The following article is a local candidate profile for Kane County office positions in the 2024 election. We reached out to both candidates for Kane County Auditor, Board Chair, Coroner, Circuit Clerk, Recorder and State’s Attorney. Stargazer does not endorse any candidate. More information about local ballots can be found on Ballotpedia.
Kane County Auditor
Penny Wegman
Wegman is the incumbent and running as a democrat.
What is your history in politics, and is this your first time running for auditor?
“I’m the incumbent, so [I’m running] for re-election, so not my first time. … I have a political science degree from Southwest Missouri State University, and I guess I’ve been involved for as long as I can remember. When we turned 18, my dad would have me and my sister go out and get positions signed for candidates. So [politics are] just something I guess I’ve always been involved in.”
How would you describe what the auditor does?
“My role is based on the population of the county. My role is more of purchasing compliance, making sure that the departments and offices are following the county policies. We have statutes and the county codes in regards to making purchases.”
Why are you running for auditor, and what are your goals if elected?
“I can’t list my goals because they’re not in front of me right now. … But why am I running? While I’ve been doing the job for the past four years, we’ve made a lot of changes and really evolved the auditor’s office for one that is of compliance. We work very closely with the purchasing and finance department, but we are not part of finance and purchasing, so I want to continue the work we started. We just recently won the Innovator Award [from the] International Association of Government Officials, so we’ve done so much great stuff. I’m not done, and I want to keep working towards that evolution.”
Why should younger voters be interested in supporting you as a candidate?
“I think it’s important to support me as a candidate because … as you start [joining the workforce] and buying things and finding a place to live on your own, taxes are something that everybody has to pay, and knowing that your money is spent properly in the county is paramount. Last year, we audited $175 million and $65 million dollars in payroll. That’s a lot of money, and it’s all taxpayer money, so everything that you purchase when it comes to a house or other things, … all that money goes to the county for the portion of the tax that they get, and it’s important to know that that stuff is being spent properly. That’s why it’s important to make sure that you have an auditor that’s independent and can be innovative in the way that we look at the way things are spent.”
Gretchen Butler
Butler is running as a republican.
What is your history in politics, and is this your first time running for auditor?
“It is my first time running for Kane County Auditor. It is my first time in politics. I had recently gotten involved just becoming more aware of things going on in the county and was talking to some friends who said, ‘you have 25 years business experience and worked with financials before. Do you think this would be something you would be interested in?’ I kind of was hesitant, because I never thought that was not the goal of mine to become a politician, and so I said, ‘Well, I’m interested in learning more about the job.’ I talked with several people who know firsthand as well as just more about the position and thought, ‘Okay, well, I can do this.’ So that’s kind of the time to turn.”
How would you describe what the auditor does?
“When expenses come through, they have a P card system, which is kind of like a credit card. Expenses, everything, receipts go through the auditor’s office. [That office] is given details by whatever department sends those expenses over. They look through those. Does it line up with what they say [in the budget]? If they need more information, then they’ll go back to the department asking for more information, and then they’ll submit that on to the treasurer’s office to get paid.”
Why are you running for auditor, and what are your goals if elected?
“I think some of my goals would be [to have] a state of the art online system, an online checkbook that details everything that happens in the county, all the expenses. I think [part of what] I would like to work on is bringing more clarity and transparency to that. There you can click on things and drill down, but there’s not a lot of information behind it. It’s kind of vague. Recognizing you have to get that information from the department, that’s not something our department [makes us do]. I think there needs to be more communication and questioning to get more information on the website so people can understand it and it’s clear and transparent. I think also improving that relationship amongst the different board members as well as departments. One of my goals is to provide that nonpartisan leadership. At this point, when you’re sitting in the auditor chair, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a democrat or republican, you’re serving the people, and it’s important to provide leadership, have good relationships with everybody involved, in order [to bring] transparency to the office.”
Why should younger voters be interested in supporting you as a candidate?
“I think I am transparent. I have five years of real life experience. I am not somebody that really aspired to be what I think we have seen [traditionally]. I guess you could say traditional politics, politicians who are in it long term that make a career out of it. I’ve already kind of had my career, and I want to give back to my community and see where my [life experience] as well as business experience and interacting with lots of different groups of people have equipped me for this time in this office.”
Kane County Board Chair
Corinne Pierog
Pierog is the incumbent and running as a democrat.
What is your history in politics, and is this your first time running for board chair?
