Guerrero holds 11-vote edge for Joliet City Council seat

Cesar Guerrero won the third at-large Joliet City Council seat by 11 votes if the tally holds up when the votes are officially certified April 27.

The last vote counts were announced Tuesday from Joliet precincts in Will and Kendall counties with Guerrero holding on to a narrow lead he obtained when Will County counted a large number of mail-in ballots last week.

His lead increased from nine to 11 on Tuesday when the last of mail-in ballots, along with provisional ballots, were counted.

The votes will be certified April 27, and Robert Wunderlich said he would wait until then before making a statement on the apparent outcome of the election.

Guerrero said he was “relieved” after maintaining his narrow lead during the vote count Tuesday.

“I don’t think anyone expected from the beginning that it would be this drawn out and this close, but here we are,” he said. “I’ll take a moment to take a breath and think about what the next few years have in store.”

If the numbers hold up, Guerrero will have been elected to a four-year term on the City Council.

He will be the only Hispanic member of the council and, at age 25, the youngest member.

It was his first run for elected office, although Guerrero noted that he previously has served on boards and committees. He is a paralegal for the Spanish Community Center in Joliet.

Guerrero thanked those who supported his campaign and volunteered to help get the vote out. He had received a number of endorsements, including one from U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Chicago, and another from the Illinois Nurses Association, which represents union nurses at AMITA Health Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet. Working Families Joliet, which was formed last year to promote new candidates for the City Council, endorsed Guerrero early in the campaign.

Wunderlich held office as a trustee at Joliet Junior College for 44 years before opting to run for City Council in the April 6 election.

“It’s close,” Wunderlich said of the final tally of ballots. But he said he would wait until the certification date before commenting further.

Wunderlich had been hoping for more mail-in votes from Joliet precincts in Kendall County, where he had a 60-vote margin over Guerrero as of election night.

But only three mail-in ballots were counted from Kendall County, and they included two votes for Guerrero and none for Wunderlich.

There were 12 candidates on the ballot for three at-large council seats, which are elected citywide.

Council member Jan Quillman and former police officer Joe Clement had big leads on election night and were not affected by the final count of late-arriving mail-in ballots posted by Election Day and provisional ballots.

Quillman, Clement and Wunderlich all were endorsed by the building trades unions, and on election night all three appeared to have won. But Wunderlich had a slim 55-vote lead over Guerrero that disappeared when a large batch of late-arriving mail-in ballots were counted last week.

The nine-member council also is made up of five district council members, who represent designated sections of Joliet, and the mayor.