Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories looking at contested races in the Nov. 3 general election.
In the upcoming general election, two candidates are vying to serve as the next Kane County sheriff: Amy Johnson and Rob Russell.
Johnson, a Democrat, is Kane County’s current undersheriff. Russell, a Republican, is the former Kane County coroner. Both candidates won their respective nominations in the March primary election.
The Nov. 3 general election is set to occur just days after the planned retirement of current sheriff Ron Hain, who recently announced his intention to retire to “focus on his health and to ensure continuity of leadership.” Last year, Hain indicated that he would not be running in 2026, casting his support behind Johnson.
But Hain had been missing from the public eye for about six months prior, prompting questions about the office’s operations and who was in charge. Johnson will be stepping into the role of acting sheriff as of Nov. 1 until another sheriff is elected or appointed.
Amy Johnson
Amy Johnson was born and raised in Kane County, and has served her entire career in the Kane County Sheriff’s Office. She’s worked as an evidence custodian, and then as a deputy, and has served in a variety of roles, like as a detective, crime scene evidence technician and field training officer.
In 2022, Johnson was appointed undersheriff by Hain, becoming the first woman to hold the post in the county. She has received Hain’s backing in her bid for sheriff.
She currently lives in Prestbury, in unincorporated Kane County, she told The Beacon-News recently.
Johnson said her top priorities, if elected, include fiscal responsibility and transparency, recruitment and retention within the sheriff’s office, and ensuring the office’s technology is “up and running and sustainable.”
On the office’s finances, Johnson said she wants to ensure the office comes in “right on target or a little bit below target,” while still enabling its corrections, court security and public safety services to be sustained. She also said she wants to ensure the community is informed of where their tax dollars are going.
Johnson said the office has already audited its corrections spending to see what could be cut back on, based on requests from the Kane County Board to reduce its spending. She said the office has looked at, for example, the training and certifications it offers for detainees.
The office has also looked at cutting back on out-of-state training for public safety, she said, and the office’s use of supplies. But “unfunded mandates,” like the requirements of the SAFE-T Act, are a “contributing factor” to the office’s spending, Johnson said. Overtime and union contracts are also factors, she said.
As to recruitment and retention, Johnson said the office is “tired of burnout” and “manpower issues.”
And she said she’d want the office’s manpower to go toward areas the public is concerned about, such as traffic issues.
On technology, Johnson pointed to things like body-worn cameras and computer software, saying she would want to make sure the office has the right tools “to facilitate community safety, communication and understanding of crime trends.”
And she noted recent pushback surrounding Flock cameras, saying technology “works great when it’s used appropriately.”
Earlier this month, the sheriff’s office opted to remove Flock automated license plate reader cameras from a residential area near Geneva following a vote by the Mill Creek SSA Advisory Board, per a recent news release. According to Johnson, those cameras were being paid for by the SSA, but are just maintained by the sheriff’s office.
She noted that, with regards to the cameras, the office wants to “go with what the community wants,” but still have “heavily concentrated areas, too.”
As for transparency in the office and its handling of Hain’s recent absence, Johnson said she’s “trying to peel back the layers” with regards to what transparency means.
“We’re all for making sure people understand what’s going on, but also respecting individuals and medical conditions, or anything else,” Johnson told The Beacon-News. “It’s no different than any of our other officers.”
Johnson said she “did not have a say” in the handling of the information, saying that “what is private is private.” And she said the office’s command staff “stepped up and took the reins as it’s supposed to.”
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As to concerns about federal immigration enforcement, Johnson said enforcement is “primarily (a) federal responsibility,” and the sheriff’s office must operate within the laws.
“We want to maintain strong partnerships with all of law enforcement,” Johnson added, “but …federal we will not assist on whatsoever. … We want every person within our community to be heard, and also feel safe coming in, or showing up to file a police report (or) go to court.”
As for future efforts, Johnson said the county’s planned forensics lab is “still full steam ahead,” but the county is working on getting the right tools for it and handling each step in the correct order.
And she said mental health support remains a priority going forward, both for detainees and for the office’s deputies.
Rob Russell
Rob Russell served as the Kane County coroner from 2012 to 2024, when he lost reelection to Democratic challenger Monica Silva.
He has several decades of law enforcement experience, he told The Beacon-News recently, including working in the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office. He’s currently working as a campus police officer at Harper College in Palatine.
He has lived in Kane County for several decades and currently lives in Hampshire.
If elected sheriff, among Russell’s top priorities is getting the sheriff’s office accredited.
Such a step, he says, is “not a silver bullet,” but it would help the office to have “codified standards.” Russell successfully got the coroner’s office accredited when he was leading that office.
Russell pointed to “problems and challenges that are going on right now in, in the Kane County Sheriff’s Office,” suggesting it is helpful to have policies and procedures based not just on in-house rules, but also on how other agencies operate.
Pointing to what he called a “lack of transparency” within the office currently, Russell suggested accreditation could potentially help with public trust in the office.
On the question of transparency, Russell also spoke to a need for the sheriff’s office to provide “relevant” press releases and keep the public informed about whatever they are able to share, saying that those in the office work for the county’s residents.
Russell also said leaders need to create an “atmosphere of expectancy and … stability,” something which he said is not currently happening in the office. And he suggested that recruitment and retention in the office should be addressed by creating “an environment where people feel comfortable to do their job.”
As to the office’s current efforts, Russell said he has to “applaud” Hain’s focus on helping people struggling with addiction and the related programs he started, saying he’d want to keep such programs as long as the office can afford to. But he said the sheriff’s office could “do a better job” of partnering with advocacy groups, saying the office must be responsible with taxpayer money.
If elected, Russell said he’d also prioritize continued progress on the county’s planned forensics lab, for which he previously provided consulting services to the sheriff’s office.
Calling the creation of the lab a “daunting task,” Russell said the county needs to “look at some other possible solutions to that,” like partnering with DuPage County on what would be a joint lab — thereby saving taxpayers money and the county time and effort.
To the question of federal immigration enforcement, Russell said that the sheriff’s office is “limited in (its) scope of authority with what (it) can do with ICE.”
“I’m not going to step outside of that,” Russell said.
But he said it’s the office’s job to arrest people behaving violently, so if, for example, a person tried “to run down ICE agents,” they would go to jail. Or, Russell said, if a person who is an immigrant is “victimizing people,” they are going to get arrested.
“Everybody will be treated equally and fairly,” Russell said.
As for the recent debate around Flock camera use, Russell said the cameras “have a place,” but residents should be telling law enforcement where they want them, rather than law enforcement “throwing them up all over the county.” He said that, if elected sheriff, he would want a moratorium on the cameras’ use and to form a commission of civilians, law enforcement, judges and attorneys to discuss how they should be used going forward.
And, as to the sheriff’s office’s finances, Russell said that he would, if elected, initiate a forensic audit to “chase down where every penny went.”
From there, he would look at what the office is mandated to do, prioritizing those things first in the budget. He also pointed to things like union contracts and increases in health insurance costs as potential costs the office has to contend with.
“The numbers are all going to make sense,” Russell said, “when I’m in there.”