Hanover Park hopefuls debate ethnic representation in diverse village

The five candidates vying for three available trustee positions on the Hanover Park village board recently debated whether the many different ethnic groups of "America's Global Village" should be represented on the board or whether they were all better served by government experience among their elected officials.

While all agreed some of each was a positive, newcomers Fanny Y. Lopez Benitez and Roberto Sepulveda more favored diverse ethnic representation while incumbents James Kemper, Jon Kunkel and Herb Porter leaned more toward prior experience.

Lopez Benitez described herself as a bicultural, bilingual immigrant woman who could bring a perspective currently lacking on the board - that of the Latino community, which makes up 40 percent of Hanover Park. She said today's officials are blind to some of the inequalities in the community, such as lack of translation of documents into the many languages spoken there, and she believes the village's new tagline adopted for its 60th anniversary last year has yet to be earned.

She added that the board could use more than the single female voice currently on it and balked at the suggestion that lack of prior service on a village committee limited her ability to be an effective, thoughtful trustee.

While knocking on doors for her campaign, Lopez Benitez said she had yet to encounter even one person who even knew who the current trustees were.

Sepulveda also spoke to that point, saying it was the community that should be electing its village board, not the village president selecting it. The village president endorsing a slate has kept Hanover Park from a contested election for a decade, squandering many opportunities for the community to be truly engaged in its government, he said.

Sepulveda said he's been involved with community organizations and efforts that have prepared him for a larger role, even if not membership on a specifically village-run committee. While being a Hispanic man who speaks Spanish and is thus able to represent that community, he said his MBA, professional experience and volunteerism bring much more to his candidacy.

Though Sepulveda is the husband of Village Clerk Eira Corral Sepulveda, all the candidates agreed that his run for the board did not represent a feud between her and village President Rodney Craig, who is endorsing the incumbents.

Kemper said no one's ethnic background should determine his or her ability to represent the entire community. Being half Sicilian himself, he said he was considered brown before a change to the U.S. Census in the 1970s made him white.

"It's not about identity politics. It's about a united community and united village that can collaborate and work with each other, share each other's cultures and learn from each other," Kemper said.

Kunkel said the very point of Hanover Park's current philosophy is that the community cannot be divided into segments, and that it's important for elected officials to speak to and for everyone.

He added that he speaks three languages himself, but that none of them are Spanish. There are 64 languages spoken by Hanover Park residents, but no one who speaks all 64, Kunkel said.

Porter said his representation of the black community is something important to him, but so is his commitment to representing the whole of Hanover Park. He said he is the only black person elected to a municipal office in the Northwest suburbs east of Elgin.

Porter said such representation of ethnic groups is important, but even more important is a demonstration of prior participation in local government through a committee before seeking elected office. While everyone has their own small window on the community through their own experience, participation in a committee expands that view and better prepares one for a role on a government board, he said.

In regard to Hanover Park's tagline, "America's Global Village," Porter said it was adopted both as a statement of where the diverse community is now as well as to be an aspirational goal.

Election Day is Tuesday, April 2.