McHenry County Blog

Paula Yensen

First there was District 5′s Republican Virginia Peschke filling out the Alliance for Land, Agriculture and Water’s conflict of interest form.

Now her District 2 colleague Democrat Paula Yensen has done so, too.

Neither had to do so anymore than the 17 of 27 county board candidates who have done so.

Both women are incumbents who are not on the ballot.

Revealing such potential conflicts of interest to the Alliance for Land, Agriculture and Water for posting on its web site is strictly voluntary…unless the county board passes an ordinance to make it mandatory.

But there’s something in the political air this year that convinced this overwhelming majority of county board candidates to lay out more of their political finances than in past years.  ALAW has capitalized on it.

It’s probably the stench of political corruption coming out of Springfield and Chicago.

Certainly, no indictments have popped up in McHenry County.

My theory is that the level of corruption out here is so small compared to that in Chicago and Springfield that it doesn’t make the cut at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

And, yes, I have verified that Federal agents have interviewed people in McHenry County.

Even I got interviewed by a Postal Inspector concerning a House Republican Campaign Committee—financed mailing put out by the HRCC’s mail house owner Roger Stanley. He wanted a copy of a mailing from an obscure political action committee created just to attack my candidacy.

I didn’t remember the committee, but when he described the mailing, I did remember it, found a copy and faxed it to him.

It is my understanding that one of the mail fraud counts Stanley pled to concerned that mailing. Certainly, the Chicago Tribune reporter who called me the afternoon of the plea agreement thought so.

Even though the wrong doing in McHenry County doesn’t reach the indictment stage, the reporting of the indictments and convictions in Chicago does reach McHenry County, angering that part of the electorate who think government ought to be “on the square.”

That includes me. My 1990′s legislative seat mate Tom Johnson once told me, probably after some outraged speech,

“The problem with you, Skinner, is that you think this is on the square.”

So, let me list below the candidates for McHenry County Board who are willing to take ALAW’s step toward convincing local voters that county government is “on the square.” I’ll list them alphabetically by district. All the candidates are Republican, unless indicated otherwise.

• District 1 – None
• District 2 – All but Ken Koehler, that is, Sandra DePaul, Donna Kurtz, Ellen Brady Mueller and Lyn Orphal
• District 3 – Everyone of them! Veronica Armstrong, Nick Provenzano, Craig Steagall, Barbara Wheeler and Karen Tynis
• District 4 – Sandra Salgado and Jeff Thirtyacre (Democrat)
• District 5 – Tina Hill, John Jung and Frank Wedig (Green).  Incumbent Jim Kennedy and challenger Dave Frederick have not yet filed the form.
• District 6 – All but incumbent Dan Ryan, that is, Richard Draper, Diane Evertsen, Mary McCann, Vic Narusis.

Victor Narusis

Karen Tynis

Tynis and Narusis have filed most recently.

In addition, all the candidates for sheriff, except incumbent Keith Nygren, have voluntarily submitted their conflict of interest forms.

The three willing to “bare all” are (in order of filing)

• Zane Seipler
• Gus Philpott
• Mike Mahon

Here is where you can find the statements.

There is a way to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in prison.

But it goes against the grain of everything considered by liberals as politically correct.

The way to do it is to test all of the prisoners periodically and house those who are HIV-infected separately from those who are not.

When I was on top of this subject in the mid-1990′s, three or four states followed that almost guaranteed course of protecting uninfected inmates from those who are HIV-infected.

I talked to a former Illinois Corrections official working in Louisiana’s prison system, one of the ones that housed the infected separately from the infected.

(The liberals opposed to this practice always called it “segregation,” thus putting a racial twist on a disease that infects all races.)

The former Illinois DOC employee told me when they first instituted the policy, they put up a chain link fence between the two sections.

Guess what?

The prisoners were having sex through the links.

Louisiana solved that problem by putting up another fence 12 inches away.

The point is that prisoners are not responsible people. If they were responsible, they would not be behind bars.

Now comes my former colleague Monique Davis, who sat across the center aisle from former State Rep. Tom Johnson and me in the 1990′s, sponsoring a bill to distribute condoms in the Illinois Department of Corrections.

She has gotten the bill out of committee.

Giving prisoners condoms will not stop rape in prison.

If you are interested in the problem, here’s some more information.

