Jim Dey: Dems meet tonight to fill Champaign County Board seat

Mar. 19—One down and one to go.

When Wayne Williams recently moved to Chicago, he left not one, but two elective public offices vacant.

He was both the assessor of Cunningham Township (the City of Urbana) and a Champaign County Board member representing District 11 in Urbana.

The Urbana City Council appointed Ivana Owana, Williams' deputy, to the assessor's post as of Feb. 13.

Democratic Party chairman Mike Ingram informed party members Thursday that a 7 p.m. Sunday Zoom meeting has been scheduled to fill Williams' seat on the county board.

A handful of Democratic committee members whose precincts — in whole or in part — make up District 11 will select Wiliams' successor. They each will cast weighted votes reflecting Democratic voter participation in their precincts.

For example, committee member Linda Turnbull will cast the largest number of votes — 150 — while another member of the group, current county board member Chris Stohr, will cast none. That's because there are no voters in the geographic area of Stohr's partial precinct portion of District 11.

The split precincts are the result of the Democratic Party's gerrymandering of the county board, done to ensure their party's county board majority. Legislative map drawers discourage dividing political boundaries to achieve gerrymandering goals, but partisans do it anyway.

In District 11's case, they split precincts, the bottom rung of the political geographic ladder.

So far, at least five low-profile applicants are seeking appointment — Noah Kubbs, Adam Ruggieri, Brent Murray, Andy Ma and Brett Peugh.

Race, ethnicity and sexual identity are huge factors to local Democrats, so the makeup of the individual selected could be crucial to the outcome.

Ma is Chinese, Murray is Black, and Kubbs, Ruggieri and Peugh are White.

Reviewing their qualifications and ideological preferences will be Turnbull, Stohr and fellow committee members Deborah Liu (110 votes), Tanya Weatherly (78 votes), Stephanie Fortado (58 votes) and Chaundra Bishop (100 votes).

Bishop, who is a member of the Urbana City Council, was named last week to fill Williams' vacated committee post.

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Also voting will be two applicants — Ma and Peugh. Representing split precincts, Peugh has 135 votes and Ma 15.

None of the applicants has any political bona fides, except perhaps for Ma. A recent University of Illinois graduate, he ran a fledgling campaign for mayor of Urbana in 2021. Identifying himself as a hardcore leftist, he finished third in a three-way race with just 267 votes.

He told the Daily Illini newspaper his top priorities, if elected, would be "defunding the police, ending chronic homelessness and enacting a moratorium on utility shut off and evictions." Ma also said, the DI reported, that he "rejects the American's legal system tradition of punishment" for convicted criminals.

Both Turnbull and Fortado told The News-Gazette that they know little about the applicants but will be studying their backgrounds and the questionnaires they filled out.

Both said they are looking for those who have a background of community involvement.

Turnbull said she would prefer an "independent thinker" who had "done others things" that provide the experience to be an effective board member.

She also said the ability to work in a nonpolitical way with minority Republicans is crucial.

"Both parties have to be about working with each other," she said.

Fortado, a member of the county board who heads its finance committee, said she prefers an applicant who will uphold "strong progressive Democratic values," effectively represent the district and work hard.

"We have a lot on our plate," said Fortado. "It's quite a commitment to serve on the board."

Absent from the gathering will be Williams, now working for the Cook County assessor's office. He said he "never heard" of three applicants but knows two others — Ma by name and Peugh as a friendly acquaintance.

He said he could have voted on his replacement because his legal residence remains in Urbana.

"I don't have a place to live (in Chicago)," he said, refuting rumors that he's going to vote in that city's mayoral election.

But Williams said because his new job is "very demanding and very rewarding," he doesn't "have time for party duties."