“I’m currently the Kane County Board Chair, so that’s re-election for me. I am the very first democrat in the history of Kane County [to have this seat], … and I am the second woman. I didn’t break that glass ceiling, but I did break the political glass ceiling, so that’s pretty exciting … I [spent] eight years on the St. Charles school board. That’s [not a technically political] position, but it’s highly political. I’m sure all of you are aware of the politics of managing the school board. … So that’s where I got started.”
How would you describe what the board chair does?
“My role from other county board chairs is that Kane County does not have a county administrator, and the county administrator, or some boards, have a chief of staff take care of all of the issues that are going around the staffing, which is 1,300 possibly employees, a lot of time spent dealing with staffing issues because they’re the people that are programming. The board does policy. So instead of having a major focus on policy, which is running the board meeting, making sure that I’m aware of what the issues are running the board meetings. I also have to attend, which is not part of the job description, but what is expected to happen is I manage a lot of the things from the day-to-day operation. What’s happening in the county? I also listen and talk with the staff. Start initiating some new opportunities to bring forward to the board about their approval or not.”
Why are you running for board chair, and what are your goals if elected?
“It’s literally being formed as we speak, getting the board members up front to make sure that is set properly because I feel like holding it a little bit now, setting insights to it to make sure that team is beautifully managed by the new board, and getting them all together. And that’ll be both private industry and public county government in there, as well, and there will also be municipalities that will be part of this. The new board is going to have to determine what role everyone is going to be playing. … The economic strategic plan is going to be a huge effort to move that forward and how we facilitate that. … It’s a large document, so to get it approved and to make sure that it’s accurate, to plan on where the county is going to be in 10 years or five years. … We [also have an issue] with our budget. We’ve seen two because we haven’t had enough revenue, taxes, sales, tax and grants to be able to really grow the county or even stabilize so that’s the issue right now. … I don’t have an answer one way or the other. Keeping around the fulcrum, how do you balance? … There’s always that one problem. So if we grow the talented businesses, tax, property tax, revenue, sales tax revenues that’s hopeful, but making sure that they have infrastructure support for them to be able to do that as well, which, along with new growth, is something that can’t happen overnight.”
Why should younger voters be interested in supporting you as a candidate?
“I was a teacher both at the college level and junior high. Junior high kids are fun. … I want to make sure that the opportunities are going to be there for students. What I don’t want to happen is to have all of you take off to go to all these wonderful universities and then get snatched. I want you to go to NYU or go to Ohio or Harvard, right? But I want you to come back to Kane County. There’s going to be a job here. I want to make sure that kids, [by the time they] start settling down a little bit, that there’s activities here for you because that’s very important. … Parents are here raising their kids. I want it to be a pleasure, which means that we have to take a look at another difficult issue, housing. There’s not enough housing that people who are just starting out in their careers can hold here. … There has to be a place people can comfortably stay here. … I want you to feel that this is your home. Maybe not a permanent home, but potentially a home where, after you explore the world, you can come back here, settle down and start the next part of your life. So that, to me, is kind of a fun goal.”
Lance Bell
Bell is running as a republican.
What is your history in politics, and is this your first time running for board chair?
“Zero history. First time, actually. I could say second time running for something. In March, I was elected St. Charles Precinct Committee Person through district or precinct 29, so technically speaking, that’s my first endeavor, and then [I was] recruited for this at that same time.”
How would you describe what the board chair does?
“The most important part of the job is leading the board and the budget for their seven departments to directly report to the board, referred to as the operating fund, and then there’s other groups of these six indirect reports. So managing the budget, leading [the board] through the budget process and then leading the board themselves. This is selecting the members who are the committee persons for each of the subcommittee’s very important [parts] of this, and then leading all of those groups.”
Why are you running for board chair, and what are your goals if elected?
“I was recruited to the position, and in government, there are three different branches, the judiciary, the legislative and the executive. I’ve been a leader since I was 12 when I started my very first company. The gentleman who was in charge of the Kane County GOP Party, he’s been a friend for about three years, going back to 2020, and he recruited me based on my leadership, style and success in business.”
Why should younger voters be interested in supporting you as a candidate?
“Here’s a great way to look at those. There’s an unwritten social contract in our country, and that’s that the generation in charge now will leave the country in a better condition than they found it, and for the first time in our country’s history, your generation is inheriting a far worse country than what I got when I was your age. The need to get involved sooner and to have a higher level of impact will help your generation turn this country around, because it’s headed in a very poor and very dangerous place.”