The DOC has pretty much a three money approach to HIV.

Although an almost half million dollar CDC study in the early 1990′s proved that HIV was being spread behind Illinois prison walls, the Department refused to do anything significant about it.

Even when I found a “face”–Michael Blucker, then of Crystal Lake–who could proved he was HIV-infected in prison.

DOC decided to institute “peer counseling.”

Big deal.

Inmates don’t put on condoms when they are about to rape someone.

If a subservient inmate agrees to “hook up” with a dominant inmate in order not to be randomly raped, the dominant male may use a condom. That happened to Donny Donaldson, who wrote the brief

But the rape is not less a rape, even if it looks consensual.

How bad is it?

“The horrors experienced by many young inmates, particularly those who are convicted of nonviolent offenses, border on the unimaginable.

“Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who fall prey to their aggressors, but it is potentially devastating to the human spirit.

“Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter must endure.”

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Farmer v. Brennan

That is the top item on the newly re-named Stop Prisoner Rape organization. It is now called Just Detention International.

My wife and I left the Illinois Republican Convention in Decatur on Saturday about 3:30.

When we got to Clinton, guess who saw the Clinton Antique Mall and wanted to stop.

I figured there might be a soft drink machine with a Diet Coke, so agreed.

The first part looked more like an interior designer’s store that your typical antique mall. We discovered we had arrived on a special day.

Free hot dogs.

I ran into a woman with one of those oval convention badges. It turned out to be DeKalb County Republican Party Chairman Mary Simons. I reminisced about the lumber dealer who used to be county chairman in the 1970′s. Conrad Hultgren, she said.

We talked about Tom Johnson, who went from the appointed DeKalb County auditor to Governor Richard Ogilvie’s Director of Local Government Affairs. That lead to Tom’s uncle, Stan Johnson, who represented part of McHenry County in the 1970 constitutional convention and, next, to another constitutional convention.

Simons told me that her family was from Madison County and had bought late 10950′s Republican crook State Auditor Orville Hodge’s home. People kept asking if they had looked for money in the walls, she said. (Michael Howlett won the office after that Republican scandal.)

We then found a more traditional part of the antique mall next door. That took more time.

In any event, on the way home, it was hard to miss weather alerts.

First, from WHOW, which has a new higher aerial with 6000 watts.

We listened to oldies, but goodies between Decatur and beyond.

At Bloomington where we saw this cloud, we decided to go up Interstate 39, instead of hearing up Route 55 to Dwight for the Route 47 turnoff.

Soon, we were glad we did.

After we lost WHOA, we found WJEZ-FM Dwight.

The coverage was just outstanding. I learned that Program Director Kent Casson, weather on call person, Todd Lowery, and Engineer Lane Lindstrom were the voices we heard.

The tornado had just passed north of Dwight, damaging some farm buildings. (Before we outran the station’s signal, neighbors were reported to be there helping clean up.)

When we got about halfway to Rockford we stopped at a gas station. The attendant said that a tornado had skipped across the landscape north of her station.

There was no radio station on in the convenience store, so I asked her how she found out.

“Scanner,” she replied, pointing to it.

We kept going north, thankful that we had chosen the roundabout route, but mainly four-lane route home.

It took us west of the tornado.

I figured if we hadn’t stopped in Clinton for the better part of an hour, we would have encountered the tornado as it neared I-39 and, had we taken Route 55, we would have been near Dwight when it started doing damage.

Lisa Smith, of the Wheeling Township Republican Organization, took Interstate 55 home. She was between Odell and Dwight.

She shot these photos of the tornado.

We took the Northwest Tollway from Rockford to the Route 20 Exit at Hampshire.

We were being chased by a thunder storm that turned into the tornado that hit Lake County.

= = = = =
All the photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the tornado ones are worth the look.

My wife and I left the Illinois Republican Convention in Decatur on Saturday about 3:30.

When we got to Clinton, guess who saw the Clinton Antique Mall and wanted to stop.

I figured there might be a soft drink machine with a Diet Coke, so agreed.

The first part looked more like an interior designer’s store that your typical antique mall. We discovered we had arrived on a special day.

Free hot dogs.

I ran into a woman with one of those oval convention badges. It turned out to be DeKalb County Republican Party Chairman Mary Simons. I reminisced about the lumber dealer who used to be county chairman in the 1970′s. Conrad Hultgren, she said.

