April 04, 2025
NewsHigh School SportsElection 2025eNewspaperNewslettersObituariesEvent Calendar

Freedom Party wins 2 seats on Manteno board

By Christopher Breach
Surrounded by fellow Manteno Freedom Party candidates and supporters, Manteno mayor-elect Annette LaMore reviews vote totals on Tuesday night during at a watch party at the Manteno American Legion.

Manteno mayor-elect Annette LaMore reviews vote totals on Tuesday night with fellow Freedom Party candidates Peggy Vaughn, right, and Kerri Rolniak, left, during at a watch party at the Manteno American Legion. Vaughn won a village board seat and Rolniak won the village clerk race. (Tiffany Blanchette)

The Manteno Freedom Party won two seats on the six-member village board in Tuesday’s municipal election, as Peggy Vaughn was the top vote-getter with 1,515 votes.

Incumbent CJ Bourdeau, a member of the Manteno Choice Party, won one of the three seats with 1,316 votes (16.84%).

Just one vote separates Michael Barry and Paul Motel – 1,287 to 1,286, both Freedom Party members. A winner will be determined once the mail-in ballots are counted.

If the votes hold, the Manteno Choice Party will hold a 4-2 village board majority.

“I am totally appreciative to everybody that came out and voted for us, and we will do our very best to make this town proud of us and keep everybody safe,” Vaughn said Tuesday night at the Freedom Party’s gathering at the American Legion. “I just can’t thank everybody enough that took the time to get us in office.”

Vaughn agreed that the voters sent a message.

“I think people wanted change,” she said.

Boudreau said he’s hopeful his election will be official once all the mail-in ballots are counted.

“I’m happy,” he said. “I cut through the decisiveness. There must be something I did that reached through people above everything else.”

Vaughn is no stranger to elections as she twice ran for mayor of Manteno. This will be her first public office as a village trustee.

The winner of the third trustee won’t be determined until all the mail-in ballots are counted, and the deadline for those ballots to be received at the county clerk’s office is April 15.

Kankakee County Clerk Dan Hendrickson said there were approximately 3,000 mail ballots sent out in the county. The Freedom Party said there were about 299 of those ballots in Manteno that will need to be counted.

Motel said it’s hard to tell who will get the final trustee seat.

“I’m newer to the community,“ he said. ”People may not believe that I love the community as much as them, and I understand that at the end of the day. I just hope whoever gets in will work together to reunite Manteno and make this the community that drew us all here again. That’s all I hope for.”

Motel moved to Manteno seven years ago from Palos Hills.

Village clerk

Manteno Freedom Party’s Kerri Rolniak won the village clerk race, garnering 1,427 votes to the Choice Party’s Stacy Malone’s 1,311 votes.