Village business more than roads, taxes

There are some in the community, and even on the Board, who believe that the Village of Carpentersville is defined merely by its roads, its storefronts and its taxes.

However, I would argue that the community and its image are shaped by much more. These are also shaped by integrity, morals, values and principles. I would go so far as to say that a community’s morals, values and principles are more important to its health than are the shape of its road, its storefronts or its taxes.

This is because those things significantly affect decision-making, and provide direction to properly address issues such as roads, storefronts, and taxes.

Earlier this week, five Trustees proclaimed that domestic abuse — violence against women — fits the standards of decency of all those in the Village of Carpentersville. They did this when they voted ‘NO’ to the following resolution:

It is hereby determined the nature of the offense for which Trustee Paul Humpfer has been found guilty precludes him from continuing to hold office as a Trustee.

The “nature of the offense for which Trustee Paul Humpfer has been found guilty” was striking his wife with a baseball bat during a domestic dispute. The requirement to retain one’s elected position is that one fits “common standards of honesty, decency and morals”. Therefore, by voting ‘No’ on this resolution, they said that “striking one’s wife with a baseball bat meets common standards for honesty, decency and morals.”

These 5 Trustees have claimed that they voted to keep Paul Humpfer in office, despite his crimes, in order to get on with conducting Village business, yet they do not consider the safeguarding of morals, values and principles of the community to be part of their responsibility as representatives.

As such they have exhibited such a lack of decision-making ability that they have put all other Village business in question. Their morals, ethics and principles are of the lowest common denominator, leaving them with an inability to provide any leadership in dealing with issues that threaten those characteristics.

In fact, they themselves are a threat to morals, ethics and principles of the People of Carpentersville, as are those who defend or ignore those threats, in favor of purely economic endeavors.

In light of that threat, they have created extreme obstacles to overcoming the financial and economic hardships that face the Village. They have ultimately dug the Village into a deeper hole, which will be increasingly difficult to climb out of.

Judy Sigwalt, Paul Humpfer, Kay Teeter, Ed Ritter and Keith Hinz have set Carpentersville on a collision course with a freight train. And it is a course which none of them, individually or collectively, will be able to steer the town away from.