We talked about Tom Johnson, who went from the appointed DeKalb County auditor to Governor Richard Ogilvie’s Director of Local Government Affairs. That lead to Tom’s uncle, Stan Johnson, who represented part of McHenry County in the 1970 constitutional convention and, next, to another constitutional convention.

Simons told me that her family was from Madison County and had bought late 10950′s Republican crook State Auditor Orville Hodge’s home. People kept asking if they had looked for money in the walls, she said. (Michael Howlett won the office after that Republican scandal.)

We then found a more traditional part of the antique mall next door. That took more time.

In any event, on the way home, it was hard to miss weather alerts.

First, from WHOW, which has a new higher aerial with 6000 watts.

We listened to oldies, but goodies between Decatur and beyond.

At Bloomington where we saw this cloud, we decided to go up Interstate 39, instead of hearing up Route 55 to Dwight for the Route 47 turnoff.

Soon, we were glad we did.

After we lost WHOA, we found WJEZ-FM Dwight.

The coverage was just outstanding. I learned that Program Director Kent Casson, weather on call person, Todd Lowery, and Engineer Lane Lindstrom were the voices we heard.

The tornado had just passed north of Dwight, damaging some farm buildings. (Before we outran the station’s signal, neighbors were reported to be there helping clean up.)

When we got about halfway to Rockford we stopped at a gas station. The attendant said that a tornado had skipped across the landscape north of her station.

There was no radio station on in the convenience store, so I asked her how she found out.

“Scanner,” she replied, pointing to it.

We kept going north, thankful that we had chosen the roundabout route, but mainly four-lane route home.

It took us west of the tornado.

I figured if we hadn’t stopped in Clinton for the better part of an hour, we would have encountered the tornado as it neared I-39 and, had we taken Route 55, we would have been near Dwight when it started doing damage.

Lisa Smith, of the Wheeling Township Republican Organization, took Interstate 55 home. She was between Odell and Dwight.

She shot these photos of the tornado.

We took the Northwest Tollway from Rockford to the Route 20 Exit at Hampshire.

We were being chased by a thunder storm that turned into the tornado that hit Lake County.

= = = = =
All the photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the tornado ones are worth the look.

With the driving of religion out of all forms of public life it is refreshing to see that the much criticized Texas Department of Corrections has the courage to allow a faith-based section of a prison.

Ever since I entered the Illinois House of Representatives in 1973, the Department of Corrections has been misnamed.

It doesn’t “correct” prisoners.

It punishes them.

If “Truth in Labeling” laws could be applied to governmental entities, a name change would be mandatory.

Even Governor Rod Blagojevich resurrection of the Sheridan Correctional Center as a drug rehab place is severely suspect.

I have heard from more than one source that probation officers are told not to blemish Sheridan’s reputation by sending those with paroled infractions back to jail.

So, I’d like to point folks to some real good news. In fact, it even sounds like Good News.

In an Associated Press story by Dave Carey, which I first saw last Sunday in the Daily Herald, but will link to an October 13th International Herald Tribune story in the hope that it will work for more than a week, there is a report of

“the Carol Vance Unit, founded in 1997 on the outskirts of Houston. It’s the oldest of a rapidly growing number of faith-based prison facilities across the nation.”

Ten states now have such programs…as close as Iowa and Missouri.

I first heard about this idea when I was serving with my seatmate State Rep. Tom Johnson, who was chairman of the Prison Reform Committee. He showed me a newsletter from Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship organization with an extraordinary story about a prison in Brazil.

It was operated with only a handful of guards and escapes were nil.

Inmates had to be Christians to gain entry and, just like Paul with the earthquake would have allowed him to escape, they stay behind bars for their punishment.

The warden in Texas, Cynthia Tilley, says she loves the place.

“It’s so calm.”

These don’t work without volunteers.

It’s not that Illinois prisons don’t have Christian volunteers. I met a man on a Walk to Emmaus who found Jesus in Jacksonville’s prison. He certainly seemed like a changed man to me.

Reporter Carey is writing a balanced article, though, and adds this in the beginning:

“Evidence that they reduce recidivism is inconclusive, and skeptics question whether the prevailing evangelical tone of the units discriminates against inmates who don’t share their conservative Christian outlook.”

