After fending off Dolton Trustee Kiana Belcher in the March Democratic primary, Kisha McCaskill now faces Republican Richard Nolan in the general election for 5th District Cook County Board seat.
The seat, previously held by Monica Gordon, includes parts of the South Side and large sections of the south and southwest suburbs with portions of Bloom, Bremen, Calumet, Lake, Rich, Thornton and Worth townships.
Gordon resigned in 2024 after being elected Cook County clerk, and McCaskill was appointed to fill her seat in January 2025.
Kisha McCaskill
McCaskill, a Harvey native and the executive director of the Harvey Park District, said she is excited about the election.
“Happy to continue to do the work, so we’re just trying to get over the hump,” she said.
McCaskill and Nolan both said addressing skyrocketing property taxes in the south suburbs was a primary concern.
“Right now, what you have is a system and a formula that will cause everyone’s property taxes to go up regardless of the conditions of their home,” McCaskill said.
For example, McCaskill said, if there’s a home built in 1980 and not improved or rehabilitated, and a new home is built on the same block that sells for a much higher amount, the property taxes for the older home also go up.
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In the long term, she would like to see a less “one size fits all” tax formula for the Southland that takes the condition of individual homes into account and “actually reflects the lack of economic development and the lack of economic interest there,” she said.
“We don’t have, in the south suburban area, the same level of economic revenue or economic engine to push our taxes to be lower,” McCaskill said. “Because we don’t have that, all of our tax information is actually inflated.”
In the short term, she said she is working to improve communication and ensure residents are informed about how to appeal their assessments and claim eligible exemptions.
“We do have now a property tax task force, so that’s one of the initiatives that I think is going to really produce some great results,” McCaskill said.
Another goal is to develop programming in collaboration with school districts to steer children away from violence and keep them out of the judicial system, she said.
“While we are seeing a significant decrease in gun violence countywide, I would like for it to stay there,” McCaskill said. “So I would like to see more robust programming, specifically in the schools, to incentivize children to continue to stay away from any level of negative behavior.”
When first appointed to the board, McCaskill said one goal was to bring a Level 1 or 2 trauma center to the south suburbs.
While the trauma center is still something she’d like to see happen, progress has stalled, McCaskill said, due in part to the overriding urgency of major federal Medicaid cuts.
“We’re actually out doing open enrollment, making sure people know about the cuts that are coming to Medicaid and trying to help people get ahead of that,” McCaskill said. “In Cook County, we have approximately 400,000 people that have some form of Medicaid that will be impacted.”
She has worked to increase the free healthcare services provided by the county, including cancer screenings and flu vaccinations, she said.
McCaskill said that she would support municipal governments in whatever decision they make regarding data centers, though she said issues like water use need to be clarified first. Robbins Mayor Darren Bryant said in January he would support a data center in place of the village’s dormant trash incinerator.
“One thing that they all agree on is that there is a need for more communication and more education,” McCaskill said. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to avoid having data centers. I think they are going to come at some point.”
Richard Nolan
Nolan, who said he switched from being a Democrat to a Republican three years ago, is running on what he calls a “Judeo-Christian platform.”
“In 2012, they took God out of the National Democratic mission statement, and that kind of haunted me,” Nolan said.
Nolan, who lives in Dolton, said he was motivated to run by visible disparities in the south suburbs, such as the number of abandoned homes.
“If downtown gets a sneeze, the south suburban corridor gets the flu,” Nolan said. “I’ve always been a person that wanted to advocate for those less fortunate.”
Nolan was a Riverdale trustee and on the General George S. Patton School District 133 board in Riverdale, he said.
Nolan said he wanted to cap property taxes at 1% of the home’s value. Such a cut would leave a major hole in state funding for schools, which comes primarily from property taxes, though Nolan claimed he would be able to solve that issue by eliminating “waste” elsewhere.
“We would audit and we would go into the waste to ensure that the schools remain viable and fully funded,” Nolan said. “Once you’re in the home, you can negotiate, you know where all the bones are buried.”
He also said he wants to end the county’s pension plan, grandfathering in all employees but putting new hires on a 401k plan instead.
“Dealing with the tax reform, dealing with the pension, those are the things that we’re bleeding from,” Nolan said.
He said there should be a districtwide referendum on data centers.
“I would love to do ballot referendums to get a clear understanding of what the people want,” Nolan said. “We’re there to represent our constituents.”
Nolan said he fully supports Immigration and Customs Enforcement carrying out deportations in Illinois, and suggested spending on undocumented immigrants was one cause of the county’s budgetary problems.
“When you’re dealing with the healthcare, how much money was allocated toward the illegal immigrants? If we cut that funding, the taxpayers would not have to take on that burden,” Nolan said.
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He also repeated claims pushed by Republicans, including President Donald Trump, that undocumented immigrants were being used to inflate Democratic votes. According to the American Immigration Council, a nonpartisan group, noncitizen voting is rare.
Nolan said he wanted to address corruption in the south suburbs and felt a change in leadership was necessary.
“You’re not going to get anything different with these people in office,” Nolan said.
Nolan blamed mismanagement among the County Board, including McCaskill, for the $550 million budget shortfall projected for the county next year.
“She’s not talking about these issues and these numbers, that there’s a mismanagement, no accountability,” Nolan said. “I think that she’s really kind of over her head.”
As a Republican running in a heavily Democratic area, Nolan stressed he has experience collaborating with Democrats. Only one seat on the 17-member County Board is held by a Republican.