Acerra will run against Smith-Esters for Ward 5 for Galesburg City Council

GALESBURG — Another challenger has entered the race for a seat on the Galesburg City Council.

Heather Acerra, a 54-year-old local business owner, announced last Friday that she will run to represent Ward 5 on Galesburg City Council.

Jaclyn Smith-Esters now represents Ward 5 and has filed with the Galesburg Election Commission to run to maintain her seat. The election for city council members to represent Wards 1, 3, 5 and 7 will take place April 4, 2023.

“I think that there are some efforts in place to address legitimate concerns that have not been completely thought out and I want to be involved in a positive way to address the issues that might prevent us from growing as a community in a positive way,” Acerra said on her decision to run.

Acerra and her husband are the inventors and founders of Lux Blox, a construction toy company that is headquartered in Galesburg. She is also currently an employee benefits consultant at Cottingham & Butler, an insurance broker in Dubuque, Iowa.

Acerra engaged with city government before as co-founder of Citizens For The Quiet Zone, a residents group that organized and advocated for changes the city of Galesburg made to a number of its railroad crossings. Among other things, the changes made it so railroad engineers were not allowed to sound their horns inside designated “quiet zones,” including in four of the city's busiest sub-divisions.

Acerra worked as the assistant dean of students at Knox College for three years, helped run the Acerra Studio of Art with her husband for four years, formed the Costa Scouts group at Costa Catholic School and the coed youth program The Young Marines. She said she has worked in human resources leadership positions and related consulting for over 25 years.

If elected, Acerra said she would like to promote workforce development in Galesburg — as in grow the tax base, get more businesses and make sure that young people are trained and educated so they can be productive citizens. She would also like to address the abandoned buildings in the city that are creating “dangerous situations” and driving down neighbors’ home values.

“I think the fact that I have worked in business for most of my career would be an asset,” Acerra said. “I know how to approach problems in a rational, rather than emotional, way. I have experience working within a budget, I have experience within organizations having to reach across departments and find common interest to move projects forward.”

In Acerra’s written announcement letter, she said her experience with creating Lux Blox informed her personal philosophy to “define your goal and consult the stakeholders” before taking on any endeavor.

“For instance, before obligating our citizens to generations of debt and higher taxes to pay for something like a new community center, we should first connect with and hear from those individuals already working in the areas such a community center would serve,” Acerra wrote in her announcement letter. “We need to be thoughtful, deliberate, and considerate when making such big decisions with our taxpayers' money.”

In order to be on the ballot in the city council election, candidates must acquire a minimum of 25 petition signatures from the community and file those signatures with the Galesburg Board of Elections by Dec. 19. Candidates must also have lived in the ward they are seeking to represent for at least one year.

Ward 5 is mainly located in the center of the city and slightly extends into the west side of the city.

Acerra was born in Galesburg at Galesburg Cottage Hospital. She graduated from Galesburg High School in 1986 and graduated from Knox College in 1990. After graduating from Knox she moved to Chicago where she got her master’s degree in Industrial Relations at Loyola University. She returned to Galesburg in 1998 after the birth of her first son and has lived in Ward 5 since.

Acerra said her family has been in Galesburg since the late 1800s as her great grandfather, Axel Hansen, was a classmate of Carl Sandburg and her father, Brad Ziegler, served on the Galesburg Police Department and her mother, Ritza Zeigler, was a nurse at Cottage Hospital.

With Acerra’s announcement, there are now two contested races in the upcoming election for the odd-numbered seats on the Galesburg City Council.

Steve Cheesman, a retired Education District 205 teacher, announced last week that he would run to represent Ward 7. Larry Cox now represents Ward 7 and has filed with the Galesburg Election Commission to run to retain his seat.

Besides Cox and Smith-Esters, the other incumbents First Ward City Council Member Bradley Hix and Third Ward City Council Member Kevin Wallace have also filed with the Galesburg Election Commission to run in the April election.

This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: Heather Acerra to challenge Jaclyn Smith-Esters in race for Ward 5