2023 election results for Sycamore City Council

Editor’s Note: April 4 Election results will start being published after polls close Tuesday. Unofficial results can be found via live updates Tuesday night at shawlocal/daily-chronicle/election and also at dekalb.il.clerkserve.com/?cat=49.

SYCAMORE – Sycamore voters cast their ballots Tuesday in favor of who will represent them on the Sycamore City Council in Wards 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Polls closed at 7 p.m. Voters should remember that results aren’t certified for two weeks and write-in results won’t be known Tuesday.

After more than 30 years as a city alderman, Second Ward candidate and incumbent Chuck Stowe ran unopposed, as did Fourth Ward candidate Benjamin Bumpus.

Ward 1

Running in Sycamore’s First Ward was incumbent Joshua Huseman and newcomers Alicia Cosky and Robert Collins.

Cosky had so far received the most votes of the three candidates with 235, with 65 out of 65 precincts reporting. So far, incumbent Huseman had received 120 votes while Collins had 24.

“Running a campaign, it is clear it is different than showing up and serving on city council, so there were a lot of things I learned,” Huseman said.

Four years ago, in 2019, Huseman won an uncontested race for a Sycamore City Council seat that he said essentially didn’t have a campaign. This election cycle Huseman has found himself asking neighbors for votes.

“When you have 10% voter turnout, the election could come down to just a handful of people. And so I learned you can’t take for granted that people are going to show up and people are going to go out and vote for you,” Huseman said. “And it is a little bit of an awkward part of local politics to ask for a vote. It feels sometimes a little bit like the kid on the playground waiting to get picked on the winning team.”

Cosky and Collins did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Ward 3

Third Ward Alderwoman Nancy Copple ran as an incumbent against Brett Johansen. Johansen ran a campaign for a DeKalb County Board District 4 seat in the Nov. 8, 2022 General Election, and ultimately lost after the Illinois State Board of Elections found a human error double counted-local mail-in ballots.

As of 9:30 p.m. incumbent Copple had 145 votes and her opponent, Johansen had 100.

Johansen did not respond to requests for comment during his Sycamore City Council campaign.

For Copple, who was appointed to Sycamore City Council in 2017 and then won re-election in 2019, the 2023 Consolidated Election is the first contested race she’s ran in.

“I’m trying to be optimistic but if it doesn’t work out my way, I’m going to be OK. I’m still going to support Sycamore,” Copple said.

Copple said she’s never met Johansen, and wishes him “luck,” if he wins.

“I’ve never had an opponent before. I don’t know who this person is, I’ve never met them, I don’t know anything about them. So if he is elected as the new alderman I hope he does a great job and wish him luck,” Copple said.

This story was updated at 12:03 a.m. April 5 with updated vote tally numbers reported by the DeKalb County Clerk and Recorders Office.