McHenry County Blog

Thanks to blogger and political commentator Tom Roeser for reminding me of and stating, so all I had to do was copy

Pascal’s wager is this:

Suppose we tend not to believe in God and when we die we find we have been wrong-He exists.

The choice was obviously a tragically wrong one so the risk we took was fatal.

On the other hand, suppose we believe in God and find out when we die He doesn’t exist?

What have we lost?

Nothing, but we have been prudent in judging risk.

Suppose we believe in God and when we die we find out He does exist?

The worst risk from the standpoint of probability is to deny the existence of God flatly with runs the risk of being disappointed if He does exist.

Remember when the Prospect Heights village hall burned during a thunderstorm?

It seemed strange that this Northwest suburban public building would not have been grounded.

Now, CBS reports

Prospect Heights Fire Chief Donald Gould said that on Thursday afternoon, fire officials were notified by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that an accelerant, or substance used to fuel a fire, was found at the scene.

One person I reached said,

my sources tell me it was to destroy audit documents.

The city fathers have a vibrant local opposition group, Citizens for a Responsible Future, who believe that all sorts of hanky-panky has gone on.
Here’s a sample from a letter to the Daily Herald from Kurt U. Giehler, which is on the group’s web site:

In addition, before us lies an inherent conflict of interest between Mayor (Rodney) Pace, as titular head of our local government, and his wife's corporation, Maman Corp., who was hired by the City to oversee the City Hall renovation work.

This work did not meet fire-safety codes, due to, among other items, the lack of mandatory-required fire walls.

This places the Mayor in the awkward fiduciary position of having to sue his wife's firm for its possible negligent role in creating the ensuing disaster. It also begs the question as to whose insurance should pay for damages, the City's or the Contractor's.

In any case, knowing the role that City officials had in creating the disaster, it would be reasonable to ask that they not charge themselves with their own investigation. Given their recent history, prudence would mandate that they leave the planning, bidding, construction contract award and oversight of the new City Hall building to the next administration.

It would be the honorable thing to do.

And consider this, from someone closer to the participants than I:

Most of the shennanigans revolve around courtships and (alleged) payoffs to the parade of developers looking to put in the Arena...among other things, like the interior construction of the City Hall was done by Pace's (wife's) contracting firm...which also, by the way, gets remodel contracts from Jesse White as well.

Rodney and Maynme Pace contributed $300 to Jesse White’s 27th Ward Organization on October 8, 2004. (Click to enlarge graphic.)

Mamon, the woman-owned Palatine firm referred to, has done significant work for Motorola, as well. Prospect Heights is not mentioned as a client on the firm's web site.

Torching the village hall does seem a bit extreme.

One wonders why a shredder would not have done the job?

Now, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has to be interested.

And, that is undoubtedly what the watchdog group desires:

“How can we possibly have the city and the fire department investigate themselves?”

it asks in commentary on the April 17th city council meeting.

Here's is the Daily Herald's article. And here's Sunday's Daily Herald story, in which city officials suggest vandals burned down city hall.

Hard to believe, but probably the most conservative and the most liberal people representing Illinois agree on something.

Both Don Manzullo and Jan Schakowsky are do-sponsors of something called the “Right to Repair Act.”

The bill proposes to force car manufacturers to treat independent auto repair shops the same way their treat their dealerships as far as service and tool information go.

This Mothers Against Drunk Driving bumper sticker is too late for Friday night, but just in time for Saturday night.

   A former Illinois House colleague of mine, Roscoe Cunningham, bought The Sumner Press, Lawrence County's weekly newspaper. That's located 240 miles south of Navy Pier in far southeastern Illinois along the Wabash River. (Go to the web site and see the size house $100,000 or 4-bedroom brick house that $65,000 will buy.)

I subscribed to the paper. What keeps me opening the pages each week are the Publisher's Comments and Susan Sovereign's column.

Today, I am starting a periodic re-publishing of Susan Sovereign's columns from the Sumner Press, with Roscoe's permission, of course.

This column is about her visit to the Secretary of State's Divers' License Facility, where she had to take a behind-the-wheel test.

Just to tempt you, here is how the test started out:

Much to my surprise, the men behind the counter flipped a coin to see who was to receive the privilege of giving me my test. The man who won groaned deeply and said (slightly more gruffly than necessary),"Let's get this over with," and motioned for me to go to the car.

He carefully strapped himself into the car on the passenger side. Opening the back door, I got in. He looked at me in amazement and asked if I didn't think that perhaps something was wrong with our seating arrangement.