However, evidence is strong that violence and trouble-making drop sharply in these programs, and they often are the only vibrant rehabilitation option at a time when taxpayer-funded alternatives have been cut back.

Ask the inmates and they say they “are treated with respect. They have hope.”

That is so different from what happens in Illinois prisons, at least the ones I visited in the late 1990’s.

Most states let Prison Fellowship run their programs. Florida does it on its own.

The three prisons (two for men, one for women) have 30% fewer infractions than the others.

I’ll be the guards fight to work there.

In Texas, men are eligible only the last two years of their sentence.

One inmate, Raymond Halls, convicted of murder at age 16 and sentenced to 15 years, said,

“In my other prison, on a daily basis there was rape, drugs. When you come to Carol Vance, it’s like a load is lifted. It’s like heaven.”

A volunteer teaching Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” admonished his class:

“You guys are a chosen nation. You go out from prison with a different mind-set from guys not in this program.”

Each prisoner has a mentor in and after prison.
Besides the state-run prisons, Corrections Corporation of America has 24 prisons in 13 states with “faith pods.”

More information on the Texas program can be found at this web site.

With the driving of religion out of all forms of public life it is refreshing to see that the much criticized Texas Department of Corrections has the courage to allow a faith-based section of a prison.

Ever since I entered the Illinois House of Representatives in 1973, the Department of Corrections has been misnamed.

It doesn’t “correct” prisoners.

It punishes them.

If “Truth in Labeling” laws could be applied to governmental entities, a name change would be mandatory.

Even Governor Rod Blagojevich resurrection of the Sheridan Correctional Center as a drug rehab place is severely suspect.

I have heard from more than one source that probation officers are told not to blemish Sheridan’s reputation by sending those with paroled infractions back to jail.

So, I’d like to point folks to some real good news. In fact, it even sounds like Good News.

In an Associated Press story by Dave Carey, which I first saw last Sunday in the Daily Herald, but will link to an October 13th International Herald Tribune story in the hope that it will work for more than a week, there is a report of

“the Carol Vance Unit, founded in 1997 on the outskirts of Houston. It’s the oldest of a rapidly growing number of faith-based prison facilities across the nation.”

Ten states now have such programs…as close as Iowa and Missouri.

I first heard about this idea when I was serving with my seatmate State Rep. Tom Johnson, who was chairman of the Prison Reform Committee. He showed me a newsletter from Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship organization with an extraordinary story about a prison in Brazil.

It was operated with only a handful of guards and escapes were nil.

Inmates had to be Christians to gain entry and, just like Paul with the earthquake would have allowed him to escape, they stay behind bars for their punishment.

The warden in Texas, Cynthia Tilley, says she loves the place.

“It’s so calm.”

These don’t work without volunteers.

It’s not that Illinois prisons don’t have Christian volunteers. I met a man on a Walk to Emmaus who found Jesus in Jacksonville’s prison. He certainly seemed like a changed man to me.

Reporter Carey is writing a balanced article, though, and adds this in the beginning:

“Evidence that they reduce recidivism is inconclusive, and skeptics question whether the prevailing evangelical tone of the units discriminates against inmates who don’t share their conservative Christian outlook.”

However, evidence is strong that violence and trouble-making drop sharply in these programs, and they often are the only vibrant rehabilitation option at a time when taxpayer-funded alternatives have been cut back.

Ask the inmates and they say they “are treated with respect. They have hope.”

That is so different from what happens in Illinois prisons, at least the ones I visited in the late 1990’s.

Most states let Prison Fellowship run their programs. Florida does it on its own.

The three prisons (two for men, one for women) have 30% fewer infractions than the others.

I’ll be the guards fight to work there.

In Texas, men are eligible only the last two years of their sentence.

One inmate, Raymond Halls, convicted of murder at age 16 and sentenced to 15 years, said,

“In my other prison, on a daily basis there was rape, drugs. When you come to Carol Vance, it’s like a load is lifted. It’s like heaven.”

A volunteer teaching Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” admonished his class:

“You guys are a chosen nation. You go out from prison with a different mind-set from guys not in this program.”

Each prisoner has a mentor in and after prison.
Besides the state-run prisons, Corrections Corporation of America has 24 prisons in 13 states with “faith pods.”

More information on the Texas program can be found at this web site.