Will County Coroner Election: Voters Choose O'Neil's Successor

JOLIET, IL — Patrick O'Neil has served as the Will County Coroner since Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, but now there will be a new coroner. O'Neil is not seeking an eighth term of office. Instead, he has endorsed fellow Democrat Laurie Summers in her race against Steger Republican James "Jim" Piacentini.

Back in the March 17 primary, Summer crushed Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Sean Talbot, getting about 70 percent of the vote. Piacentini did not face any opposition in the Republican primary.

According to the Will County Coroner's Office website, the coroner is an elected office serving for a four-year term. The office is a law enforcement agency and its staff investigates deaths that occur in the county.

Summers grew up in Beecher and attended Zion Lutheran School, graduated from Beecher High School and graduated from the Prairie State College Nursing program. She has been a registered nurse for 24 years and she served on the Will County Board from 2016 to 2019, when O'Neil hired her to work on his staff as deputy chief coroner.

These days, she lives in Crete.

Summers has been a proponent of building a new county morgue, saying that Will Count's continued population growth justifies the need for the coroner's office to expand and have more space for its work.

"With the increasing population in Will County which is 700,000 plus residents, our office handles and takes calls on over 3,400 cases annually," Summers told Joliet Patch earlier this year. "Obtaining additional space for the coroner's office based on these figures is important. Because I have the background of serving on the County Board I understand the process or steps needed to accomplish this. In 2002, our Coroner Pat O'Neil obtained the space for our current morgue, since then our population in Will County has increased exponentially, and we have outgrown our space. I have already begun the process of obtaining a new space by reaching out to the county departments that are critical in making this happen."

For Will County, Summers said that the opioid crisis and mental health crisis are two other key issues in her race.

"I fiercely championed these causes during my time on the County Board and worked with our County Health Department and Dr. Kathleen Burke on bringing awareness through education and obtaining grants which have expanded services to the under served areas in the county," Summers informed Joliet Patch during her campaign.

The Republican candidate, Piacentini, is a Crete Township trustee. He has posted on his Facebook campaign page that "I will build better communication between the coroner's office and police and fire departments. Also investigate causes of death more thorough."

Piacentini has more than 40 years as a firefighter and more than 35 years as an emergency medical technician. During a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune, Piacentini expressed concerns about Will County's reporting of new coronavirus death totals and infection rates, telling the metro newspaper that he believes Will County's numbers are inflated.

“There’s people out there blaming everything on COVID,” Piacentini told the Tribune. “I just think it’s not right to blame it all on that.”

From his standpoint, Piacentini wants the voters of Will County to realize that he will do his best to make sure that all of the coronavirus deaths are accurate.

In early September, Piacentini joined about a dozen Will County Republicans outside the Will County Courthouse in downtown Joliet to hold a news conference to discuss their complaints with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Will County Health Department Executive Director Sue Olenek. Their main argument: the coronavirus totals for Will County were inflated and that bars and restaurants needed to remain open.

In addition to Summers and Piacentini, Zohaib Kahn has announced a write-in campaign in hopes of winning the office.

"I am a man of Good-Will who stands up for justice and equality. If I can make the world a better place where everyone is treated fairly, then so be it. Corrupt politicians love to take advantage of least-informed voters so they can be re-elected again and again. I ask all the voters to please vote and participate in your civic duties. This is only way you can eliminate corruption through your power of voting. Write-in Zohaib Khan for Will County Coroner on election ballot," Khan stated in one of his recent paid campaign posts on Patch.

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Related Joliet Patch 2020 election coverage:

Will County Coroner Won't Seek 8th Term In Office

Laurie Summers: Will County Coroner Candidate

Democrat Party: 'Republican Sean Talbot Could Not Beat Summers

Write-In Candidate: O'Neil Elects Summers For Coroner Before Elections

Joliet Voting Guide 2020