I couldn't see how it would make much difference, but I got out, walked around the car, and got in the back seat on the other side.

Rather sarcastically, he asked if I didn't think it would be nice if someone were to drive.

I told him to go right ahead.

He made some kind of a mark on the clipboard he was carrying and said, "Oh, no. I insist that you drive."

The entire column can be found here.

Horse racing in Illinois was the first government-regulated gambling enterprise.

Favored individuals were given regional gambling monopolies. They were called racetracks.

It was so corrupt a process that former Democratic Party Governor Otto Kerner was convicted and sent to jail.

(The conviction was overturned after he died, but Congress enacted subsequent legislation that affirmed the theory used to convict Kerner. Bill Barnhart, Kerner co-biographer with former State Rep. Gene Schlickman wrote a fascinating history of this in Sunday’s Tribune.)

Then, about 1990, competition in the form of new regional gambling monopolies--benignly called riverboat casinos--were granted. Of course, insiders got to invest this time, too, but no one has gone to jail yet.

The racetrack owners howled at the loss of revenue to the more exciting electronic money grabbers.

(Actually, the call I received asking for my support for a similar bailout from Barrington Hills resident and constituent Richard Duchossois in the late 1990’s was quite urbane. I can understand how this soft-spoken man has been so successful.)

First, they wanted to be allowed to turn their tracks into mini-casinos, asking for the most profitable gambling device—slot machines.

When they couldn’t get that, they went for a straight subsidy.

Today’s Chicago Tribune story tells of the legislature passing a bill to force the casinos to subsidize the racetracks by $32-$35 million a year.

It will be interesting to see if Governor Rod Blagojevich will sign the bill. He got a lot of free airplane rides during his 2002 campaign from racetrack owners. We know he broke his promise not to accept donations from gambling interests.

The Tribune article’s headline is

House gives horse racing a leg up,

but I think it’s just lame.

Every decade I have lived in Illinois we have lost a congressmen due to relative population changes.

Net domestic migration was down 617,856 people in Illinois during the 1990’s.

It looks like we are on track to do it again. At this rate we’ll lose 718,542 during this century’s first decade.

From 2000-2004, Illinois is estimated to have lost 287,417 people to net domestic migration.

This does not count inmigration from other countries like Mexico, however, which exceeded the domestic outmigration during the 1990's, but not by enough to keep us form losing a congressman.

Illinois has lost a net average of 61,786 per year in the 1990’s. For the first four years of this century, we were losing 71,854 a year, as you can see on the chart. Illinois is third from the bottom.

Cook County lost more people—an estimated 94,499--than any county in the USA, but Los Angeles. Some are obviously moving to Will County, which grew an average of 20,000 per year.

Another Wisconsin Dells water park tee shirt.

I don’t know why the boy would be hiding from his homework. It was spring vacation.

In the Eric Zorn column I linked to yesterday, he did not cite the source of the poll results on gay marriage that he mentioned. He tells me it is from the Pew Poll. This chart is from that web site.

Apparently my links at the bottom of the story did not take. And,, now, I am having problems modifying yesterday's post on the Illinois Family Institute's having said that it has reached the minimum number of signatures needed to get its Protect Marriage advisory referendum on the ballot this fall. (More signatures are needed because of the inevitable challenge.)

So, here is the link to the Institute of Marriage and Policy, where more details are revealed about the percentages of homosexuals and lesbians who marry when a jurisdiction allows it. If you want the whole study, please email me.

The homosexual-promoting Windy City Times reports that the Crystal Lake Rowin Club was honored and cheered last Saturday night at Soldier Field’s Cadillac Club.

They appear in the same paragraph praising Kraft Foods and the Harris Bank.

Here’s the snippet:

"The Crystal Lake Rowing Club, which earlier this month battled intense opposition by residents who did not want their suburban municipality to host the rowing competition, was also honored and cheered by the appreciative crowd of diners."

The rowing club has yet to reply to my Good Friday email asking why it failed to mention the very real possibility of the Gay Games Rowing Regatta being a future rowing event off its application for a Crystal Lake taxpayer subsidy.

Below is State Senator Kirk Dillard's press release this week on the possible raiding of the Tollway to pay operating expenses of state government:

DILLARD WARNS SUBURBANITES: BLAGOJEVICH LOOKING TO RAID SUBURBAN WALLETS

Hinsdale, IL – Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) today warned suburbanites that rumored deals being cut in the backrooms of the State Capitol in Springfield could be disastrous for area motorists.

