Lesperance, Parrish exchange barbs in heated race for Nunda Township highway commissioner

Mike Lesperance, or “Iron” Mike as he’s referred to on the ballot, said he ran for Nunda Township highway commissioner in 2013 to “help fix the financial problems in the state of Illinois.”

Now, a dozen years later, the commissioner said he’s done his part for fiscal responsibility.

“If others took note, they could follow suit,” Lesperance said, adding he’s reduced the township’s highway district tax levy while increasing the amount of road miles repaved.

In the April 1 local election, Lesperance faces a challenge by Nunda Township Trustee Rob Parrish. The race has been particularly heated, with Parrish running ads that purport to show Lesperance using coarse language with constituents and Lesperance claiming in campaign literature that he and others have endured “verbal abuse” at meetings.

What he is running for, Parrish said, is communication and fiscal responsibility at the road district that he does not see in the incumbent. “I am running after eight years as a trustee and people coming to our meetings and begging for relief” due to what they say is a lack of communication and planning with township road projects.

In 2013, Parrish and Lesperance ran in a three-way race with former Highway Commissioner Don Kopsell, which Lesperance won. Four years later, Parrish was elected to the township board. In the eight years since, he and Lesperance have butted heads and disagreed on how the job should be performed.

In fact, Lesperance has butted heads with the entire Nunda Township Board of Trustees and McHenry County, leading to lawsuits between the two and the highway commissioner.

In 2013, McHenry County sued the Nunda Township Highway Department, claiming it violated two county ordinances when culvert work diverted stormwater runoff and that the work was done without obtaining the proper county permits. That suit was dropped about a year later when the county changed its stormwater ordinance.

In late 2021, Lesperance sued the Board of Trustees after it voted to change his proposed property tax levy. According to news stories at the time, the board was trying to share more of the township road district’s revenues with cities and villages within the township – more than Lesperance wanted.

“The highway commissioner is in complete control” of the highway tax levy, Lesperance said in an interview with the Northwest Herald, adding that the overall levy is lower than when he first won election and that he has not increased the levy to capture additional EAV either.

McHenry County Judge Michael Chmiel ruled in favor of Lesperance in the lawsuit against the Board of Trustees, with the judge saying in his decision that state law grants the office of highway commissioner “sole authority to determine the levy of the road district” and the Nunda trustees have a “ministerial duty” to approve it.

According to McHenry County documents, that funding change has meant, since the 2015 tax year, Crystal Lake has received almost $500,000 less from the Nunda Township road and bridge tax, McHenry almost $400,000 less, $219,000 less for Prairie Grove, $124,000 less for Oakwood Hills and $187,000 less for Island Lake. Other towns in Nunda Township have seen between $32,000 to $47,000 less in that time period.

“Why should Nunda share with municipalities? Municipalities have tons of ways to raise funds” for road construction, including increased taxes and Motor Fuel Taxes from the state, Lesperance said.

At the same time “we have paved 75% of the township road in the last 12 years, and I would like to finish the job” without raising taxes, Lesperance said.

Lesperance owned Iron Mike’s Excavating when he took over at the township. Parrish is a project manager for paving company Geske and Sons, a role he said he’s working to retire from.

Parrish ran the first time for some of the same reasons he is now, including improving communication with residents. It is difficult to get a complete accounting from Highway Department in where money is spent, he said.

The board has also seen residents attend its meetings, complaining that they cannot get responses from Lesperance about road projects affecting them. Up until November, Lesperance had not attended a Township Board meeting in at least two years.

Lesperance noted he is not required to attend the meetings, adding that his office hours are 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and that he is available to talk by phone.

A lawsuit currently working its way through McHenry County Courts pits the Township Highway District against residents on Steuben Road. In September 2023 and after reconstructing Stueben Road, Lesperance also constructed a parking lot off Steuben Road that accesses Moraine Hills State Park.

Neighbors are suing, saying among other arguments that the property used for the road is owned by the estate of the couple who built the subdivision, not the township.

Those residents attended Nunda Township meetings, seeking relief and answers, Parrish said.

Lesperance asserted that “Parrish whipped [the Steuben Road residents] into this frenzy.” When asked whether building a parking lot for access to a state park was part the highway commissioner’s responsibility, he said he was going above and beyond to provide benefits to the public. He also acknowledged that – in what he said were weekly patrols of the entire 100 miles of roads the commissioner is responsible for – he has rarely seen cars use that parking lot.

If elected, Parrish said he plans to go above and beyond in keeping residents informed, including calling for meetings to inform them of planned work, gathering email addresses to notify residents, and placing signs at subdivision entrances “that say ‘Here is what we are planning in your neighborhood,‘” Parrish said.

Parrish also wants the township to bid out projects, rather than having township employees doing repaving and road reconstruction – and having the township board approve those bids and projects.

Lesperance has said that doing roadwork in-house is how his agency has been able to save taxpayer dollars.

Parrish also said that returning funds to municipalities and the taxpayers in them “is one of the big ones” on his agenda. “I will put the levy back to the historic amounts in the road the bridge funds so it is going back to the municipalities.”

In the February primary, another Nunda Township official, Supervisor Leda Drain, lost her reelection bid to McHenry County Board member Mike Shorten, who is not challenged in Tuesday’s consolidated election.

Nunda Township includes parts of Crystal Lake, McHenry, Bull Valley, Lakemoor, Prairie Grove, Island Lake and Holiday Hills.