Democrats Wendy Meister and Jaclyn Rodriguez are facing off in the upcoming primary for Lake County Board District 3, a seat that will be left open by outgoing Republican board veteran Ann Maine, with each carrying county leadership endorsements but from different branches.
With no Republican challenger currently listed, the path could be largely clear for whoever wins in the March primary. Regardless, as Maine — who first joined the board in 2002 — leaves, it means a new face will be coming to the County Board.
District 3 includes Green Oaks, Lincolnshire, Mettawa, Riverwoods, and portions of Buffalo Grove, Gurnee, Lake Forest, Libertyville, Mundelein, Vernon Hills and Waukegan.
Both candidates listed a variety of endorsements, but notable locally was a grouping of current County Board members, nine of the 14 sitting Democrats, around Rodriguez. Meister, for her part, said she has been endorsed by Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart, Sheriff John Idelburg and Circuit Court Clerk Erin Cartwright Weinstein.
Maine could not be reached for comment. Board member Mary Ross Cunningham, who also joined the County Board in 2002, praised her outgoing colleague. She noted Maine’s support for her district and the forest preserves over her 24-year tenure.
“I hate to see her go, because she and I came on at the same time,” Ross Cunningham said. “I wish her well.”
Wendy Meister
Meister, a Riverwoods resident, has a master’s in architecture and a background in planning various government buildings. She is also a trustee for the Lincolnshire Riverwoods Fire Protection District. Although she’s volunteered on several political campaigns and previously ran for County Board, Meister hasn’t held elected office.
Before her current run, Meister said she was helping collect data for the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. But when federal immigration efforts began in the Chicago area, she said people grew afraid of anyone from the government showing up at their door, and she ultimately resigned.
In this campaign, Meister has warned that the county is facing “extraordinary times,” as changes at the federal level raise questions about the future of funding for health and food assistance. The board hasn’t been proactive enough in preparing for a possible financing cliff, she said.
“We need to worry in advance to have a plan, and prioritize what holes we can plug,” Meister warned.
If she is elected to the board, she said she will advocate for the creation of a task force to plan for potential problems that might come, and what costs they will have if federal funds are lost. The county has a “big reserve” to dip into if there’s a need, but officials need “to sit down and say, ‘We have this much money, and we need this much money for that.’
“I would push for very clear planning of our priorities, how much money we have to give,” Meister said. “There’s a lot of big problems.”
Listening to other County Board candidates, Meister said they are not aligned with the concerns she’s heard from residents. That includes her opponent, Rodriguez.
“I don’t know if they have different districts than mine, but they talk about affordable housing, and they talk about bike paths,” she said. “I have yet to knock on a door where someone told me that in this particular time, we need more bike paths or affordable housing.”
On her campaign page, Meister positions herself as a former whistleblower who, “exposed reckless spending in Lake County government and led the charge to hold the responsible parties accountable for their actions.”
Meister and Tracey Repa were both County Clerk’s Office employees who alleged they were fired by then-Clerk Robin O’Connor after meeting with the Sheriff’s Office to share allegations of improprieties in government contracting related to a courthouse expansion project. Following their firing, the pair filed a lawsuit in 2019, taking a $575,000 settlement in 2021.
Jaclyn Rodriguez
Libertyville resident Rodriguez’s background is as an emergency room nurse, with more than two decades of experience. She specialized as a forensic nurse, caring for those who have experienced violence.
Rodriguez worked eight and a half years at the Illinois Office of the Attorney General as the statewide coordinator for sexual assault nurse examiners, and today has her own consulting business while still working as a bedside forensic nurse, she said. Like Meister, Rodriguez has not previously held an elected office.
During her time at the Attorney General’s Office, Rodriguez was involved in various efforts related to sexual assault survivors, including helping draft the Sexual Assault Incident Procedure Act, which mandates certain policies, procedures and guidelines law enforcement have to be trained on and follow when responding to survivors of sexual violence.
Rodriguez noted that Meister had previously run against Maine and failed to take the seat. The 2022 election saw just over 16,000 votes cast in District 3, with Maine taking about 8,300, or roughly 51%, of the votes.
With her background in healthcare, she “feels really strongly” about creating healthy communities, Rodriguez said, by having bike paths, well-constructed and safe roads, and access to equitable and quality health care and mental health services.
She praised the county’s work on the forest preserves and making them accessible for residents, something she hopes to expand on. Rodriguez also expressed excitement about looking into creating a county-wide compost program.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for us to look in Lake County as a partnership between businesses and the forest preserve to eliminate the huge amount of food waste that goes into our landfills on a daily basis, from restaurants or schools,” she said.
Other initiatives center around accessibility to healthcare and mental health services. Rodriguez pointed to the recently opened Frontline Care Center, a mental health services clinic aimed at first responders.
“I’ve seen the impact a lack of mental health services can have on individuals, families and communities,” she said.
Other issues that have come up in discussions with residents have been the Route 120 bypass, as well as the elimination of lands already designated as forest preserve or as protected land.
“As County Board members, we have to have that ability to think outside the box, but do it in a respectful manner,” Rodriguez said.
Where Meister has criticized the board, calling for change, Rodriguez said the message she is hearing from people is different.
“I like what our County Board is doing,” she said. “I think we’re moving in the right direction. I hope that I can get this position in order to continue to move forward the positive energy and the good work that the board has been doing.”
Taking Maine’s seat
Lake County’s political climate has shifted notably at the county level in the last decade, and today the County Board is overwhelmingly Democratic. Through that, Maine remained in her seat, although it’s difficult to say whether that was a reflection of the district’s political leanings or Maine’s record on the board.
Taking over from Maine has a “humbling nature to it,” Rodriguez said, since she’s “been able to connect with the community for as long as she has, to be able to maintain that seat,” while getting Democratic and Republican voters. Strong leadership requires a “good listener” with compassion and empathy, she said.
“I believe in those open lines of communication. Even though I might not see eye to eye on some specific topics with someone, I can hear their concerns, and I can take that into consideration with decisions that I would be making on the board,” she said.
Although Meister said the outgoing Maine has a long history of being good on the environment, she argues that Maine has “voted for the Trump agenda.”
Running in a district that has been held by a Republican for decades, Meister argued there are things across the political spectrum she sees agreement on while going door to door, such as “unacceptable” behavior by ICE and Border Patrol, or losing medical services in a region, pointing to when Vista Medical Center East in Waukegan eliminated some services last year.
“I might be a Democrat, I might have a strong Democratic background, but I also talk common sense to people,” Meister said.
If she were to win, Meister said she isn’t concerned about taking the place of a longtime member. While Maine has been a “strong candidate” for a long time, it isn’t the focus of the district right now, Meister said.
“People are focused on safety-net programs and how we’re going to fill these holes,” Meister said. “We don’t have the same vision; mine is different. I’m running to represent what they’re concerned about today, not what they were concerned about last year.”
While she is “definitely running a Democrat campaign,” Rodriguez’s discussions with County Board members show “a lot of decisions that the County Board makes are bipartisan.”
“I would not say I’m running bipartisan, but I’m also someone who, through my career, interacts with people of all different races, identities, genders, sexual orientation and political affiliations,” she said. “It’s important that we hear and we listen to people on both sides and, maybe not agree, but at least have decency in those conversations.”
