Sprawka, Spacone, Gannon claim Lake Zurich trustee seats

Neither slate running for the three open seats on the Lake Zurich village board won a clean sweep, according to unofficial results.

Incumbents Jonathan W. Sprawka and Marc Spacone, who ran on the Lake Zurich Progress slate, and challenger Janice Gannon from the LZ Values slate claimed victories late Tuesday night with all precincts, early voting and vote by mail ballots counted.

Sprawka had 1,093 votes, followed by Spacone with 1,055 votes and Gannon with 1,021 votes.

"I'm happy that voters trust the work I've been able to do is good," Spacone said. "We're going to continue the steady progress we have in place and continue to be open-minded about what we have in the community."

Sprawka and Spacone ran on the Lake Zurich Progress slate with fellow incumbent John Shaw. Shaw was fourth with 956 votes.

Gannon ran on the LZ Values slate with Michael Paulus and former village trustee Jeff Halen. Paulus has 937 votes and Halen has 913 votes.

How best to spark downtown development has been one of the many issues facing Lake Zurich that the two slates differed over during the campaign.

Over the years, the village has invested $16 million to buy property downtown, but has yet to hit on a successful strategy to revitalize the area.

The incumbents said they hear from developers that they need more downtown residents in order to attract new downtown businesses. However, the LZ Values slate maintained the village doesn't need more downtown residential units and that if developers build commercial, area residents will spend money downtown.