Kane County Circuit Clerk
Theresa Barreiro
Barreiro is the incumbent and running as a democrat.
What is your history in politics, and is this your first time running for circuit clerk?
“So, actually, I have been in office. I was elected in 2020 for circuit clerk. Prior to that, I was a Kane County board member for eight years, and prior to that, I worked for the city of Aurora and the county clerk’s office in Kane County, so I have over 30 years of government experience.”
How would you describe what the circuit clerk does?
“We’re technically and legally the keeper of the record. In other words, anything that goes through the 16th Judicial Court goes through my office. We maintain the database that holds all the records, and you would pay your fines and fees there, file wills, civil suits, anything that goes through the court system. We have one deputy clerk in each courtroom. There’s 32 courtrooms and 10 locations. We also do statistical reporting for the county, … so we have to compile all the reports that would go through the judicial system to the state of Illinois.”
Why are you running for circuit clerk, and what are your goals if elected?
“I’m running for re-election because my work’s not done. We have held expungement seminars and clinics throughout the county for the last four years, and we plan on having more of those. I would like to also have more satellite locations for easy access to the public. We’ve upgraded our computer system three times, and we’re working on a fourth right now, so we’ve been working really hard to get the office up to standards that they are at right now. For years, this reporting system was really bad. We would normally have to go to other counties for information and now other counties come to us, so we’re actually something that the state looks to with our case management system and with how we handle all of our records and our documents. It’s a huge success, and I want to keep it going.”
Why should younger voters be interested in supporting you as a candidate?
“I’m actually working for you and I, correct? I’m not working for the glory of being a politician. I’m working to make it work right, and my goal is always to make it work right, not to sit back and let just the employees do it, but to also use my expertise to make everything work right, make our budgets work correctly, make our system work correctly, hold people accountable and be more accessible to the public, … and I’ve been holding these expungement seminars with the state’s attorney’s office for the past four years, which helps people expunge or seal their record so they can get work or maybe an apartment [or] housing work. [Something] minor on your record might affect your whole life, and this was our way and my way of correcting things or letting people have the opportunity to correct, to move forward and get back into society. … If we help one person, then I feel like we’ve done what we set out to do.”
Anthony Catella
Catella is running as a republican.
What is your history in politics, and is this your first time running for circuit clerk?
“No, this isn’t my first time running for Circuit Clerk of Kane County. I’ve always been interested in politics, even as a young little kid. But professionally in my adult life, I began, I would say officially, in 2016 as an election judge, and then I was appointed a precinct committeeman in 2018, and then I was elected in 2020. That was the same year I ran for Congress. I ran for the congressional nomination for the 14th District at that time, and got about 1% of the vote, did pretty good for the amount of money I spent. And then in 2021 I ran for library board, in 2022 I ran for county board. … I might be wrong on those dates, but somewhere around that time period. It was after the 2020 election when I ran for county board and library board, and [they were] good experiences, just didn’t get enough votes. … I was re-elected as a committeeman last time around in 2020, and then I decided to run in 2024 for circuit clerk. Well, our [Chairman] suggested I run, and I was willing because I wanted to run for something. The fact was that there was no other republican in the primary for that office, and so I had a chance. … I’ve been very grateful for that opportunity. I’ve been working very hard at raising money and campaigning, and I feel pretty successful. I feel like the tide of events is on my side, and I’m very happy about it. I’m very happy to run.”
How would you describe what the circuit clerk does?
“The circuit clerk is one of the six major county-wide offices that helps govern the county, or leads the county in governmental affairs. As circuit clerk, I’m basically the custodian of the legal cases in this district, … the 16th Judicial Circuit of Kane County. I make sure that the judges and the lawyers have all their papers for all their cases properly filed, and that when the court date comes up, the papers are there and whatever evidence might also be needed is there. I’m just the facilitator of the judicial process of this circuit to Kane County.”
Why are you running for circuit clerk, and what are your goals if elected?
“I’m running as an available citizen, and if elected, I’m just going to make sure that the courts of this circuit remain open to all, and everybody has their legal rights maintained and preserved. [I want to make sure] that everybody will have their day in court, and it will be effective and as painless as possible. … Of course, when that happens, there’s always one side that’s happy and one side that’s a little less than satisfied, but that’s the way impartial justice works. My job, though, is to maintain legal records. I’m not for or against anyone. I’m the facilitator of the judicial process, and I just want to make sure that the courts are open … [I want to make sure] that the wheels of justice here grind for everybody and that the decisions and judgments made are based on impartiality and with some degree of mercy for all concerned and the law, prevails in the lives of our citizens here in Kane County, that every case in the courts of the circuit are adjudicated according to the law, the Civil Code, the Constitution of Illinois and the Constitution United States.”
