The Northbrook firefighter who fell short April 4 in his bid for a seat on the Northbrook Village Board said he believes he should be named to the fill a now-empty seat on the plan commission.
Unofficial vote totals on the Cook County Clerk’s website showed that firefighter/paramedic Scott Bush finished with about 18 percent backing of Northbrook voters, incumbent Kathryn Ciesla took about 28 percent of votes cast and plan commission member Muriel Collison and community relations commission member Jason Han both had about 27 percent.
“The voters spoke,” Bush said in conceding the election. “It was a learning experience. Not having any political history, going against the formidable caucus, I think I did pretty well. I’ll be following them, keeping them honest, and I’ll be seeing you in two years.”
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While Northbrook failed to get its first firefighter-trustee, it gained its first Korean-American municipal representative in Han. He said the challenge from Bush paid off for him and for voters.
“If the election hadn’t been competitive, I wouldn’t have had to work so hard, knock on so many doors, learn the village,” said Han, a former Pioneer Press photographer. “Democracy wins.”
Ciesla said she agreed.
“I think Northbrook voters are smart,” she said. “We ran a respectful, appropriate campaign, did everything the voters deserved, met people and put ourselves in position to listen, and that paid off.”
Bush said he believed he should be appointed to Collison’s seat on the plan commission, a top appointive panel sometimes viewed as being a kind of “on-deck circle” for the Village Board.
“A big portion of my campaign was wanting to keep the development in check, so I’d like to take (Collison’s) spot on the plan commission,” Bush said Monday. “Just another way try and help out in the community, help people who have felt they’ve been ignored.”
If appointed, Bush could follow in the footsteps of Collison as well as long-time trustee A.C. Buehler, who served for years on the plan commission before being elected to the Village Board.
“I just think, if I decide to make a run in two years, I could serve on the plan commission before that. It’s up to (Village President Sandy Frum) and the board to put me on or not,” he said.
Frum said she had heard Bush’s request but that there was a pre-determined vetting for candidates for the plan commission.
“‘I told him that we have a process in place, which is contingent on a plan commission (candidate being) interview(ed) by the board,” Frum said. “We have a lot of interest in the plan commission.”
Bush is a former member of the Northbrook Foreign Fire Insurance Board, which meets four times a year, and is responsible for department taxes collected in unincorporated areas.
Bush raised eyebrows during the campaign when he asked supporters to cast only one vote, for him, and to leave blank their other two selections.
His opponents complained about his campaigning for so-called “bullet voting,” though they say there’s nothing illegal about such requests. Bush’s competitors also said he had conflicts in his status as a firefighter, since he would have effectively been operating on the board as “his own boss,” as a caucus leader maintained. Bush’s opponents also acknowledge that state law allows his candidacy.
Nancy Artz said she voted for Bush because she knew and trusted him, and followed his instructions to withhold her other two votes.
“I don’t know the others very well, and I wanted someone with fresh eyes,” said Artz, a District 30 School Board member.
Madge Beerman said she voted for the three candidates slated by the Caucus.
“Not that I have anything against Scott Bush,” she said. “But the (members of the Caucus slating committee) are intelligent, knowledgeable people. He should have gone before them just like the others.”
Bush said after the election that he hasn’t decided whether a second run would find him going through the caucus slating process.
“I’m not ruling it out either way,” he said.
Han said that during the campaign, he met many Korean-Americans, and he thinks he impressed on them that local leaders are just regular people, and that they represent all citizens.
That took a lot of convincing, he said.
“A lot of East Asian cultures emphasize saving face, being respectful, not rocking the boat,” Han said.
At the same time, Han said that as he talked to hundreds of Korean-American voters, he felt pressured.
“So many people told me, ‘If you lose, it will be devastating, because you have a good shot, so if you lose, it means we’re not on equal footing,'” he said.
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Ciesla said she thinks that Han helped get out the Korean-American vote, but caucus candidates also had the advantage of campaigning with Frum, who was popular enough to draw no challengers during the caucus process last year, and no independent opposition, either. They reported spending many days campaigning door-to-door.
Conversely, in 2005, most challenged caucus candidates said they did little campaigning
.
Northbrook caucus-slated candidates running without opposition in this election included Village Clerk Debbie Ford, Northbrook Park District commissioners Michael Schyman, Penny Randel and Lisa Chalem, Northbrook Public Library trustees Carlos Frum, Jami Xu and Abby Young; and Tony Forchetti, Michael Gilmore, Louis Gross and Jennifer Gallinson in Elementary School District 28. Keith Karchmar, Ursula Sedlak, and Jeffrey Zuercher, slated by the District 30 Caucus, ran unopposed for the school board in that combined Glenview/Northbrook district.
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