Sligting, Fernandez fail in Elgin council bids
Dems Carol Rauschenberger, Deborah Willis, Ana Ortiz and William Becker continue in race for Elgin Township board
ELGIN — On a day when several polling sites reported not a single vote cast at their locations, a field that once had six candidates vying to fill the special two-year term on the Elgin City Council became four Tuesday night.
Results as of 10 p.m. indicated area businessman Michael Warren led all competitors with 722 votes in Kane and Cook counties combined, according to Kane County Clerk John Cunningham.
Attorney Emi Morales was in second with 533 total votes, former Elgin City Council member Brenda Rodgers was third with a total of 359, and former Civil Service Commissioner Michael Robins was in fourth place with total of 344.
Southwest Area Neighbors President Charlene Sligting was fifth with 292 votes, according to the tentative figures, while Hoffman Estates police Officer Al Fernandez finished sixth with 107 votes.
“I’m very proud and humbled with those results,” Warren said. “But with such low voter turnout, there is a quite of bit of work to be done to educate the voters that this an important election.”
Fewer than 5 percent of Elgin’s registered voters participated in this election, according to Cunningham, with some precincts reportedly receiving no votes all day.
The primary was held to narrow the field of candidates running for the council seat vacated by former council member Mike Powers, who resigned last year.
The four now will appear on the April 7 ballot, which also will have a field of 10 candidates competing for the three four-year term seats in contention in April, including incumbent council members Robert Gilliam, Juan Figueroa and John Walters.
Morales said she is looking forward to continuing her campaign and that she will keep with her strategy of meeting with more people to convey her ideas.
“I’m very excited and eager to move on,” she said. “I’m really keeping this low-key and community-oriented, and I’m going to keep that my focus.”
In the race to see who will make up the Democratic field of trustee candidates for the Elgin Township Board, Carol Rauschenberger, Deborah Willis, Ana Ortiz and William Becker won the right to challenge their Republican counterparts in the April 7 election.
