A Northbrook firefighter said Monday that he’s running for village trustee in the April 4 election as an independent.
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Scott Bush, 38, said he has been thinking about running for at least six years, but didn’t make his decision until after the Northbrook Caucus process was over. He said he especially wants to give voice to Northbrook residents who have, like him, grown up in Northbrook, left, then returned to raise their children.
He said that with the 125-acre Green Acres Country Club headed toward development, he wants to make sure that Northbrook retains its “small-town feeling, and the schools are not overrun.”
His decision, if he follows through and registers to run by Dec. 19, would change the electoral dynamic in Northbrook, said Dan Sideman, this year’s head of the caucus.
“We were just going to remind everybody to go out and vote,” he said. “Now, it looks like we’re going to have a campaign.”
Bush said he’s prepared to fund a campaign.
“I’ve set aside some of my personal funds,” he said. “It could get expensive.”
But campaign spending is not the only complication coming up in the April 4 balloting. Usually, the municipal election is relatively lightly voted in Northbrook, but this year, Glenview-Northbrook District 30 is likely to have a bond referendum on the ballot, with roughly half the 7,280 district voters residing in Northbrook.
Bush, a District 28 resident, said with ties to all of Northbrook through his history in the town and two businesses, he has appeal throughout the village.
He said he is responsible for most of the management of his family’s Northbrook-based concrete business, A.D. Bush Concrete Construction, and about two years ago, he founded a local home-watching service for vacationers. He started as a paid, on-call firefighter in 1999, and went full-time about five years later. He has four children, all in public school.
The Northbrook Caucus Village Board Committee this fall chose for its slate incumbent Northbrook Village President Sandy Frum and three candidates for trustee: incumbent Kathryn Ciesla; Plan Commission Member Muriel Collison; and Community Relations Commission Member Jason Han.
The committee did not choose veteran trustee Todd Heller. Heller did not try to win slating at the Nov. 13 town meeting.
Independents have won in Northbrook before. Most notably, an independent slate of Gene Marks for president and Michael Scolaro and Julius Kole for trustee triumphed in 2005. Then, their victory was partly attributed to much harder campaigning than that of the caucus candidates, most of whom weren’t even in town in the week before election.
One caucus trustee candidate did win that year. Heller managed to win his seat. George Stutz, a trustee candidate running independently in 2005, fell 40 votes short of Heller, 20 behind Kole.
“It’s a hard row to hoe as a sole independent candidate,” Scolaro observed Tuesday.”You’re running against a lot of different people. But it clearly can be done.”
In 2009, Marks and Kole were defeated, but Scolaro, then running with the caucus, prevailed. He chose not to seek a fourth term this year.
Bush said he plans to meet with Heller soon, but wouldn’t say what he plans to discuss.
In 1997, Bruce Leibow, a member of the Plan Commission, was left off the caucus slate, but ran anyway, garnering 1,655 votes, almost 600 short of enough to win one of four seats. In 1985, independent Dick Falcone beat incumbent Village President Lucinda Kasperson, the caucus candidate.
Twitter @IrvLeavitt
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