From the desk of John Lopez: spring has sprung

Under yesterday’s article about the PRO Act, and California’s AB5 law and the real threat to all 1099 workers across the country, this comment appeared:

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Comments like this honestly make me laugh, and noting we’re just under 2 weeks to April Fool’s Day, an early joke is welcome, and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

And I’ve never claimed to be a “real journalist”, only a citizen journalist so no Medill School of Journalism degree(s) for me.

Concerning the “local democrat corruption” and given the Democrats only have one slate in all the local township elections impacting a McHenry County community, this comment is traced to Dundee Township, and specifically, this is about the head-to-head township supervisor’s race between incumbent Trish Glees, running as a Democrat, and independent Arin Thrower, whom to date, has not run on the issue of corruption.

Today is the first day of spring, and I remember springs past when the high school principal on the public address system would give his annual “spring has sprung” address, warning us students the faculty knows when the weather turns warmer, discipline problems, particularly fights, break out.

So consider this my own “spring has sprung” announcement.

I’ve been involved in local politics off-and-on for nearly 40 years (nearly 30 years in Illinois going back to my days in Crystal Lake), and Cal Skinner for a couple of decades longer.

The local elections on April 6 are 2 1/2 weeks away, and early voting begins in earnest on Monday.

Cal’s McHenry County Blog has been publishing articles for 15 1/2 years, and as all know, Cal is very generous to give local candidates a place to send their campaign materials and as they’re received, preferably in scanned format, they go live quickly being published on the blog.

The issues in Dundee Township, thus far, have been communicated through a couple of Republican precinct committeepersons and a new grassroots group calling itself the “Dundee Township IL Citizens for Integrity”.

McHenry County Blog is actively attempting to verify the information from the source(s).

I’m puzzled why the supervisor challenger, or the Republicans running on their ticket have not openly campaigned on the allegations of questionable spending by the incumbent supervisor, actively or otherwise.

Rest assured, McHenry County Blog will cover this issue in Dundee Township in the next 2 1/2 weeks, with the discernment I’ve always used (and admittedly not perfectly) covering other topics.

And just like any election, any “last minute” and “new” allegations will be dealt with scrutiny, and discernment.

And please remember, voters aren’t stupid, and campaigns who think so are doomed to fail.

Yet if allegations do stand up to scrutiny and discernment, McHenry County Blog will treat the impacted voters, and nearly 30% of Algonquin’s village population lives in Dundee Township, to the news these issues deserve to be prior to the election concluding on April 6.

I only hope the candidates running in Dundee Township, along with their volunteers, will do the same openly and directly in the last two and a half weeks of the campaign.