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The Chicago Tribune reported that today, Carpentersville resident and former candidate for Village Trustee, Frank Stoneham, was found guilty today of disorderly conduct and assault.
[Judge Susan Clancy] Boles said the evidence showed that Stoneham created a disturbance at the meeting when he made a derogatory remark to Sarto. She also said she believed testimony that Stoneham had threatened another member of the audience at the March meeting.
Sarto had ejected Stoneham from an earlier electoral board meeting when he used profanity and shouted about the objections to his nominating petitions for trustee.
He is barred from speaking at Village Board meetings for one year, was ordered to sit by himself when he attends meetings, and also to undergo anger management counseling.
Also contained in the article was the following:
Stoneham has supported measures advocated by a majority of Village Board members that would crack down on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and businesses that hire them.
Actually, the Board has not even discussed the matter, and thus it is not clear whether “the majority of Village Board members” support it. All that has happened in the past is that the Board has allowed the public come forward to speak their mind on illegal immigration. At times, the Board has voted to let people speak — something which they should not have done, in my opinion. After all, discussion of the issue was tabled (and improperly at that). The ordinance was never presented — so it cannot properly be tabled.
Here is Grant’s “farewell” to the Village Board, which is near and dear to my heart for at least three reasons …
1) He mentions this blog — “blogs written by anonymous people”.
2) He mentions the border patrol ad issue that was first raised on this blog (and followed shortly thereafter by a newspaper article).
3) He makes some very good points, especially about the need for facts.
I’d really like to make this site fulfill some of the void that Carpentersville’s Village website has left … and, with a whole lot more personality, of course.
Grant put a few new videos up over on YouTube in the past week, including one in which Trustee Sigwalt rebukes President Sarto not gaveling Grant for a crude remark, and this one where Trustees Sigwalt and Ramirez-Sliwinski spar over an incident that occurred at a Hispanic bakery, during the August 7th meeting of the Village Board.
To be frank, I don’t think for one minute that there is a correlation between “feeling unwelcome” at Hispanic-run businesses and people leaving the Village. I do, however, feel that it has much to do with other types of “unwelcoming” attitudes on the Village Board.Beyond that, though, is a greater issue which the Board should be looking at …
It is not simply those who are moving from the Village, and the number of empty houses left behind or those that have been on the market for a significant amount of time. They need to be concerned with the housing market overall, and what the jump in the foreclosure numbers might mean to the town.
More on that tomorrow …
Word is that the “1 Voice” luncheon, while it didn’t focus on them, was generally critical of the entire Village Board. Several members of the Board also did attend: President Sarto and Trustees Ritter, Sigwalt, and Ramirez-Sliwinski — however, not all at the same time. Rumor has it that they seemed to go in shifts.
Attended by about 40-45 people of all ethnicities, the discussion revolved around the debate on illegal immigration, the hostile atmosphere in Carpentersville caused by it, the feelings of fear and trepidation in the Hispanic community, and the familial traditions in the Hispanic community that create what others refer to as “overcrowding” in homes.
One comment about the “overcrowding” issue that one of the attendees wanted people to understand was the sense of family that is traditional in many Hispanic families: when people see many adults and children living in the same household, they usually are members of the same family, because of the closeness and sense of family shared in Latino families. A few examples were given, including a son, after a run of bad luck, moving back in with his parents, perhaps with a wife and children. The point was that these, even though considered distinct families, were often all part of the same family: brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc.
It was further reported that the speakers saved their harshest criticism for the Village Board, for the atmosphere they have created. Some mentioned the “Trustees” as the reason for this change in attitude. It seemed that everyone there knew who they were talking about without mentioning their names.
If any others were at the luncheon on Saturday, please feel free to email me your thoughts, comments and impressions of the event and attitudes expressed there.
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