Jeff Keast first ran for mayor in the 2013 consolidated election. | File photo
Jeff Keast first ran for mayor in the 2013 consolidated election. | File photo
The "Bring Back Bourbonnais" group hosted a meet and greet fundraiser at the BrickStone Brewery on Feb. 18.
Residents of Bourbonnais had the opportunity to meet Republican candidates Jeff Keast, who's running or mayor, and trustee candidates Brad Arthur, Chris Deschand and Mike Zenz.
The GOP team has focused its campaign on lower property taxes, job development and bringing friendship back to the village of Friendship.
Keast first ran for mayor in the 2013 consolidated election. Though he and his supporters worked hard and gained 41 percent of the vote, he lost. Bring Back Bourbonnais coalesced two years later. Kreast and two other candidates ran on a tight platform and swept the three trustee seats in the 2015 election.
"Once elected, we forced compliance with the state’s Open Meeting Act, hired a business-friendly village administrator with whom we work hand in hand to assure the village’s prosperity, and all without breaking the backs of its residents with unnecessary taxation," the organization posted on its Facebook page.
The group has set its sights higher in 2017, with Kreast running for mayor against two-term incumbent Paul Schore and adding three new trustee candidates to its slate for the April 4 election.
Schore is joined on the Bourbonnais Citizens Party ticket by incumbents Rick Fischer and Bruce Greenlee and newcomer Angie Serfini, who is seeking retiring trustee Vera Amiano's seat.
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