With the results from Tuesday’s suburban municipal elections finally tabulated in several razor-thin races, the time’s come for me to write another one of my world-famous stories about who really won and lost—aside from the candidates, of course.
Bolingbrook. The mayor of this distant southwest suburb is Roger Claar, a 31-year incumbent whose record over the years includes getting pulled over by Naperville cops for drunk driving, using his post on the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority to help Bolingbrook annex land alongside I-55, and having to step down from his position as village liquor commissioner after it was revealed that he’d accepted donations from one of the bars he was investing in. (Thanks to Sun-Times reporter Mitchell Armentrout for chronicling Claar’s many achievements.)
Winner: Trump. Although this was the closest anyone’s come to unseating Claar, so don’t get too cocky, Mr. President.
Yo, Mayor McLaughlin—learn from Rahm. Getting the board to give you a raise is like releasing a video showing a policeman killing an unarmed teenager. It’s best to do after the election.
He was nowhere near a ballot on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, he felt compelled to win a little publicity by unveiling a new graduation requirement. From here on out, CPS high-schoolers can’t get a diploma until they prove they have some sort of postgraduation plan, like acceptance into college, trade school, or the military.
