Brookfield’s PEP Party is the first political party out of the gates for the April 2011 election, which will see three trustees elected to the village board. The party announced last week that it had selected incumbent C.P. Hall, former trustee Kit Ketchmark and newcomer Ryan Evans as its slate of candidates.
Hall is finishing his 14th year on the village board. He was a two-term trustee from 1991-99 and has served in the position again since 2005, when he was appointed to the position following the election of Michael Garvey as president. Hall was subsequently elected to the post in 2007.
Hall acknowledged that the village has experienced financial difficulties in the past couple of years, similar to those faced nationally and at the state level. But, he said, Brookfield has been able to weather that storm.
“We are in a difficult moment on every level here,” Hall said. “But I think we’ve done a good job in Brookfield, while other communities around us, who may have started at a better point, are worse off.
“I’d like us to get to a better point before I leave,” he said.
Ketchmark, a local landscaping contractor, served two terms on the village board from 2001 to 2009. During his second term, he was the board’s finance chairman and most recently has served as president of the PEP Party.
Asked why he is anxious to rejoin the fray after leaving office just two years ago, Ketchmark said he missed the job.
“Do I say I miss it? I guess you do. In a way, it’s almost tough not being involved in it.”
Ketchmark said his experience as a trustee would be an asset in negotiating the choppy financial waters the village faces.
“There’s a lot more economic climate we need to weather,” Ketchmark said. “I can bring a perspective on that, too.”
The slate’s third candidate, Evans, is chairman of the Brookfield Beautification Commission, which he joined two years ago. Evans, 28, has been a seventh-grade social studies teacher at S.E. Gross Middle School for five years and was the school’s liaison for the Beautification Commission’s Project NICE for two years prior to joining the commission.
“I see things I both agree and disagree with in the village,” Evans said. “Being a lifetime resident, but being a younger resident, I can actively voice some concerns people in my demographics have.”
Evans, a graduate of St. Louise de Marillac School and Nazareth Academy, is married with one daughter.
Choosing not to run for re-election are trustees David LeClere and Yvonne Prause. Both trustees came up through the ranks via their involvement with the Brookfield Parks and Recreation Commission.
While Prause deciding against running for re-election is not a surprise, LeClere late in September told the Landmark he was interested in being slated by the party for re-election and had asked PEP to consider his candidacy.
Last week, the Landmark ran a story about LeClere’s failure to have his house pass a resale inspection four years after he purchased it in 2006. In a press release issued by PEP on Friday, the party noted that LeClere “has faced many challenges in his personal life, from a new baby, to his father passing away, to a new home requiring much more work than anticipated, to increased participation in the family business.”
“I feel the need to step back at this time and devote my efforts towards my family and personal obligations,” LeClere said in the release.
Candidates for office will be able to file nominating petitions from Dec. 13 to Dec. 20.
