Another missive from a friend of the blog familiar with the Wonder Lake Village trustee election:
Some Wonder Lake residents received robo-calls on Monday April 16, one day before the election for the three trustee seats.
The beginning of the call (at least to this writer’s residence) was cut off, so it’s unclear who was calling.
Judging by the message, asking voters to elect Ed Stygar, William Arnos and Ed Peters, it was the group, Citizens For A Better Wonder Lake, run by Bill McKinney, a Wonder Lake resident.
The voice on the message was not a professional voiceover, and was probably one of the Better Wonder Lake group.
A googling of the caller ID ‘Interactive Tel’ pulled up a national call company that has served the likes of Orrin Hatch, as well as candidates in statewide elections.
Pretty high end campaigning for an election in which, according to some sources, less than 200 people voted in 2005.
Since the message was truncated, it cannot be determined if the group addressed their mistaken misappropriating of the official Ed Peters’ endorsement. It would be interesting to find out if anyone received a complete message.
Another mailing (see story below) was received the same day from the same group, again with no apology or acknowledgment of the “little mix up.”
In their defense, working with a large promotional company may have meant all mailings and phone calls were lined up weeks in advance. Perhaps pulling the calls today would have been too expensive. The call did not mention the endorsement; it just did not appear to acknowledge the error.
However, it is starting to feel like a disingenuous silence has fallen over the Better Wonder Lake campaign. The Northwest Herald story notes Chris Emmerich, the man at the promotions company behind the mailings, had suggested the company make calls to residents with a recording of Ed Peters, in order to correct the error. Since he also took the blame for the initial error, one would expect he would also foot the bill.
If there had not been time to do such a thing, one doubts he would have suggested it.
One can understand that the Better Wonder Lake campaign would prefer not to remind voters that Ed Peters intends to vote for the other side, according to the Reinard/Heger flyers.
The robo message advised residents that Wonder Lake is on the threshold of a bright future.
For those running the Better Wonder Lake campaign, a large part of this bright future is the prospect of the big Thatcher Meadows development, with its attendant benefits, notably funding for lake dredging.
The two incumbents, whose seats are targeted by Stygar and Arnos, have expressed some reservations about the development, although they do seem open to negotiation.