Governor Rod Blagojevich’s Administration, already under federal investigation for corruption in handling public money at the Illinois Tollway, is reportedly considering leasing the Tollway System and getting their hands on billions of dollars from suburbanites’ wallets.

“Suburbanites should be outraged that decades of their nickels and dimes might be used to bail out the Chicago public schools, especially since not one mile of the Tollway System runs through the City of Chicago,” Dillard said.

“The last thing suburbanites should want is for this Governor to get his hands on Fort Knox,” Dillard said.

Dillard said suburbanites should be leery of any Fiscal Year 07 last-minute budget deal brokered by Blagojevich that opens the door to privatization of the Tollway.

“The idea could have merit, but it should be explored in a thorough process that includes world-class economists, transportation experts and suburban leaders,” Dillard said. “It should not be done by an Administration that is already under investigation for how they handled public money at the Tollway.”

Republicans have been excluded from the budget process by the Democrat Governor and his two Chicago allies, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President Emil Jones, Jr.

“If they cut a deal on the Tollway now – or in a post-election surprise – it was clearly done in order to pay the ransom to keep a candidate out of the Governor’s race. And it means this Administration is going to use suburbanites’ money as Rod Blagojevich’s piggy bank.”

Dillard said the Democrat majority’s track record gives credence to the rumored deals. “They have demonstrated their willingness to raid public pensions and other dedicated funds. I suspect they would be willing to raid the Tollway.

“It is a decision that could impact suburban residents and communities for decades. It is a decision that should not be made by Blagojevich and his lobbyist friends in a backroom, as a quick fix to keep someone out of the Governor’s race or to bail out the City of Chicago’s budget.”

Absolutely too good to pass up.

I found this “Fiend of Life” one right before we checked out of the Wisconsin Dells water park during spring vacation.

There were a lot of double takes.

Here’s a way to get an early look.

Click here for a web site operated by McHenry County Treasurer Bill LeFew. You will need to enter your PIN number without dashes and your last name.

Amazingly enough, the bill for our home is still under $8,000, even if by only $3.04.

That’s a lot.

It’s up 2.8%, the increase in the cost of living, I assume, which is allowed under the property tax cap.

= = = =
While you’re looking up tax information, type your zip code in Chicago Tribune reporter Diane Rado’s Senate Bill 750 tax swap tax calculator.

Let me know what you think about what the tax hikers want to do to your net tax bill.

An email from the Illinois Family Institute says that the 283,111 minimum signature requirement to put the Protect Marriage advisory referendum on the ballot has been reached.

From my Libertarian Party gubernatorial petition experience, however, I know that many more than the minimun number of signatures are needed. We filed over twice as many as were required and the Republicans challenged them anyway…until the Federal investigation of House Republican leader Lee Daniels was made public.

It is certain that the homosexuals will mount a similar challenge.

So, if you want this question on the ballot, don’t stop collecting signatures. There is one weekend. Petitions need to be filed by Monday, May 8th.

You can find where to take them here.

Tribune columnist Eric Zorn entitles today’s column

Anti-gay issue could shake up the fall election

He reports that the homosexuals have already had a victory party last week. Zorn reports that the Chicago's Gay Liberation Network’s invitation read

Join us as we celebrate the failure of far-right forces in Illinois to get an anti-gay referendum on the November ballot.

Without citing his source, Zorn reports social conservatives are

also no doubt alarmed by a recent poll showing a sharp drop in opposition to gay marriage--from 63 percent in 2004 to 51 percent today.

But he does conclude,

The real celebrations will come later.

Meanwhile, stockholders of Gay Games supporter Kraft Foods turned back 99-1 a proxy effort to end Kraft's financing of the Gay Games.

Corporate American has obviously bought into the homosexual agenda.

And, another "meanwhile":

The Institute of Marriage and Public Policy has just published a study investigating the percentage of homosexuals and lesbians who get married when it is legal.

The highest estimated percentage--16.7%--was found in Massachusetts. Authors Maggie Gallagher and Joshua K. Baker, looking worldwide, discovered that something between 1% and 5% get married, when allowed to. Noting that trend data "is extremely limited...data suggest that the number of gay marriages tends to decrease after an initial burst (reflecting pent-up demand)."

Incidentally, the study cites survey data from the 2003 Canadian Community Health Survey showing

1.3% of Canadian men and 7/10ths of 1% of Canadian women ageded 18-65 self-identified as gay or lesbian.

