When legislators run for re-election, opponents search the record for votes they consider “bad.”
As far as I can figure out, none of the five challengers to the Crystal Lake City Council incumbents has cited any votes of the incumbent councilmen running for re-election. You see, from left to right, Councilman Ralph Dawson, Councilman Dave Goss and Councilman Jeff Thorsen.
When I wrote the Crystal Lake part of my Algonquin Township, Precinct 7 letter, I decided to include votes from the three issues I think were most significant in the last two years.
Below is what I wrote and distributed to the homes in my precinct on Saturday. About 125 are in Crystal Lake; the other 100 in Lakewood.
Let’s talk about the incumbent CL councilmen first. In the last two years, three issues have attracted the most attention—the 23-year Tax Increment Financing tax hikes, Mayor Shepley’s 75% city sales tax hike and building a baseball stadium on the lake’s watershed.
Here’s what the incumbents and a challenger who had a vote did:
Vulcan Lakes and Main Street TIF Districts, passage of which will cause every tax district to raise our tax rates to make up for the lost revenue taken for city-directed purposes:
Voting Yes – Ralph Dawson, Dave Goss and Jeff Thorsen
Hiking the city sales tax by 75%:
Voting Yes – Ralph Dawson and Dave Goss;
Voting No – Jeff Thorsen
Approving the poorly thought out McHenry County College minor league baseball stadium:
Voting Yes – Dave Goss;Voting No – Ralph Dawson, Jeff Thorsen and Carolyn Schofield (on the CL Planning and Zoning Commission)
I then wrote some things about the challengers and made no recommendations.
I just tried to provide enough information for voters to make up their own minds.