Flyers from union-backed political action committee add to already tense Nunda Township highway commissioner primary race

A union-backed political action committee has waded into the two-way primary race for Nunda Township highway commissioner, sending out flyers that allege misdeeds by the incumbent, Mike Lesperance.

The ads, created by a political action committee called the “Lunch Pail Republican PAC,” feature a Shaw Local photo of Lesperance, used without permission and doctored to make him look like a clown, and allege he’s used favoritism and nepotism in hiring and contracting, he‘s cost taxpayers money by using “shady” accounting, and that he is “playing games with road construction materials.”

The claim around favoritism and nepotism centers around a Northwest Herald article from 2018, in which McHenry Township trustees questioned the hiring of Lesperance’s son. Nowhere in the article do the words favoritism or nepotism appear.

Lesperance denied the claims in an interview with the Northwest Herald earlier this week, saying normal accounting practices are incorrectly being presented as “nefarious.” He is running against Eric Dowd, a fellow Republican, in the February primary election.

Dowd said he was aware that these flyers were made on his behalf and denied any inaccuracies: “There’s nothing on any campaign issue that anybody has sent out on my behalf that’s not factual,” he told the Northwest Herald.

The PAC that developed the flyers, the Lunch Pail Republicans, typically supports candidates and issues favorable to investment in transportation infrastructure in a bipartisan fashion, as well as those who are good with the union construction industry, said Marc Poulos, who responded to the Northwest Herald on behalf of the group.

Poulos is the executive director of the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting and is a member of International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, according to a biography on the foundation’s website. He had served as the chapter’s general counsel.

Local 150 created Lunch Pail Republicans in Indiana in 2012 initially created to fight legislation like “right to work,” which prohibit agreements compelling employees to join or pay dues to a labor union, according to the chapter’s website.

The political action committee helps out in political campaigns across Illinois, Poulos said, including legislative races at the state, federal and local level, and the “For a Better Nunda” slate of candidates, of which Dowd is part, are among the candidates backed by the PAC.

Poulos declined to comment on how much involvement Dowd had in creating the flyers, saying the Lunch Pail Republicans “don’t comment on the administrative side of what we do.” He also declined to characterize exactly what his arguments were for the flyer’s claims of Lesperance using nepotism.

One of the main criticisms leveled by the flyers is that Lesperance cost Nunda Township taxpayers over $800,000 in “shady government accounting.”

Dowd pointed to the way Lesperance has shifted the road district’s property tax levy to reserve more funds for the township instead of sharing some of those dollars with municipalities located within the township.

The township has two line items within its levy for roads, one of which is shared with municipalities. Over the years, the township has levied less for the shared line item and more in another line item it doesn’t have to share.

That’s meant the road district’s levy has remained flat overall but the road district gets to keep more the dollars collected, a move that Dowd has criticized along with McHenry Mayor Wayne Jett.

“[Lesperance] doesn’t plow my road or fix my road. McHenry does, but McHenry is being shorted that reimbursement money,” said Dowd, who lives in the city of McHenry. “Every municipality is the same way.”

Revenue to pay for city of McHenry street improvements is significantly down because of Lesperance, Jett said in a Facebook post this week.

Though Lesperance touts keeping the Nunda Township road tax levy flat since 2015, Jett said this is “at the expense of the city of McHenry residents.”

“Since 2015, this amounts to the city’s legal share being reduced by roughly $230,000 – money that would have been used by the city to maintain city roads,” Jett said in the post. “In a time when tax levies are tight all around, Iron Mike has taken money from the city of McHenry’s residents and it needs to stop.”

Lesperance doesn’t dispute he’s made the shift, something he said was necessary to cover increased expenses.

Both payroll and the cost of asphalt goes up every year, Lesperance said. So instead of raising taxes, he moved money from the road and bridge fund, which is the least used fund, to the permanent hard road fund, to cover these increased expenses.

“That just happens to translate that we don’t share that money with the municipalities anymore,” Lesperance said. “It’s not nefarious. There’s no shady accounting.”

In fact, Lesperance said, it is a “common practice.”

As township road districts have only two sources of income, motor-fuel vehicle fuel tax and property taxes, other opportunities for increasing revenue are slim, Lesperance said.

“Municipalities like McHenry get tens of millions of our tax dollars a year,” he said. “The road district ... takes $3 million a year, not tens of millions, $3 million,” Lesperance said. “Why are the municipalities getting backdoor money through the township road districts? Why don’t they levy for the money they need and we’ll levy for the money we need?”

Dowd said he will return the levy so municipalities get the proper share.

“I would give them what they should be getting,” he said.

When it comes to the accusations of favoritism or nepotism, Dowd points to Lesperance’s hiring of former Algonquin Township Highway Commissioner Bob Miller and Miller’s sons-in-law.

Lesperance said he did not know either of Miller’s sons-in-law before they came to work at the Nunda Township road district. They were the most qualified people for the job, he said, and Bob Miller is “an extremely talented human being” who works seasonally for the road district on a part-time basis.

Lesperance says he has never had any blood relatives work at the Nunda Township Road District. He said he hires people because of their skill level and what they bring to the Nunda Township Road District.

“When we want to hire somebody, we put an ad in the paper,” Lesperance said. “That’s how we hire our people.”

Lesperance, told the Northwest Herald this week that, when his son first applied for a job at McHenry Township, he had told Highway Commissioner James Condon not to hire his son. He said he wanted his son to “go to O’Hare and get a job where he belongs.”

The second time his son applied for the job, he asked his dad to stay out of the hiring, so he did, Lesperance said.

Regarding his son, Lesperance said Benton has a double major in Bible and philosophy and also is an aviation tech, commercial pilot and commercial pilot flight instructor.

“He doesn’t need my help getting a job anywhere in the world,” Lesperance said. “And I have never asked anybody to get one of my children a job.”