McHenry County Blog

“Hostile” would be fair in characterization of McHenry County Board member Pete Merkel’s reaction to the ALAW conflict of interest proposal, as reported by Kevin Craver of the Northwest Herald

Merkel, running unopposed in the Republican primary election, did not volunteer to reveal his property ownership outside of his home or other potential conflicts of interest.

No opponent. No political need to do so.

Nevertheless, his running mate Sandy Salgado was one of the 20 people running for the county board who did fill out the Alliance for Land, Agriculture and Water ethics questionnaire.

And, so did Jeff Thirtyacre, so far, the only Democratic Party challenger in the fall election.

Merkel ran first in the primary election.

Looking at the almost final primary election results, Merkel would seem to have no reelection problems.   The Democrat received 1,800 fewer votes than Merkel.

So, he would be the perfect person to lead the charge against ALAW.

The questionnaire was politically motivate, he charges.

No question about that.

It was designed to influence the February 2nd primary election.

Truth.

But, then Merkel charged that the conflict of interest form had nothing to do with “transparency and openness.”

He really should have come to the Patriots United County Board Candidates’ Forum and heard the tepid applause after incumbent Dan Ryan (R-Huntley) made known that he was not going to fill out the ALAW form.  Subsequently, Ryan blamed his loss on the questionnaire.

There he swerves from the truth and threatens to lead the Republican Party, as exemplified by its county board members, into an abyss.

No matter how insulated McHenry County’s Republican board members are from the public, even they, if they will just let their emotions subside, are capable of figuring out that Illinois voters are fed up with politics as usual.

Those who don’t think so aren’t paying attention.

Will it be the sea change that I noticed in 1969?

Before that date, the fact that Crystal Lake’s mayor worked for the biggest developer in town was no big deal.

Everybody had to work somewhere.

Then the Crystal Lake Jaycees, many of whom lived in Coventry, the development built by that developer, did a fire safety project. They discovered that in the back section of Coventry fire trucks could not get through if cars were parked on the streets.

Then, it became important where the mayor worked.

Tony Wujcik beat incumbent Mayor Lou Goosens handily in the 1971 election. (More about that change in ethical standards here.)

To mix metaphors, are we at a similar fault line now?

I think so.

Twenty of twenty-seven candidates for county board voluntarily completed ALAW’s questionnaire.

Of those who won nomination in the Republican Party, incumbents

• Anna May Miller,
• Ken Koehler,
• Pete Merkel, plus
• newcomer Robert Nowak

are a minority of 4 out of 12 GOP county board candidates on the ballot this fall who did not do so.

Democrat incumbent Jim Kennedy is the only Democrat who did not fill one out.

Maybe these four incumbents know something that the rest of the people (sans District 1 newcomer Robert Nowak) running for county board don’t know.

Eight of twelve people on the Republican Part ballot this fall have filled out the form are:

• Donna Kurtz
• Nick Provenzano
• Barb Wheeler
• Sandy Salgado
• Tina Hill
• John Jung
• Diane Evertsen
• Mary McCann

Among the Democrats, two-thirds answered ALAW’s questions:

• Jeff Thirtyacre
• Lori McConville

So did the only Green Party candidate:

• Frank Wedig

So, maybe those out of step with the times are those who have not yet sent in the questionnaire.

= = = = =

I’ll have some more comments a bit later.

As Niranjan Shah resigned the chairmanship of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, he issued a statement that may be significant. Quoting from the Chicago Tribune article on Tuesday, this caught my eye:

“When I became a Trustee…many of the stakeholders in the University of Illinois system–Trustees, university administrators and staff, legislators and others–operated under a set of rules and norms that seemed appropriate at the time.

“Today, I recognize that those rules are changing with the times, and I think that change is a very good thing.

Back in 1969 there may have been another change in ethical norms in Illinois.

Lou Goosens was mayor of Crystal Lake. He worked for the biggest developer, Ladd Enterprises. I remember taking him with me to the DuPage County Republican Central Committee’s summer golf outing.

Since there are so many new readers, let me re-run the April 18, 2006, story:

Shifting Ethical Sands

All sorts of folks are hoping that the conviction of former Governor George Ryan might signal a change in ethics for the Illinois political class and the bi-partisan political combine that the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass so aptly tagged.

Having been in and around the political arena since 1966, I remember only one shift in ethical standards in the last forty years.

The shift so shocked me that I even remember when I learned about it. I was driving by former McHenry County Sheriff and Recorder of Deeds Harry Herendeen’s home across from the Dole Mansion when Crystal Lake Mayor Lou Goosens told me.

I had invited him to accompany me to the DuPage County Republican Party golf outing when, at the last minute, a newly minted attorney and high school friend decided not to come.

That was 1969, the year of the first Earth Day.

I don’t know whether or not there was any connection with the emerging environmental activism, but I started noticing things changing ethically.

Mayor Goosens worked for Crystal Lake’s biggest developer, Ladd Enterprises. In 1969, the attitude was pretty much,

“Everyone has to work somewhere.”

About 1970, the Crystal Lake Jaycees did a fire safety project in the back end of Ladd’s Coventry subdivision. The committee found that a fire engine could not get down the street if cars were parked on both sides.

All of a sudden, it made a difference where the mayor worked.

At the state level, when re-apportionment came along in 1971, lots of house and senate members decided it was time to retire. For years afterward, indictments of the new 1972 crop were non-existent.

(That did end, maybe with the surprising indictment and conviction of State Rep. Larry Bullock, who is now a minister in Schaumburg’s Living Faith African Methodist Episcopal Church. I think he was found to have owned an interest in the building where he rented his legislative office.)

In 1974, the Illinois Campaign Disclosure Law was passed, taking effect, of course, after the fall elections.

And, now, Rich Miller reports that House Speaker Mike Madigan is making phone calls on a cell phone in the hall outside of his office.

Something is clearly happening.

Could it be another shift in ethical standards?

Has the sand liquefied into quicksand? Will the political establishment struggle enough to sink Illinois’ corrupt political system?

In Crystal Lake about 1970, Ladd came in for another big subdivision, Four Colonies. By that time in Crystal Lake’s growth cycle, residents could tell that growth in no way paid its own way.

The second floor city council meetings were packed. As one meeting ended, the city treasurer’s wife, a nurse in the new Coventry grade school, was heard to say, “Damn transients,” after one particularly raucous meeting.

Judy Bathric Lawrence, a woman with whom I had ridden the bus to high school and by then a resident of Coventry, pretty much went berserk at the hypocrisy. Judy knew that our chemistry teacher’s wife had moved to Crystal Lake after her family had and wouldn’t have the job as nurse, if the “Damn transients” hadn’t moved to Coventry. Judy’s husband Don had to separate her from the treasurer’s wife as Judy repeatedly shouted,

“Transients! Damn transients! If it weren’t for the ‘damn transients,’ she wouldn’t have her job.”

In 1971, three-term Mayor Louis J. Goosens (1959-71) was handily defeated by Tony Wujcik, the president of the Involved Citizens Association. The victor was a heat treatment department worker who, when he announced for office, said that he knew that Crystal Lake was not a blue collar town and that, if someone else ran against the mayor, he would drop out.

No one else announced and Wujcik won the election handily.