Endorsements: Fitch and Bray-Parker for Wheaton City Council

The race for two at-large seats on the Wheaton City Council includes one-term incumbent Suzanne Fitch, high school civics teacher Erica Bray-Parker and Ronald Almiron, who has run for and lost seats on the city council and county board.

Fitch's knowledge of the issues facing the city is as obvious as her enthusiasm for the position. She is an attorney and the only woman on the city council.

Bray-Parker, who teaches social studies in Glenbard High School District 87, sees public service as a natural extension of her profession - practicing what she preaches to her students.

Almiron lost in the 2015 election in which Fitch won. The previous year he lost a race for a seat on the county board. He admits he hadn't had enough experience at the time, but since then he has gotten involved both with the city's planning and zoning board and the Wheaton Mosquito Abatement District board.

But Almiron, an attorney, quit his seat on the planning and zoning board prematurely. And we've seen evidence that he will argue an obscure point well past the point of usefulness.

Bray-Parker did raise a few eyebrows when she sent a postcard to four businesses in town that displayed Jeannie Ives campaign signs during the former city council member's run for the governor's seat. Bray-Parker told the businesses she could not support a business that supported Ives. This came after Ives posted a campaign ad that offended a variety of groups.

Almiron's tendency for combativeness, his departure from the planning board and his lack of traction with voters in the past gives us pause.

Fitch and Bray-Parker are endorsed.