Meet the candidates running for DeKalb County Coroner

DeKalb County voters will pick a new person to be their next coroner, the first new face in decades.

The choice is between Democrat and newcomer Cat Prescott and Republican Linda Besler, who’s worked in the coroner’s office as an administrative deputy coroner. Republican Dennis Miller is not seeking reelection.

Each candidate spoke with Shaw Local News Network about why they’re running. Here’s what they said:

Why are you running for office?

Prescott: “I ran for coroner previously, No. 1, because I think I do have something to offer to the position. I have a different perspective. I may even have a slightly more modern perspective. Also, I believe there should be a choice. There should be a choice for any office that is being elected.”

Besler: “Central to my reasons for running for the position is the fulfillment of investigations, assisting in death investigations and bringing answers and closure to the grieving families. Other than that, I love the job. I have the experience. I have 10 years of working as a dispatcher for the DeKalb city police department, where I learned a lot about investigations. I went to school and got a degree in criminal justice. I have been working now under the current coroner for a little over four years just learning the job.”

What are the top 3 issues facing the coroner’s office?

Besler: “The program we currently use to enter our information from our field report, it’s pretty dated. At the end of the year when you’re counting for our annual report, we have to put in, was the death heart-related? Was it cancer? Was it different things? When you’re hand-counting upwards of almost 700 cases, there’s a lot of room for human error. I believe that there are other programs out there that I’d like to look into that can eliminate that human error aspect of it. I would definitely update some equipment in the morgue. I think space is a huge issue that we don’t have a lot of room. We can put two bodies in our cooler at this time. We could fit three, but it’s very problematic. I would like to see if we can increase space so that we’re not rushing families to choose funeral homes.”

Prescott: “I feel right now, it would be we are in this time of so much misinformation and full-on disinformation. I feel like institutions that are part of publication or even the coroner’s office are having to reestablish that trust of when we put out reports of why people die or how we need people to believe us. That would be first and foremost that I would say is facing institutions like the coroner’s office. Another is expansion of facilities. We do that because as DeKalb and Sycamore and the surrounding areas are becoming more populated, we need to be able to handle larger amounts of clientele just because a growing population means a growing population sort of across all services. That’s just generally how population growth works. If I would say a third thing, it would be having an integration with public life in that nobody wants to necessarily hang out at the coroner’s office but being able to educate people on what their rights are as far as what they can take in there, is done with their remains or even their estate, I feel like public workshops or even online seminars to make things more available to people would be helpful in that.”

Do you support the effort to update the county coroner’s facilities?

Prescott: “I think that updating the facilities important. I know that in the last election, Dennis Miller, was talking about needing to expand the facilities. I’m sorry that’s not been done. But yes, I agree that we should. If somebody who has been in so long is saying we should, I believe we should trust experts. I feel that is absolutely in my plans for the office, as well.”

Besler: “It’s necessary there. There’s some outdated equipment that we have in the morgue. And again, it’s functional but yes, there’s absolutely some things we can improve on.”

SLNN: What do you think can be done to build and maintain public trust in the coroner’s office and its reporting on deaths in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and opioid epidemic?

Besler: “I’ve not seen that in the four years I’ve been there. Again, it’s nothing that we’re putting out there. That’s again the doctor or the forensic pathologist.”

Prescott: “In general, it’s hard to build trust once it’s been broken down. And one of the only ways to truly build trust is being very transparent, being very open and honest and being willing to absolutely claim mistakes when they’re made. We already put out a report on deaths during any particular year. We fight causes and stuff like that. I think having information sessions for our information systems for people who want to question aspects of this is, I think, worth it. People are mostly afraid of things that they don’t understand. Being able to speak with the public and give answers to things that they have questions about, things that frighten them is one of the ways to build trust. The other is to show that you are making good on promises. When you promise to expand facilities, figure out the way to expand facilities. When you promise to get better health care options or mental health care options, you find those. It is a matter of making promises and absolutely fulfilling them. If there is some reason you cannot, you are open and honest about why you didn’t and what your plans to rectify the situation are. Every relationship, be it public official to their constituent or in private relationships between people, one of the only ways to build trust is to do the things you’ll say you’ll do and to be perfectly open and honest about what is going on during the process. That’s how we make contracts. That’s how we decide to continue associations. It’s being open and honest and explaining your process and doing what you say you’ll do. Building trust after trust has been lost, it’s hard. Being able to say you’re doing it a different way or bringing a fresh perspective to it is certainly a way to have a cleaner slate than you might have.”