Champaign County Board races draw a crowd
URBANA — Democrats in central Champaign will have at least a three-way race next spring in County Board District 6, based on candidate filing Monday morning.
Twelve candidates filed petitions at the Champaign County clerk's office before 8:30 a.m. Monday — the first day of the petition filing period — and three of them were for the county board seat generally bounded by Prospect Avenue on the east, Bloomington Road on the north, Kirby Avenue on the south and Country Fair Drive and Duncan Road on the west.
Eight-year incumbent Pattsi Petrie was among those who filed petitions for the District 6 seat, along with Mike Ingram and Charles Young. They will face off in the March 20, 2018, primary election.
Also filing petitions were Matt Grandone and Jon Rector, both Republicans running for county clerk. The incumbent Republican county clerk, Gordy Hulten, was the only person to file for the newly created position of county executive. Allen Jones filed as a Republican candidate for sheriff and John Farney, currently the county auditor, filed as a Republican candidate for county treasurer.
Other county board candidates filing Monday morning included Republican newcomer Jodi Wolken in District 2, incumbent Republican Jim McGuire in District 4; Democrat Leah Taylor and Republican Tom Dillavou in District 5; Republican Traci Nally in District 9; and Democrat Chris Stohr in District 10.
Nally is a vice president at News-Gazette Media.
The Illinois candidate filing period ends on Dec. 4...
Today's article got into how the Nursing Home issue is shaping the County Board's 6th District Race:
East Central Illinois candidates are off and running
URBANA — Pattsi Petrie, a veteran of seven years on the Champaign County Board and a onetime chair, will face her fifth primary election contest since 2008 next spring.
Petrie, a Democrat who represents District 6 in central Champaign, is being challenged by two other Democrats in the March 20 primary: first-time candidate Mike Ingram and Charles Young, who ran unsuccessfully for the Champaign school board in 2003 and was a candidate for appointment last month to an opening on the Parkland College board.
So far, the Democratic contest in District 6 is one of a handful of contested primary races that developed after the first day of candidate filing on Monday...
Matt Grandone of Urbana and Jon Rector of rural Champaign are running for the Republican nomination for Champaign County clerk. No Democrat had filed yet.
Meanwhile, there's no rest for Petrie, who lost a four-way race for one seat on the board in 2008, finishing second out of four Democrats, but came out on top in another four-way primary race in 2010 and overcame challenges from Josh Hartke in 2012 and Tony Fabri in 2014.
The future of the county nursing home as a county-supported facility undoubtedly will be an issue in the District 6 race. In recent months, Petrie has voted in favor of issuing a request for proposals from private operators who might be interested in buying the facility and also supported a six-month budget for the home for the fiscal year that begins Jan. 1.
Both votes placed her at odds with the majority of other county board Democrats.
Ingram said the nursing home was a "pretty big" factor in his decision to run for the board. He said he supports keeping the facility publicly owned.
"I don't think there's anything more important on the minds of people right now than the nursing home," he said. "But there are plenty of other things that people are talking about when I asked them what they knew about at the local level."
Young also said the nursing home's future is a top concern of voters.
"The hot topic now of course is that nursing home. I'm sorta like still in the middle with that," he said. "I want to protect the (home), but at the same time, what I've been reading and following is the money issue. We'll see how that works out. I'd like to get there and see how that stuff works."
Petrie said she believes the nursing home has to become self-sustaining.
"I have constantly and consistently said that the county needs to be concerned about positioning that nursing home so it will be sustainable not for one or two years, but for a decade," she said. "This roller coaster ride on the nursing home is exhausting everybody, and the county isn't getting any other work done."
Petrie said she isn't troubled by the regular challenges from within her own party.
"I look at that as positive, though," she said. "That means you go out and you talk to your constituents more often. I do retail politics. I knock on doors, every door."
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