The matchup in McLean County Board's District 5 is a debate between a conservative bank examiner and a self-described “New Deal” style Democrat.
That is to say Republican Jeff Lord is challenging incumbent Democrat Buck Farley for his seat on the board serving the district of northeast Normal.
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Farley was first elected to the board in 2024. He ran against Randy Knapp to finish the term previously held by Board Chair John McIntyre.
Farley describes himself as a "New Deal" Democrat because it reflects his focus to build up the middle class.
Farley grew up in Knoxville, Illinois. “My father was a railroader over there, my mom a nurse,” he said.
Farley came to Normal in 1995 to attend Illinois State University, graduating with a degree in anthropology and history. Farley found work outside of McLean County, but like many ISU graduates he was eventually drawn back. He is married and now works a job at State Farm as its historian.
“So, now we also have three children. I have my daughter Caoilainn, my son Padraig … and we have my nephew Spencer … we’re in the process of adoption for him,” said Farley.
Lord grew up a little further away in Golden, Illinois, and also eventually came to study at ISU. He graduated in 1983 with a degree in accounting. He worked a variety of jobs around Central Illinois in banking, both as a loan officer or examiner.
“I had over 40 years in banking. I retired last year … now I’m 65,” he said. “If you had told me three years ago, when I retired [I would say] we’d be moving.”
But life happened, Lord said. Several weddings, grandkids and the like kept Lord and his wife, Shelly, in Normal like they always had been. Although, that wasn’t all bad because the Lord clan really enjoys ISU athletics.
“A good part of the Lord family went to Nashville,” he said, referring to the ISU football national championship game. “It was my wife and I, and my brother and his wife and our youngest daughter … we’ve gone a lot of time down to Arch Madness … for many years.”
Finances
Monetary matters matter quite a bit to both of the candidates in District 5. For Lord, it's his life’s work and where he said his experience largely lies.
Lord said he made the decision to run for county board in part because of increasing taxes.
“I have the financial and economic and budget experience from being in banking and being a banking examiner, dealing with the board of directors and presidents of banks a lot of time,” said Lord. “Plus, a lot of what our work did is overview loans."
Lord said he has seen friends and neighbors leave McLean County because of rising costs in Illinois. He said the county board should operate like the way a bank's board protects its shareholders.
“Well, board members of these public entities should [act] to protect the taxpayers,” he said, adding that the county should consider what its residents will get in return when considering what to fund — similar to how a bank decides who to lend to based on the return.
The county’s budget is an important issue for Farley as well. He sits on the finance committee and said he has learned a lot during his term.
“For me, it’s been a really good education experience. Seeing how the budget is compiled, watching where our tax dollars go, making sure they’re spent properly,” he said. “And it kind of makes you feel kind of proud to be in that position because you’re kind of stewarding this county’s money."
Farley said his time in office has given him a more realistic outlook of the county’s financial prosperity. He supports the shared sales tax fund between the county and Town of Normal and City of Bloomington dedicated to behavioral health programs and jail expansion bond debt.
Farley said that money helps the county have more money to spend on necessary programs.
“The reason why I think these social services are important is because we have people in our community that need help,” he said. “We should not live in a society where we value the dollar over the human. I think you should be judged on your success as a society by how the poorest are living in your community.”
Farley said there is no reason why someone working full time cannot afford rent or a home in the community.
“I want to make sure people know where their money are going and if you look past how we got to this point, the McLean County Board had been controlled by the Republican Party since forever, 1950s. We now have a Democratic board and since then, we’ve started to use the mental health funding like it needs to be used,” he said. “It’s not just sitting there anymore.”
Budget discrepancies
One issue facing the county is a series of tax miscalculations from the McLean County clerk’s office.
In March, Michael was confronted by the county board for overspending in her budget by more than $400,000. Also, three errors have been made by the clerk’s office, including wrong tax bills sent to residents in Hudson Township, Octavia Park District and the Olympia and Ridgeview school districts.
Lord said the county board should watch financial statements more closely so members are not surprised when something goes over budget.
“But if you're not looking at your financial statements on a periodic basis, other than once a year, that's where surprises come up,” Lord said. “And that leads to some misunderstanding and then a lot of finger pointing all the way around. I mean, it's just not the best communication.”
In a follow-up call, Lord specified he was not alluding to the actions of Clerk Kathy Michael in his response. He clarified his comments were referring to the need for proper supervision of any budget in the county to avoid finding surprises like overspending.
“So, if something starts going astray, you should know right then and there and then press management as to why,” he said in the initial interviews. “That way … it shouldn’t be a big surprise because you already know that something happened back in whether it be March, April, whatever the case is…”
In the interview, Lord expressed issues with the McLean County Auditor Michelle Anderson. WGLT spoke to Lord before the McLean County Republican Party called on Anderson to resign.
Farley is also concentrated on money being spent wisely in the county, and that is the reason why he has endorsed Michael's challenger, Democrat Josh Crockett.
“And I can tell you now that the county clerk, it doesn’t seem, has been spending [money] wisely, and this has been, like I said, a repeated pattern,” he said.
Farley also spoke out against the county auditor and also did so before Republican calls for her to resign.
He said the mistakes of both officials affect the honesty and integrity of the entire county. Farley supports Crockett’s candidacy “100%.”
Farley said in committee meetings, Michael would defer to precedent to defend herself when confronted with discrepancies. His recollections was she said things were done the way they always had been done.
“But the problem is, if I was at my job, and I showed up to my manager or my leader at the company and I said, ‘Hey, I’m $500,000 over budget. Sorry, can you just pay that for me?’ My guess is I’m going to get fired,” said Farley. “I don’t think any company would be OK with that. I’m not OK with it, seeing it on the county board, and this isn’t the first time this happened.”
Farley said he supports Crockett because of his work at Heartland Community College serving on its board and his campaign goal of adding more universal polling places in the county. Farley said it is the position of the clerk to make voting accessible.
“As a democracy, we should want as many places to vote as we possibly can, so we can get as many people out there to vote as possible,” he said. “And it seems like in the past, there has been some situations where even the county clerk has kind of pulled back on some of the voting areas that we have here, even at Illinois State University for local students here.”
Public safety
Farley also placed public safety as a top priority in his campaign and said he is keeping an eye on activities of Flock cameras.
“For municipalities, obviously, over [Normal and Bloomington], we don’t have a lot of jurisdiction in that regards, but we would be able to put in more restrictions at the county level,” he said.
Farley said a request came in from Saybrook to look into getting Flock cameras before he was on the board, but the department did not pursue the request after it was revealed some Flock information was provided to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents.
“But what we could do at the county level is implement more of those regulations on how they’re going to come into the county, and in regards to our jurisdiction, what we could do with the towns is we could facilitate conversations,” he said.
Farley said such conversations would focus on communities finding ways to regulate the cameras themselves and ease the concerns of residents.
Lord prioritizes a relationship with the sheriff’s department, too. He said as a fellow unit of county government, he said he is learning a lot talking to different sheriffs to prepare to possibly serve on the county board.
“Also, don’t fix what isn’t broke if things are going OK,” he said. “But you got to listen to the people that work there.”
With a willingness to listen and mindset ready to learn about what he is unfamiliar with, Lord said he wants to strengthen relationships even further.
“You listen to that and see what’s going on, but as far as I know, things seem to be running fairly well, with a lot of entities,” said Lord. “At least that’s my small piece of the pie there.”
The midterm election is Nov. 3.