Why should younger voters be interested in supporting you as a candidate?
“It’s whether they support me or any other candidate that they put their confidence in. The important thing is that every generation is given the confidence that this country of ours that was given us by our founding fathers will work from the lowest level to the highest level, from the circuit level all the way to the Supreme Court, from the precinct level all the way to the presidency. We need to make sure that younger people have confidence in the form of government that we’ve all inherited from the founding fathers, from the people that wrote the Constitution.”
Kane County State’s Attorney
Jamie Mosser
Mosser is the incumbent and running as a democrat.
What is your history in politics, and is this your first time running for state’s attorney?
Due to a recording failure, Mosser’s quote is unavailable. Her role as state’s attorney is her first time being in public office and engaging in politics.
How would you describe what the state’s attorney does?
“I have two primary roles. The first one is the most obvious one that people know about, and that is whenever there is a traffic ticket up to a homicide case, it’s my office that’s responsible for prosecuting those cases. I think the biggest responsibility I have amongst those cases is to do individual justice on every single case. Just because one person is charged with an offense doesn’t mean that they need to be treated the exact same way as somebody else. … You need to treat somebody a lot differently when they’re doing it because of mental health issues or substance use disorder or lack of resources than somebody who’s purposely trying to make our community worse or unsafe. So that’s the criminal portion of what I do. The second part is that I am the attorney for Kane County. So anytime Kane County needs to be in any type of a lawsuit, if we have to sue somebody or somebody has to sue us, it’s my office that handles that along with every single elected official. … That’s one of the things I’m doing right now, is I’m in our county board meeting where we’re discussing issues, and when it comes up, it is my office or me specifically that provides the legal advice for what they should or should not do.”
Why are you running for state’s attorney, and what are your goals if elected?
“I’m running for re-election because I’m not done. I’ve spent the last four years really bringing some innovative programming to Kane County, and I will give you two examples of that. One of the things that I brought was Illinois’ only pre-arrest diversion program, and what this means is that my case managers partner with law enforcement, and if they think somebody is committing a crime, and this is low level, non-violent crimes, and they’re doing so because of mental health or substance use or lack of resources, instead of the officers arresting them, they can actually refer them to our grant funded case managers. Our case managers then, using a harm reduction approach, help them to get out of having to go further through the criminal justice system. … On the opposite extreme of that, I also created Kane County’s only child exploitation unit with the sheriff, and this is investigators from my office and his office, along with a friend, a catalyst and prosecutors. What we do is we investigate cases where people are possessing or disseminating child pornography. What was happening in Kane County before this is that these cases were not being dealt with because our smaller jurisdictions, like the St. Charles police department didn’t have the necessary resources to do this. … We’ve been able to get a lot of really bad people off the streets and send them to prison, because these are the people who are more likely to perpetrate on a child in their life. … I have many ideas of what to do for the future. I want to specifically create a pre-arrest diversion program that helps juveniles because we have seen an alarming rate of juveniles being charged with offenses, and again, that are related to those mental health issues, substance use, lack of resources and in a lot of cases, family chaos. We just received a $1 million grant, we’re going to start a human trafficking unit, and from that $1 million grant, we’re going to apply for a $5 million grant that’s going to help with people who are perpetuating crime on … [migrants] coming here. They are very vulnerable to have somebody try to force them to do things like forced labor or even sex work as a result of it. I’m running for re-election because I have more ideas that I want to implement. We’re ready to implement them, and I think that I am the best person to keep making Kane County the safe community that we all want to live in.”
Why should younger voters be interested in supporting you as a candidate?
“The biggest part is that what affects [young voters] most is what we do here on a local level. We are the ones who decide programming. What I know, especially for kids, is that the moment you reach 18 years of age, where legally, you’re an adult, it doesn’t mean that you are still going to make the best decisions, and you want a prosecutor who understands the way a brain works. … The programming that I brought in really works to see why a person commits a crime and not just, ‘you commit a crime and you should be punished.’ You don’t want the prosecutor who’s just going to come in and say, ‘every single person convicted or charged with this crime is going to get this type of attack.’ You want somebody who has an open mind, who has done all the resources will actually work. … I have that experience. I’ve shown that understanding and empathy, and I have brought forth programming that makes sure that people can come through our system but not have their lives completely destroyed as a result of it.”
