Mundelein voters choose Abernathy, Meier, Semple for trustee
Mundelein voters went for familiar faces in Tuesday's village board election.
Veterans Ray Semple and Dawn Abernathy and former trustee Robin Meier were elected to the panel, each getting a 4-year term.
Semple led the field of six candidates with 2,378 votes, unofficial results showed. Abernathy was second with 2,242 votes and Meier was third with 2,206 votes.
Finishing out of the money were: Karthik Chandramouli with 2,112 votes; Scott Black with 2,105 votes; and Jeanne Cygnus with 1,965 votes.
Chandramouli, Cygnus and Meier were with the Mundelein United slate, which was led by mayoral candidate Holly Kim.
Abernathy, Black and Semple campaigned together with incumbent Mayor Steve Lentz but were not part of a formal slate. Lentz appeared headed for a narrow victory on Tuesday.
Semple has been a trustee since 1995, and Abernathy since 2013. Meier was on the board from 2008 to 2015.
The ongoing downtown redevelopment project was one of the big issues of the campaign. While most of the candidates were pleased with the progress downtown, Chandramouli suggested Mundelein create a free wireless internet network there to lure potential customers to the area.
That concept apparently didn't sway voters.
Abernathy said she wants to put a proposal on a future ballot that would let voters decide whether taxes should be increased for road improvements.
The Mundelein United candidates were critical of Lentz's tenure as mayor. They criticized him for controversial comments he made in 2015 about gay marriage and children born out of wedlock.
None of the other trustee candidates defended Lentz's comments, but they weren't as harsh as the Mundelein United team.
The Mundelein United team relied heavily on social media during the campaign, promoting themselves and their campaign appearances on Facebook, in particular.