Craig Wilcox Shares County Board Campaign Piece

Col. Craig Wilcox, Ret., is running for the McHenry County Board in District 4.

That’s the district that runs from McHenry up to Richmond and Spring Grove.

His campaign palm card is below:

Wilcox palm card frontWilcox palm card back

On his web site, the Johnsburg resident tells why he is running for the County Board:

Craig Wilcox

Craig Wilcox

I am running for McHenry County Board to serve my local community and lower property taxes!

I recently served our country in the United States Air Force and after 24 years on active duty retired and moved to McHenry.

I want to be active and serve the local community, and be part of a solution that reduces property taxes in McHenry County. We need to find solutions that reduce the number of government entities, either through cooperation, collaboration, or consolidation, and to reduce their levy demand upon the home owners through more efficient operations.

It may include referendums to reduce certain services, giving the voter the final say.

As a candidate I bring years of Integrity, Loyal Service, Honesty, and Leadership as a Colonel (retired) in the military.

These traits position me to lead change, find unique solutions to problems, and foster consensus building.

Lowering Property Taxes by finding opportunities to reduce levy demands will be my top priority.

We are paying way too much for the services provided and the lack of growth and opportunity occurring in the county.

I will

  • assess budgets and reserve funds,
  • identify services provided above that required by law/mandate, and
  • work to allow the final decision to rest with the voters.

My opinion holds that a majority of tax levying bodies in McHenry County have a tendency to lean towards grabbing as much tax as possible, and then find ways to spend that revenue or hold it in reserves for capital projects that should be voter referendum issues.

That is the chief threat facing McHenry…the taxing bodies and the process.

That process needs to change and we must aggressively pursue a budgeting process that identifies what is the minimum required, and then spend even less.

Tax revenue needs to remain in the taxpayers wallet until it’s finally needed, and then only for voter approved activities.

When I first considered entering the race for County Board, I was amazed at the issues and the detail I could find on the local government websites.

Being former military, where intelligence is still based on a “need to know” basis, I felt the government bodies were being very transparent, or at least were complying with the letter and intent of transparency guides.

However, as I have learned there are still Open Meeting violations, and quietly held reserve funds with questionable goals in mind, and we need to be a government of the people, by the people, for the people…period!

One item that is important to me is decency during the campaign.

As a candidate I pledge to remain true to the ideals of honest debate, where we might debate the validity of certain candidate positions on vital issues, but we do not attack or critique the candidate personally.

I feel that mudslinging and negative political attack campaigns ultimately hurt the nation, the state, the county and the local community.

If we want to change our system for the better, then lets talk about that vision and the path to achieve it, and stop bringing down the intellect in the debate by attacking good people who just have a different viewpoint.


Comments

Craig Wilcox Shares County Board Campaign Piece — 6 Comments

  1. Re: “or hold it in reserves for capital projects”

    All taxpayers in the County need to read: ” Capital Plan Summery”

    (BTW The quality of English displayed in the minutes of all committees and the Board is absolutely disgusting!)

    The Capital Plan Summary displays a total of $25,733,300 in taxpayer dollars.
    THIS EXCLUDES MCDOT AND VALLEY HI!

    Does Valley Hi not have a ridiculous amount of taxpayer dollars in reserve?

  2. Re: “BTW The quality of English displayed in the minutes of all committees and the Board is absolutely disgusting”

    So said the man who spelled Summary with an e… (sorry, couldn’t help it)

  3. I am pretty sure the Colonel has violated DOD regulations that prohibits using DOD material on campaign marketing.

    That picture is the eyes of DOD is “for Official Use Only” because it is used by the DOD and the picture was taken by a DOD entity.

  4. Just curious: Note the word “summery” was part of a quote as noted by the punctuation.

    That quote was pulled from the minutes published for the approval at the last committee meeting.

    That said, this is a blog.

    I do not expect people to type in perfect English.

    I do expect HIGHLY paid County employees to type the minutes correctly.

    Why did you use the word “man”?

  5. Craig Wilcox is another politician who supports using taxpayer money to support “blackmail” by businesses threatening to leave the county.

    We have enough tax and spenders on the board already.

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