Kurtz eyes County Board
By KEVIN P. CRAVER - kcraver@nwherald.com
McHenry County College trustee Donna Kurtz has decided to run for McHenry County Board.
Kurtz will seek the Republican nomination in the February 2010 primary. She lives in County Board District 2, which covers northwestern Algonquin Township and a sliver of Grafton Township, including parts of Crystal Lake, Lake in the Hills and Lakewood.
She said she wanted to increase transparency on the County Board if she were elected, particularly when it came to land holdings of board members in the wake of the 2030 Land Use Plan being finalized. Kurtz, 50, a financial adviser and former IT manager, said she wanted to pursue live broadcasting of county meetings on TV and on the Internet.
“If we are transparent, we avoid corruption, and if we have an honest government, we have money being spent wisely and we focus on the needs of the taxpayers,” Kurtz said.
Kurtz said she became interested in running by following county government’s handling of an alleged brain cancer cluster in McCullom Lake, which 29 lawsuits since 2006 blame on industrial pollution from neighboring manufacturers.
Kurtz will continue to serve as a trustee during her campaign. She was last elected in 2007. She said she wanted to continue to support her colleagues and the college’s new interim president during a “sensitive” time in which the college has gone through five interim and full-time presidents since February.
The college board censured Kurtz and another board member two years ago for speaking out against the college’s failed plan to build a minor-league baseball stadium on its Route 14 campus. Kurtz said her willingness to oppose a plan she said would have failed and cost the taxpayers millions shows her worth as an elected official.
“I think what makes me unique in this election, and among most public officials, is that I’m willing to stand up against a bad idea,” Kurtz said.
Both incumbent District 2 board members, Lyn Orphal and County Board Chairman Ken Koehler, both Republicans from Crystal Lake, intend to seek re-election in 2010. Two County Board seats are up in each of the board’s six districts.
Kurtz, who has an MBA from University of Illinois at Springfield, lives in Crystal Lake with her husband, Paul. She is the daughter of former state Rep. Rosemary Kurtz, who represented the 64th District.
