“Cares” team has history of broken promises

I’d mentioned in my last posting that the team of “Ritter, Teeter, Schultz and McFeggan” were the team of empty promises.    There are several good reasons why I say this, and why I think that voters need to take a pass on what Judy Sigwalt referred to as the “Carpentersville Cares” team, in her endorsement of these candidates.

The “Cares” team is part of a group that made promises before the 2007 election — and held this Village hostage with their antics, some of which violated local and state ordinances/statutes — only to break those promises after they were back in office.

Today, I’ll remind voters of what was promised before the 2007 election, and what happened after the election.

You likely recall that the team of Sigwalt, <a href=”Humpfer and Hinz dubbed themselves “The All-American Team”.  They promised to take on illegal immigrants in the Village of Carpentersville.  But, their campaign really started in September 2006, when they began to talk about unpaid ambulance bills and their opinion that those unpaid bills were due to illegal Hispanic immigrants.

When Sigwalt and Humpfer tried to bring an ordinance forward, President Bill Sarto immediately cautioned that passage of such an ordinance would result in a lawsuit.

This was proven out by the fact that other communities trying to pass similar ordinances were being sued.  Some, like Hazelton, PA, which the proposed Carpentersville ordinance was modeled after, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to fight the suit.

Still, knowing the strong likelihood of the Village being sued if they passed this ordinance, Sigwalt and Humpfer continued.  They met with a small group of residents and non-residents, and even other members of the Board and committees, in an attempt to press on. They even violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act (and prompted a letter of caution from the Illinois Attorney General’s office), and engaged in misappropriation of Village property.

For months they dismissed any concern of the Village being sued, and even said they’d gladly fight a lawsuit when it came.

Clearly they didn’t care about the jeopardy they were putting Village in, nor did they care about the people of Carpentersville.  They continued to promise the voters that, if they voted for them, they would pass this ordinance, without mentioning any possibility of lawsuit — even though they were certainly aware of it.

Only when they had won re-election did they finally shut up about illegal immigration.  At three separate meetings, they were given an opportunity to discuss it, and they refused.

They abandoned the voters to whom they had promised the illegal immigration ordinance.  Their only care had obviously been “four more years” in office.

They now say that they don’t want the Village to get sued, but for those 6 months leading to the election, they accepted the threat of a lawsuit — even welcomed the challenge.  Because of the months of their discriminatory talk and divisiveness, the Village has been sued — over failure to put a Hispanic child in an ambulance and transport him to the hospital, when they were saying that unpaid ambulance fees were a result of illegal Hispanic immigrants.

This was something that President Sarto warned about from the very moment the “All American Team” raised it.  But, the “All American Team” had an election to win.  Once they won, however, they abandoned it …

… just as Ed Ritter, Kay Teeter, Patricia “Pat” Schultz and Brad McFeggan will break any promises they make in this election.

You know what they say, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”

Next up, I’ll talk about the “respect” they are now boasting about in their campaign.

Guest: What’s in a name?

I received the following as a “Guest blogger” submission from Peter Pimkus:

There is all this curiosity about names: Who are the anonymous posters? What, however, does a name tell us? Do we know the ideas a person has from their name? Do we know their profession or their education? Do we know their expereices in life or what their interests are?

Brown, Patel, Pennington, Harrington, Castro, Emmanual, Santiago, Smith, Capone, Sosa, Clemente, McNeil, Schultz, Kowalski, Carr, Stoneham, Rosser, Prescott Bush, George Bush, etc. What pictures come into our heads as we read these names? And do we see who they are or just the images that the names create from our own experiences? Is the name male or female? Do they have white or dark skin? What is their hair color or are they bald, old, young, single, married or dead or alive?

Often, from a name we think we know their heritage, or their race, or even their religion. From a name, we may think we know if they are rich or poor. We may think we can tell their neighborhood or their intelligence. We may even think we KNOW them because we know their name. I hear many say, oh they must be German, or Italian or Irish, or Mexican, or Jewish or I know the family or I know the wife or brother or mother or sister…So, what does this tell us about THEM?

So, to those that are more interested in thinking they know me, I say, listen to what I say, to the thoughts, concerns, ideas, or questions I have, and then you MAY be more accurate in knowing me but even then, I doubt it…

Attacks on people are used to silence them and while that is wrong, we see it used even at the highest levels of our government. We see the “explanation” for the comments made by people as only being because of who they are and then no answer is given, just the inference that no answer is needed because of who they are. Or, because someone said something, they’re labeled as some kind of kook and that is how they are “perceived” or viewed for anything they ever say again.

If you like George Bush and he said something, would you accept it more willingly and universally than if you didn’t like him? Would either be correct? Should questions be asked or is the information all that you need to “know” the facts? I say that assumptions lead to misunderstanding and do a disservice to everyone. Yet, that is what is being asked here. To let us judge you because of who you are and not by what you say or the questions you ask is what is wrong with society. We need to listen to, question, and respect each other for who we really are.