Four candidates for the Niles Village Board announced Monday they intend to run in the April 4 election against current Trustees Craig Niedermaier and Dean Strzelecki and fill two vacancies on the board.
The four have formed a slate, which has named itself Citizens for Niles, and said in a statement they were running to stop increases in property taxes and reduce government spending on “mailed letters and signs promoting a single individual.”
Per the news release, the slate is comprised of Vince Genualdi, a former deputy chief in the Niles Police Department, Sherry Bailey-Schutt, Pradip Pandya and Marko Ratic.
“We are the Dream Team everybody’s been waiting for,” Genauldi said in the slate’s statement announcing their candidacy.
Genualdi would be competing for votes with his former boss, Strzelecki, who served as the Niles police chief for several years of Genualdi’s tenure. Voters can vote for individual candidates and do not have to select entire slates.
Mayor George Alpogianis is backing the Vision for Niles Party slate, comprised of incumbents Niedermaier and Strzelecki and newcomer Marryann Warda, a 24-year-old registered nurse.
In responding to the new slate’s statement, Alpogianis said he had covered “most of” the cost of the “please drive safely” yard signs the slate referred to in its announcement.
“I am the one that personally spent thousands of dollars on those signs, not the village of Niles,” he said. “And if they want to talk about the cost, there may have been a couple of hundred, like $200 or $300, spent on putting them in and then removing them. They should be ashamed of themselves because those signs are put there for the safety of our children.”
Alpogianis said he and the other trustees didn’t want to raise property taxes but felt it was a necessary move. The village hiked its property tax rate 88% last year before dropping that increase to 63% earlier this year, citing a strong year of sales tax revenue.
“The board members and I are citizens as well,” Alpogianis said. “We’re going to have to pay those same taxes and always do what is best for the village of Niles. And unfortunately prior administrations had just kicked the can down the road and we needed to correct it now and not later.”
Alpogianis said he welcomed the new slate to the race.
Earlier this month, Trustee Joe LoVerde announced his resignation from the board after 14 years, leaving a second open seat on the board after former Trustee Denise McCreery resigned in November 2021.
A village referendum approved in 2014 prohibits the mayor from making appointments to empty seats on the village board, meaning that the board will be short two members until the April 4 election.
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None of the members of the slate immediately responded to phone and email requests for comment from Pioneer Press.