Congrats to Dundee-Crown Boys Basketball

Dundee-Crown’s boys basketball team advanced to the State tournament.

Way to go, guys!

Good luck at State!

Serious questions about Krenz “leadership”

The Courier-News reported on last night’s candidates forum sponsored by the Committee of Clergy in Carpentersville.

The answers by the candidates for Village President were very similar to those raised on last week’s WRMN radio show, Politics & Issues.

The inadequacy of Ed Ritter (and the rest of the “Carpentersville Cares” ticket) has been well covered, so there is no need to go over it again.  Ritter and the “Cares” team have nothing to offer the residents of Carpentersville.

But, what about Jim Krenz?  There has been mention of him in articles and at these forums, but there has been little presented about what he stands for or what he would do for the people of Carpentersville.

In the Courier article, he is quoted as saying he “chose not to stand by as the antics and mismanagement of a few bring our village to a standstill”.

Now, first of all, things have hardly been at a “standstill”. In spite of the best efforts of a segment of Trustees, things have moved forward in the Village.

But where was Krenz when all this “Trouble in Carpentersville” was going on?  He has not spoken at a Board meeting, and — to my knowledge — hasn’t written even a Letter to the Editor opposing the “antics and mismanagement of a few”.

If Jim Krenz had the ability to lead that he says he does, why did he not rally people to put a stop to these “antics” when they were occurring?  It seems that reality doesn’t match his rhetoric.

President Bill Sarto, on the other hand, has shown a record of opposing these “antics”, even when there was a calculated effort by some members on the Board to create chaos and stop Village business.

What would Krenz have done differently?

Ed Ritter answered saying that he would “work collaboratively with each other to ‘solve problems in a diplomatic and functional way’.  However, Ritter, and other Trustees he has aligned himself with, shunned the idea of such collaborative sessions to work through differences when it was suggested, and Sarto supported the idea.  Therefore, while it may sound good, it becomes just campaign rhetoric because Ritter had the opportunity to do just that and didn’t.

Krenz made similar comments about “order and respect”.   Yet he has not offered any opinion on how he would work differently in the situation that Sarto found himself in — a bloc of Trustees conspiring to create havoc.

How would Krenz have dealt with Trustees and Commission members’ violation(s) of the Illinois Open Meetings Act?  How would he have dealt with meetings that were held at Village conference rooms at a Westside Fire Station intended for planning to disrupt Board meetings?  How would he handle those who purposefully lied to Village staff about those meetings?  How would he have dealt with a situation where a defeated opponent was appointed to a Trustee seat? How would he have dealt with a bloc of Trustees that did not want to remove a Trustee after a criminal conviction?

How would Krenz handle a segment of the Board that conspired to undermine any action he took from the very moment he was elected?

These are serious questions that Krenz needs to answer in order to prove that he could truly “lead by example” in a manner of “order and respect”.

In the campaign world, it’s easy to make it sound all nice and cheery … but the real world doesn’t work that way.   Mr. Krenz’s “lead by example” answer just doesn’t get the job done when there is real, disciplinary action and penalties that are needed.  “Respect” is not something this behavior deserves — it is that “respect” that past administrations have shown which allowed the Village to get into the mess it did BEFORE Sarto was elected.

Would Mr. Krenz take this Village back to the days of “respect” that ultimately led to things falling apart?  If he would show “respect” to criminal and unethical behavior that has sought to hold Carpentersville captive, then I would have to say “yes, he would”.

Frankly, Carpentersville cannot afford to go back to those “dark days”, Mr. Krenz.