Greens Running for Precinct Committeeman

When I got the spreadsheets showing who had filed for office from McHenry County Clerk’s Office’s Judy Corson, there was one that was more than a little unusual.

It was for the Green Party.

I didn’t do a story before.

Just slipped my mind.

But, the idea of a story re-cycled and here’s what I found.

Scott Summers, the Green Party candidate for congress in the 16th congressional district against Don Manzullo and Robert Abboud, filed for precinct committeeman in Dunham Township.

Summers, you may remember is also a member of the McHenry County College Board. He gained a fair amount of name identification by changing–no speaking–his mind on the advisability of building a baseball stadium on Crystal Lake’s watershed and announcing that at the Crystal Lake city council meeting.

His asking a lot of questions about the project enraged the MCC board majority (George Lowe, Donna Larson, Barbara Walters and Mary Miller) to the extent that they brought in someone to counsel Summers and fellow mind-changing board member Donna Kurtz on (I suppose, because I didn’t make the meeting that John Coonen called “The Meltdown” Meeting) how to keep quiet, even if you think you have made a BIG mistake. (So much for the First Amendment. I guess the board majority believes that Constitutional amendment has a comma, followed by “unless you are on the McHenry County College Board.”)

Four of the seven citizen-elected board members subsequently voted to censure Summers and Kurtz and called for them to resign as board president and finance chair, respectively.

Summers did so graciously (“Let the healing begin”) immediately after resigning from the board presidency, emphasizing he was not resigning as a college trustee.

But, back to his precinct committeeman quest.

Dunham Township is a sparsely populated township with only one precinct. He doesn’t have an opponent—just as most of the power party candidates don’t—so, he’s as good as elected if he votes for himself.

But, that’s not all.

Frank Wedig, who lives at 722 Dean Street in Woodstock, pretty close to where I used to live on Madison in another life, is running in Dorr 7. He is running unopposed for precinct committeeman, but he has four opponents in District 5 for the seat he seeks on the McHenry County Board.

And, as Warner Bros. characters say at the end of his cartoons, “That’s all Folks!” (You can have the freeze frame for $1,425.)

I always thought that McHenry County was ripe for the Green Party.

After all, the largest politically-oriented organization in the county is the McHenry County Defenders. It has 500 or so family members, meaning there are really more.

Perhaps the new McHenry County Green Party Central Committee of two can recruit some new members from the Defenders. They will have the power to appoint people in the other 212 precincts.

If I were trying to create a Green Party infrastructure in McHenry County and were a candidate like Summers and Wedig, I would use my campaign literature to recruits not only volunteers, but when I found volunteers, I would try to turn them into precinct committeemen.

That’s really all, Folks.

= = = = =
Scott Summers is seen in the top two photographs. In the second, he is explaining his resignation as McHenry County College Board President after being censured by four of his voter-elected colleagues for questioning the wisdom of putting county taxpayers on the hook for a baseball stadium in which the Limited Liability Corporation promoter made no guarantees.

Frank Wedig is seen speaking at the Illinois Green Party convention at McHenry County College.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *