Lake Forest Election 2021: Candidates For School, Village Boards

LAKE FOREST-LAKE BLUFF, IL — Voters in Lake Forest and Lake Bluff will select new board members Tuesday in a half-dozen competitive local school and village board races.

In school board races in Lake Forest School District 67 and Lake Forest Community High School District 115, two slates of candidates are competing for seats.

Both the Lake Forest Caucus and the group Let's Do Better have endorsed full slates of four candidates each in the high school district.

Candidates are presented in alphabetical order. Biographical information provided by their respective campaigns.

Lake Forest Community High School District 115

Sally Davis (Lake Forest Caucus) is an incumbent District 115 board member and currently its vice president. She is an attorney who has lived in Lake Bluff for 18 years and served on the District 115 board since she was appointed in 2015. Davis has been a judge for LFHS business incubator pitches and currently mentors one of its teams. She has also been the student recognition chair for the booster organization for musical arts at LFHS and advancement chair for a local Boy Scout troop.

Ted Moorman (Let's Do Better) is an incumbent District 115 board member and currently its secretary. He is a retired Air Force pilot and United Airlines captain seeking his third term on the board. Moorman has represented LFHS on the board of the Northern Suburban Special Education Districtconsortium and also sits on the board of the NSSED Foundation.

David Burns (Lake Forest Caucus) is a 23-year resident of Lake Forest and Lake Bluff who has consulted for a local pharmaceutical company, co-founded a local brewery and taught as an adjunct professor at a local university. He has also served as a board member of I-Plus, a nonprofit that assists homeless veterans, and is on his second term serving on the Lake Bluff Planning Commission Zoning Board of Appeals.

Amy Marsch (Let's Do Better) is a Lake Forest native and LFHS alum who moved to Lake Bluff 15 years ago. She has a degree in education and has taught at schools in Libertyville and Lake Forest, and at a preschool at a local church, where she served as president of its parent board. She is currently a yoga instructor and a volunteer at a nearby preschool.

Jeff Gianelli, (Let's Do Better) is the president of a manufacturing company, with experience on the board of the Transportation Safety Equipment Initiative. In the past decade, he handled the acquisition of a $20 million company and led an effort to centralize three facilities into one. Gianelli and his family are active with a local church, where he has served on the finance and school advisory council over the past decade. He also served as an advisory member of the LFHS education committee for two years ending in 2017.

Joanna Marshall (Let's Do Better) is a graduate of Lake Forest public schools and the vice president of a plastics packaging companywho moved from Chicago back to Lake Forest eight years ago. Marshall has volunteered in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood and with the LFHS cheerleading and golf teams.

Marcus Schabacker (Lake Forest Caucus) is an anesthesiologist and president of a healthcare nonprofit. He previously worked as a senior medical officer to build up rural healthcare in post-apartheid South Africa and was a vice president at a local pharmaceutical company after moving to the United States in 2002. He has lived in Lake Forest for 10 years and currently teaches at a local university.

John Venson (Lake Forest Caucus) has lived in Lake Forest for 30 years, with two grandchildren in Lake Bluff schools and one headed to Lake Forest schools. He is currently the associate director of the American Board of Foot and Ankle Surgery, and has been a chair of a medical surgical department and dean of a collage of podiatric medicine.

Lake Forest School District 67

In District 67, the Lake Forest Caucus and the political action committee Right Track, or Residents United to Protect Our Schools, has backed a slate of four candidates, including two incumbents and two newcomers, under the banner of Student Success 2021. Two candidates are running under the District 67 Excellence slate.

Emily Bernahl (Lake Forest Caucus) is an incumbent board member the owner of a real estate development firm and has more than two decades of experience working on both residential and commercial real estate, with more than 275 restaurant projects under her belt, along with big box stores, banks, grocery stores, senior living facilities and more. She also has experience in a paralegal capacity, administering leases and contracts with real estate investment trusts and consultants.

Taylor Cottam (District 67 Excellence) is an eight-year resident of Lake Forest and vice president at a multinational bank, where he focuses on managing financial risks. All four of his children have attended public schools in Lake Forest.

Lori Fitzgerald (District 67 Excellence) a lifelong Lake Forest resident and Lake Forest Academy graduate who works as the regional sales manager for a technology company. She has three children in Lake Forest public schools.

Anne Geraghty Helms (Lake Forest Caucus) has two children in District 67 schools and is the director of pro bono programs for a multinational law firm. She is also the co-chair of a children's rights litigation committee of the American Bar Association and four years ago was named one of the most influential women lawyers in Chicago by a local business journal.

Carl Kirar (Lake Forest Caucus) is an incumbent board member who works as director of facilities and construction for the Lake County government, leading a team of 56 people. He is a retired U.S. Navy offer and directed public works and infrastructure at Naval Station Great Lakes.

Alice LeVert (Lake Forest Caucus) is a 27 year Lake Forest resident and incumbent who works as a client executive for a telecom company.

Watch candidate forums for District 115 and District 67 school board hopefuls »

Lake Bluff Village Board

Two sitting trustees are competing to succeed outgoing Village President Kathy O'Hara after the local caucus group, Vote Lake Bluff, did not hold an open general meeting in December, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regis Charlot, is 25-year Lake Bluff resident and village trustee since 2019. He founded and built an electronic medical records software company, which he led until his retirement two years ago. He has volunteered with many Lake Bluff organizations and also served on the board of the Lake Bluff Yacht Club.

He identified the top issues of concern to the village as COVID-19, water management, development and zoning and growing the local business community. He called for a new business community member board and improvements to the central business district to make it more appealing. Read more...

Bill Meyer previously served as clerk before his two terms as trustee. He has a quarter-century of experience as an attorney, including years of pro bono practice, and is also the co-founder of a peer-to-peer marketplace for renting out designer clothing. He has also spent more than a decade on the board of the student science fair for Chicago Public Schools.

He identified the top issues for the village were maintaining the highest municipal services and meeting infrastructure challenges, especially stormwater management. Village officials must find revenue sources that ease the property tax burden on residents. Read more...

There are also six candidates for village trustee seeking three available four-year terms on the Lake Bluff Village Board.

Aaron Towle is the lone incumbent in the running for village board. Newcomers include Kate Briand, Charles Clarke, Mickey Collins, Taryn Fisher and Susan Rider.

Video interviews and candidate applications are available online from Vote Lake Bluff.

There are six candidates competing for four seats as commissioners on the Lake Bluff Park District board: incumbent Nicki Walsh and Michele Mrachek, Gerard McDermott, Susan Raymoure, Ann Reider and Scott Weber.

For the Lake Bluff Library Board, five candidates are vying for four available seeks: incumbent Bill Hayes, along with Tricia Brockett, Jenny Graziano, Bonny Shaul and Matthew Zaute.

Watch candidate forum for Lake Bluff Library Board, Lake Bluff Park District and Lake Bluff Village Board »