Two vie to replace Meyer in District 48

It's been a steady climb for Republican Mike Connelly, from village to county to now possibly state government. A seat in the Illinois House may become next rung on his political ladder, after the DuPage County Board member emerges from his 48th District race next month against Democrat Joe Heneghan.

In contrast to Connelly's plateau approach - aspiring to higher and higher positions - Heneghan, 52, is positioned a fair leap away from victory. A nearly 30-year employee of Alcatel-Lucent, the Woodridge engineer was asked by local Democrats last spring to fill the spot.

Born in Cook County, Heneghan and his wife, Barbara, moved to Woodridge in 1980, where they raised their three children, Katie, Brendan and Brian.

Heneghan has never held a public office, although he did once run for the Woodridge Park District board. He serves on the executive board for the Woodridge Soccer Association - a position in which he says he's gained experience solving problems and planning programs for more than 1,000 children.

Retiring Rep. Jim Meyer, who has represented the 48th District since 1993, is the Republican spokesman for the telecommunications committee. Pointing to his own work on several 911 systems in DuPage County, Heneghan said he'd like to continue in a similar vein.

"In areas of technology with regard to the Internet, with regard to how things work and those kind of issues, I think I would be more qualified than many people," Heneghan said. "So from that perspective I think I'm very well qualified."

Heneghan is running without the help of funding: As of June 30, he had filed no fundraising forms with the state board of elections. Connelly, on the other hand, had gathered $24,755 in individual contributions and was holding $21,633 in cash as of the same date.

Connelly, 43, launched his bid in the middle of a four-year term he's serving on the DuPage County Board. Before he was elected to the board in 2006, the former Illinois state's attorney spent five years as a Lisle Village Trustee.

A Lisle resident for 20 years, he and his wife, Lisa, have three children.

Connelly's record as a trustee testifies to the independent decisions he would make as a state representative, he said. He tells a story about a Village Board meeting at which Mayor Joseph Broda tried to slip in a $500,000 proposal for extravagant improvements to the village hall in the absence of three board members. Aghast at the suggestion, Connelly exited the meeting, thus forcing the board to table the issue due to lack of a quorum.

"I didn't feel like I was a hero because I felt like I was making everyone look bad, but you have to do that," Connelly said. "So downstate, irrespective of what the caucus says, I'm going to do what's right. I'd just as soon come back home and look in the mirror and say, 'I did what's right.'"

Connelly also helped to forge a partnership between the village and Benedictine University to construct a sports complex at the university, which opened in 2005. As a County Board member, he's taken on a similar public/private partnership called Choose DuPage: the county's first economic development organization, which has been invigorated over the past year.

With his instrumental work on Choose DuPage, and by heading the county's economic development committee, Connelly has carved a niche for himself as a proponent for DuPage businesses. He says he looks forward to continuing his work at the state level. If Illinois doesn't cut regulations, create a better economic environment and market its offerings across the nation, business owners are going to "head south and get out of town," he said.

"The state has so many great assets: the city of Chicago, world-class airports, coal deposits that could make us as rich as Texas if we could harness clean coal energy, farmland as fertile as there is in the world," Connelly said. "We need to articulate that nationwide."

As for balancing the state budget, Connelly emphasizes meeting the "core competencies" of law enforcement, stormwater and transportation. Just like DuPage County was on the verge of making major budget cuts last year, he said he's prepared to do the same to the state budget - which he says is filled with all sorts of needless spending.

"The state is spending $120,000 on Ukrainian Easter eggs," he said. "I'm finding all sorts of fun stuff in the budget.

From his experience on the municipal and county levels, he says he understands how statewide issues come back to affect the district. He says that's why residents of the 48th District - which extends from Butterfield Road down to 87th Street and includes the eastern half of Naperville, western Lisle and Woodridge and part of southern Wheaton - should vote for him: to put a representative in Springfield who understands the impact of some of the decisions coming back to Naperville.

Heneghan didn't have any specific suggestions for how to balance the state budget, but agreed that there need to be program cuts and some minimal tax increases. His list of priorities seems to reflect interests closely tied to his personal life and interests.

One priority is education, because his children just went through the education system. Another is conservation and clean water, after he protested the BP plant that was seeking to discharge into Lake Michigan last year. And ever since he received quadruple bypass surgery just a few months ago, he said he's been particularly concerned about heart health.

Heneghan, who has never met Connelly, leveled some criticism at his opponent, accusing Connelly of failing to respond to a federal class-action lawsuit filed by a Lisle family last year. Susan and Jeffrey Srail accused the village of Lisle and a water company for allegedly failing to provide enough water pressure to extinguish a fire.

But by the time the lawsuit was filed in May 2007, Connelly was no longer a village trustee. And it was only filed after a CBS investigative report highlighting the situation was published.

Heneghan says he's sufficiently shown a track record of the needs of the community, even without serving in an elected position.

"I have a good reputation with regard to that, with people coming to me and me being responsive," Heneghan said. "And I think that differentiates me from him."