Democrat Suzanne Willis named chair of DeKalb County Board

SYCAMORE – County Board member Suzanne Willis, a Democrat from District 10, was named the new chairman of the DeKalb County Board during a reorganized board meeting this week as Democrats take the majority after the Nov. 8 election.

The political party that has the majority of seats on the County Board gets to name the chairman of the legislative body and the minority party gets to name the vice chair. Democrats haven’t held a County Board majority since 2014.

“Pretty much right after the election I knew I was going to be chair,” said Willis, a retired Northern Illinois University physics professor who’s served on the board since 2016 and previously served as its vice chairman.

DeKalb County Democrats seemed sure they’d clinch the board’s majority even before the Nov. 8 general election, Willis said. Many seats, including Democrat candidates Districts 5, 6, 7 and 9, went uncontested. District 8 flipped fully Democrat in the election, ousting two Republican incumbents, Dianne Leifheit and Bill Cummings. Willis said she was approached by the party to become chairman before the election.

This is the first time Willis has been named chairman of the County Board.

“Obviously it’s an honor and a responsibility,” Willis said. “I intend to live up to the trust the board has put in me, and I’m going to balance all of the things that need balancing when you are in that position.”

Before the Dec. 5 County Board organization meeting, Willis spoke with John Frieders, a Republican District 12 who had been chairman of the board through the end of November.

“He said that the Republicans would support me, at least as far as being elected [chairman] was concerned, and they seemed, everybody seemed reasonably content with having me as chair,” Willis said.

Willis, who spent three years as president of the faculty senate at NIU, said votes on the board do not generally follow party lines, so she said she’ll work to manage relationships with members of the board to ensure the county’s predominant legislative body operates smoothly during her tenure as chairman.

At least one party line vote, however, was recorded this summer in a key vote during the tumultuous months-long debate over the future of the DeKalb County Rehabilitation and Nursing Center. The financially struggling facility is set this month to undergo an ownership change to a private buyer for $8.3 million.

The board voted down a measure 11-11 for a ballot referendum that would have asked voters in November if they supported a property tax to help the DeKalb County Rehabilitation and Nursing Center.

The center – which has been the subject of more than a year of fiscal debate – faces more than $7 million in debt because of what county officials have alleged was mismanagement, delinquent billing and ailing resident numbers.

The failed referendum vote fell largely along political party lines. All present Democrats voted for the referendum, joined by Republicans Patrick Deutsch and Jerry Osland. The remaining 11 Republicans opposed it, while two Democrats – Kiara Jones and Michelle Pickett – were absent.

Willis said two issues are at the top of the board’s attention at the moment: the sale of the DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center and large solar farms.

The process to finalize the sale of the county rehab and nursing center to Evanston based Illuminate HC should come to its conclusion by the end of the month, Willis said, but she noted it could last through the holidays and into January.

“The board has already done everything that it needs to do with that but certainly it’s something we’re going to keep our eyes on anyway because we want to be sure that things are going well there,” said Willis, who voted against the referendum but for the sale in July.

Solar farms, a concept the County Board has grappled with over the past several years, is the second of the two issues at the forefront of Willis’s priority list.

“The landowners have rights and their neighbors also have rights, and so it’s a matter of balancing the two of those and it’s not always easy,” Willis said. “It wasn’t easy when we did the wind farms, and it wasn’t easy when we did the large scale solar either, so that will be actively discussed.”