Another candidate, Michael Christin, is throwing his hat into the ring for a spot on the Naperville City Council, bumping up the number of candidates running to nine.
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Four council seats are up for election this spring. Council incumbents Josh McBroom, Supna Jain and Nate Wilson have confirmed they are running for reelection. Councilman Patrick Kelly is not seeking another term.
Challenging them for those four-year terms are Judd Kendall VFW Post 3873 Cmdr. Staci Boyer, Indian Prairie District 204 School Board President Laurie Donahue, Naperville District 203 School Board members Kristine Gericke and Marc Willensky and newcomer Xavier Sims.
Resident Bruce Jones picked up a packet to run last week, according to city spokesperson Linda LaCloche. He was unable to be reached for comment.
Christin said he was inspired to run after hearing a speech many years ago by then-Wisconsin Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus. At the time, Christin was in his early 20s and working for IBM.
“He said, ‘When you get to a certain age, after your career is over, when your career is winding down, be able to give back. Run for city council. Run for chamber of commerce. Join your Knights of Columbus. Just be able to give back because you have a lot of things to offer,’” he recalled.
That advice resonated with Christin, who is now 59 and works as a senior vice president of sales and marketing for a facility management company.
“He said, ‘You want to give back in any way you can,’ and I decided it’d be kind of cool to run for city council,’” Christin said.
There are three areas Christin hopes to focus on in his campaign: affordable housing, providing resources to first responders and supporting small businesses.
“When my mom and dad moved here, they bought a house for about $40,000, and one of the things I want to do is I’d love to be able to make Naperville affordable for young families,” he said. “With my wife and myself when we were younger, we couldn’t afford a million dollar condo, much less a house.”
He said that in particular, he would like to find a way to bring in additional housing that is smaller and in the $300,000 to $400,000 cost range.
“I read an article that said a lot of kids nowadays don’t want to live in these giant houses,” he said. “They’re more minimalist, and they would like to have something that’s affordable, that’s clean, that’s safe, and they don’t need to have an 8,000- or 10,000-square-foot house because it’s not something that they want.”
Supporting first responders is also top of mind for Christin, who recently completed the Naperville Citizen Fire Academy and is now participating in the Citizen Police Academy. The topic has personal meaning for Christin, who said some of his family members were Chicago police officers who struggled with mental health.
“The one thing I’d like to be able to do is to provide support for people that are on both ends of the phone, the guys that are taking the (911) calls and of course the people that are calling in,” he said.
He is interested in expanding the city’s newly formed Mobile Crisis Intervention Team, which is a unit of police officers and social workers who work together to address mental health-related calls.
“I think that’s really impressive that they have that. I could see in the next year or two probably doubling or tripling that, because (Police Chief Jason Arres) said they get about 1,000 calls a year where someone is going to do harm to themselves or someone else,” said Christin, adding he would also like to hire more police officers in general.
With regards to small businesses, he said the recent closures of businesses like Everdine’s Grilled Cheese Co. make him worried about the tax burden owners are facing.
“I’d like to be able to figure out a way to make sure the taxes aren’t so incredibly high that businesses aren’t going to be around,” he said.
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Finally, when asked about his thoughts on the city’s future electricity source, he said sustainability was particularly important to him and he is happy to see the council considering alternative energy sources.
Outside of work, Christin is a member of the Knights of Columbus at St. Raphael Catholic Church. He has four children, all of whom are in their 20s.
The mayor’s seat is also up for election in April. Incumbent Mayor Scott Wehrli and Councilman Benny White have announced they’re running, and a third possible candidate, Tiffany Stephens, has picked up a petition packet, according to LaCloche. Stephens has not returned calls for comment.
Election petitions must be filed between Oct. 19 and 26 for a candidate’s name to appear on the April 6 ballot.
If there are more than 16 candidates for council or four candidates for mayor, a primary election will be held Feb. 23, 2027.