the side issues of the campaign was the question of who was running with whom. Supported by local Republican leadership, Burke, Hinshaw, Lithgow and Recker appeared at times to be a unified group despite some significant differences in their positions on the district's past performance.

The four Republican-supported candidates regularly denied running as a slate, despite their appearance together on some campaign literature unsigned by any other group or individual.

Yung ran to reclaim a seat on the board he'd lost in the previous election, while Golash was particularly critical of the district's compliance with national Common Core standards and what he described as a failure to teach students about the dangers of radical Islam.

Recker campaigned strongly on making graduates of the district better prepared for the jobs of the present and future. Lithgow sought to combine his professional legal knowledge with his experience as a student of the district to bring a new and different perspective to the board.