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Election season starts in Wilmette
10/22/2012 Wilmette Village of Wilmette Board of Trustee members Bob Bielinski (left) and Mike Basil walk to the Wilmette train station on Monday, October 22, 2012. Both Bielinski and Basil are running for Village Board President in April. | michael jarecki ~ for Sun-Times Media
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Updated: December 20, 2012 7:44PM
WILMETTE — The 2013 election season officially opened this week; Monday was the first day electoral hopefuls could file their candidacy petitions. By midweek, some had filed for every Wilmette area race, making some of those races contested.
People have until 5 p.m. Dec. 26 to file to run in the April, 2013 consolidated elections. The original deadline had been 5 p.m. Dec. 24, but the county extended it to the day after Christmas, rather than require government officials to stay open until 5 p.m. Christmas Eve.
Two sitting trustees who earlier announced their intentions to run for Wilmette village president made it official.
Mike Basil and Bob Bielinski both were elected in 2011, Basil to his second term and Bielinski to his first. If either man wins the presidency being vacated by Chris Canning, someone will have to be appointed to serve out the remainder of their four-year terms.
Three board seats now filled by Trustees Cameron Krueger, Ted McKenna and Alan Swanson will be open in April.
Swanson is leaving the board after serving two terms, the longstanding limit set by village resolution. However, Krueger filed for a second term, as did newcomer Carol Ducommon. Ducommon is vice president of the New Trier Township High School District 203 Board, and has served on that board since 2005.
McKenna had not filed, or indicated whether he would seek another four years on the board by Dec. 18.
At the Wilmette Park District, the four-year seats currently held by James Brault, Mike Murdock, and Darrell Graham are open, as is the unexpired term filled since 2010 by John Olvany.
Olvany and Graham filed Monday as did newcomer Amy Wolfe. Wolf and Graham are filing for two of the four-year seats, as is Olvany, who was appointed two years ago to an unexpired term. That unexpired two-year term is also open, but no one has yet filed for it.
On Wednesday Bryan C. Abbott also filed for a four-year term.
Brault, the current board president, said Wednesday that he had not yet decided on whether to seek another term.
In Wilmette School District 39, where the seats of John Flanagin, Cindy Levine, Kimberly Alcantara and Pamela Davidson are open, Alcantara, Flanagin and Levine filed Monday for a new term. Non-incumbents Jasmine Hauser and Mark Steen also filed, district spokeswoman Holly Goldin said Wednesday.