Andrew Sosnowski
Sosnowski is running as a republican.
What is your history in politics, and is this your first time running for state’s attorney?
“It’s my first time running for state’s attorney, and I really don’t have any political background. [I’ve] supported candidates in the past, but I’ve never run on a ticket like this.”
How would you describe what the state’s attorney does?
“The state’s attorney is what I look at as the chief law enforcement officer of the county. A lot of people say, ‘You know, it’s law enforcement, it’s the sheriff,’ but they have limited jurisdiction. The state’s attorney has jurisdiction over the entire county, so it’s really the chief law enforcement officer. What does that mean? We get our goals and our directives by statute. So the statute of the state of Illinois governs what the responsibilities and roles are of a State’s Attorney. And very briefly, the role of the state’s attorney is to prosecute criminal acts to take place. Anything that our legislature has determined is egregious enough to elevate something to a crime, then the state’s attorney would be involved in that process if a person is arrested and charged. So that’s the goal of the state’s attorney. … It’s important for the state’s attorney also to work with community organizations and understand the communities so that we can mitigate criminal activities, as well.”
Why are you running for state’s attorney, and what are your goals if elected?
“I thought about [running for state’s attorney] for a long time. I’ve been an attorney for 35 years. … I’m [also] a professor at Aurora University. I teach criminal justice there, and I’m a professor also at Elgin Community College for the last 24 years, where I’ve taught criminal law, as well. So I’ve been in contact with lots of students over the years, many of them are lawyers now, many of them are law enforcement officers, and they’ve always encouraged me to run for a political office. … A couple of my students [came up to me] after class and said, ‘Professor, why don’t you ever run for Kane County State’s Attorney? We think you’d be great.’ …The next thing I know, I’m running for Kane County State’s Attorney. … [As for goals], the thing that is really important to me is … that the prosecutors aren’t trained enough. I would make sure there’s robust training for prosecutors so that when they elevate up the chain, … there’s some [credentials] to make sure that they have all the equipment that they need to be the best prosecutors they can. … So that’s one big thing is making sure that the attorneys are well trained and credentialed. … [Another issue] that is important right now is human trafficking and exploitation of people, not only kids, but people. We have a lot of immigrants coming from other countries, … and they need to be protected. … I want to work with the entities like the National Insurance Crime Bureau, the FBI, the CIA Interpol, and bring those into our county, not for the federal government, but for the state government, and for our county specifically, so we can mitigate and stop any kind of possibility of exploitation. … That’s the kind of way I would think we could mitigate against some of this exploitation coming from other countries, coming from around the world, coming from around the United States, coming from our state, coming from our cities and our counties. I would put a major emphasis on that. … I would [also] make sure that we have a robust juvenile court system. … We want to make sure that whatever is needed to mitigate against criminal activity, we do it at a young age. I would put more resources into that.”
Why should younger voters be interested in supporting you as a candidate?
“I invite [voters] to talk to my students [and] get to know me. Go on my Facebook, go on my LinkedIn. I have a YouTube channel. Go to these places and see these people and their names and reach out to them and ask, ‘What’s so good about this professor? Why are you supporting him? What does he do for you?’ And here’s one of the statements they will tell you: ‘He does believe in us, and he believes in lifting us because he continues to tell us we are the future. And it’s not just rhetoric, he really believes us and wants to take us to the next level with him.’ A lot of my student supporters are Latino and minority students, and I truly believe that they need a voice. … I want to have a robust internship program that’s not just lip service, but to have people actually in there doing work with us and [build] an understanding of what it is to mitigate criminal justice. … [These students] all have goals to do something in the criminal justice arena, and that’s what it is, a voice and listening, truly listening to what they have to say … I really care about this community, and I care about these young people, and I want to see Kane County grow and prosper and these kids are at the helm. In 10 years, I’ll be sitting, maybe, hopefully not in a wheelchair, but I’ll be in my mid-70s, and these kids are going to be the ones doing this stuff. So we need to train them and lift them up and give them a voice.”
Kane County Coroner
Candidates Monica Silva and L. Robert Russell could not be reached for an interview.
Kane County Recorder
Candidates Marisela Villegas and Sandy Wegman could not be reached for an interview.
