Some post election thoughts. As I look back at these past four years, I realize that being right is not always good enough in politics.
As I look back at my own behavior and the behavior of others, I realize that on the issues, I was right.
When I said, right from the beginning of the talk about illegal immigration, that it is up to the federal government to decide what legally can be done with this problem, I was right. But it was not the answer some people wanted to hear. Some wanted the Village to do whatever it took to crack down on illegal immigrant’s who may have been in our Village. There WAS nothing, there IS nothing, that local government can legally do about this issue, but people believed that it was up to local government to take care of the problem. Sometimes telling the truth is just not good enough to satisfy some people. They are looking for someone to tell them what they want to hear, regardless if it’s true or not. My position on this issue saved the Village a lot of money on legal bills. It was the responsible thing to do.
On the matter of Paul Humpfer being convicted of four counts of domestic battery and his not living in Carpentersville for several months. My reaction was to get legal advice as to how to handle this situation. I asked our Village Attorney and I made a few phone calls to the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and to the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office. I also sought legal help from both the AG and the Kane County State’s Attorney to get a legal opinion on this situation. I did my duty as Village President in seeking to get an answer to whether or not Paul Humpfer was entitled to remain in office. I did what was right. But again, being right is not what some people are looking for. With politics some people ONLY are looking at the politics and not the facts.
The matter of the illegal meetings that were being held by two of the trustees and their supporters at one of the Village owned Fire Stations was wrong. The intent of those illegal meetings was to disrupt our Village board meetings. I brought this matter to the attention of the Village Manager and he stopped those meetings from continuing to be held at the Fire Station. Once again, I was right to point this infraction of our policy out to the Village Manager and when asked by a reporter from the Courier-News if this was a violation of the Open Meetings Act the Illinois Attorney General’s Office responded by sending a letter to the Village board informing the board that what they had been doing was a violation “of the spirit of the Open Meetings Act”. Once again, I was on the right side of this issue.
The media’s role in all of this? I was very disappointed in the media’s coverage of these matters.
The media instead of presenting the facts and the truth they seemed to be working from their own agenda.
Instead of pointing out to the public that illegal immigration is a federal government matter and does not come under the jurisdiction of local government they instead were critical of me for not doing something. Even though they had been briefed by the feds that there is NOTHING local government CAN DO about illegal immigration. After the election in 2007, the media backed away from the issue of illegal immigration as an issue in Carpentersville. They never held those who had campaigned on this issue accountable for their actions.
The media instead of siding with me in wanting to know if Paul Humpfer should be removed from office after being found guilty of four counts of domestic battery, they took a different approach. They criticized ME for “playing politics” with the matter. An unusual move by the media.
This coming from the very same media that couldn’t wait to get Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich out of office before he had even been officially charged with a crime, and to this day, has NOT been found guilty of anything.
The media seemed to want to blame me for the problems created by a couple of Trustees on the board. Even though I was the one person who was doing the right things on all of these matters.
Had the media taken a more responsible position in these important matters I can’t help but think that the election results would have been much different. Some people like to think the media is “liberal” when in fact the media has always had a right-wing bias. This is especially true of the local media.
It’s difficult to counter the things written by the media on a daily basis. I did my best to be available to the reporters. I didn’t duck their calls or questions. I was very accessible to them throughout my term as Village President. I openly and honestly responded to all of their questions. I told the truth. That’s the best I could do for the Village and for them. How they wrote the stories was up to them.
