WurfWhile

I haven’t covered this race yet more out of lack of time than interest. Going through the state filings I found it notable that Republican DuPage County Board member Michael Connelly received $7,405.00 from County Board Chair Robert Schillerstrom’s political committee last Thursday. Connelly, who won the District 5 County Board seat as a relative GOP outsider from Lisle in 2006, recently was the only county board vote against placing the quarter point sales tax referendum on the ballot (a referendum Schillerstrom strongly advocated - but is now rendered moot). Of course since Schillerstrom had the votes, maybe he was ok with Connelly not voting his way to stave off the DuPage County budget disaster. Connelly faces Naperville City Councilman Doug Krause, who ran for the seat in 2002 against retiring incumbent State Representative Jim Meyer, and Dave Carlin, who recently won a seat on the College of DuPage board and is former executive director of the DuPage Republican Party.

Robert Schillerstrom has been actively contributing to other County Board members (and prospective members) this primary season - the Daily Herald recently wrote about over $100,000 in donations from Schillerstrom including:

$65,000 to District 2 challenger Laura Fitzpatrick (plus a $25,000 loan) - County Board member Brien Sheahan is the incumbent.

$12,500 to District 3 County Board member Michael McMahon

$12,500 to District 3 County Board member Tom Bennington

$8,000 to District 6 County Board member Jim Zay

$5,000 to District 4 challenger Mary Dickson who faces incumbents Debra Olson and Grant Eckoff, who was defeated in his last primary election.