The provinces with the highest gay marriage rates were British Columbia, Nova Scotia and the Yukon.

(Why does that remind me of the Monte Pyton lumberjack song?)

# posted by Cal Skinner : 10:05 AM  2 comments

With the Democrats trying to pin the higher gas price tail on President George W. Bush and the Republican congress, I was surprised to learn the Chicago Tribune is playing a turnabout game today.

In its editorial, the state’s leading newspaper pointed to a vote last October regarding making the building of new oil refineries easier.

Guess who voted, “No?”

Freshman Congresswoman Melissa Bean and her sponsor, Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel, among others. Below are the relevant paragraphs from the editorial (click to enlarge):

With the face of Crystal Lake’s Gay Games’ cheerleader Mayor Aaron Shepley as its spokesman, Centegra Health Systems bemoaned its failure to receive permission to begin open-heart surgery.

The reason for the rejection?

Competition would be unhealthy for neighboring hospitals like Good Shepherd (where my wife used to work).

How ironic.

Centegra’s used the same argument to drive a stake through the heart of Mercy Health System’s plan to put a competing hospital in Shepley’s home town (with Shepley working actively to kill it and in the courtroom when the decision was handed down).

But, by losing by a 2-2 vote, I’m sure the Mayor will try to find someone like vacationing Crystal Lake Park Board President Jerry Sullivan to come to the next meeting and try to reverse the decision, the same way Sullivan brought the Gay Games Regatta to Crystal Lake.

The board is short one member with the resignation of chairman Glenn Poshard.

Think some of the old timers are wishing for the days when former Centegra Board member (and now convicted felon) Don Udstuen was still around? His influence might have been useful on this Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board that used to be so corrupt that all of its members were kicked off in a legislative re-organization after the Mercy Hospital and Edward Hospital corruption was publicized.

Of course, if my bill of the early 1990’s had passed, the board would have been abolished then.

Why on earth anyone thinks that this Soviet-style central planning will work in health care in Illinois, when it works nowhere else, is beyond my understanding.

Daily Herald columnist Amy Mack reports that Westfield Community School’s Parent-Teacher Organization will pop for a bench covered with ceramic pieces with green symbolizing Advance 300 (the tax hike committee) and “red, white and blue to represent voter support.”

I suppose it will be put on school property the same way the green ribbons were right before the election.

Come to think of it, the colors for the citizens aren’t too bad a choice.

Red could represent the huge tax increase. White could symbolize how the pale opponents’ faces when they learned of the impending red ink in their check books. And blue could represent to color of senior citizens’ skin when they get taxed out of their homes.

Mack ends with the tongue-in-check suggestion that a second bench be placed at the bike path across from Jack Roeser’s Otto Engineering factory in Carpentersville.

It would give new meaning to the term “benched,”

she wrote.

Does that mean she favored the referendums' passage?

With the overnight temperature in Crystal Lake about freezing, this tee shirt seems appropriate.

After the summer-like days we had, perhaps a better tee shirt would say, "Is it spring yet?"

Residents of McHenry and Kane County who live in Barrington Hills are again trying to escape from Carpentersville District 300, according to Elgin’s Daily Courier-News and the Chicago Tribune.

The chances are akin to those of having snow in May. It does happen (May 5, 1966, a day I campaigned for County Treasurer in Marengo), but not often.

Just as Chicago and the rest of Illinois want to milk McHenry County, District 300 loves the fact that Barrington Hills’ homes pay more taxes than it takes to education their 23 out of 59 children who attend District 300 schools. (The rest—over 60%!--go to private schools.)

A similar area (or maybe the same) tried to get out of District 300 in the past and failed.

To win, the petitioners would have to convince the Kane County Regional Board of School Trustees and, maybe, the Lake County Board, as well. That’s because District 300’s headquarters is located in Kane County and Barrington School District 220 would be affected and its headquarters is located in Lake County.

Although probably a majority of the land is located in McHenry County, its board has no say.

Kane County Regional Superintendent of Schools Dr. Clem Mejia says that a decision could take a year or more. He remembers 5 or 6 other attempts at de-annexation in the 20 years he has been in office.

District 300 was put together in the late 1940’s by someone with the vision of Attila, the Hun. When consolidation started, it went as far as possible in every direction, ending up with parts of Cook, McHenry, Kane and DeKalb Counties.

The result was a school district where the various parts have as little in common with each other as the Hun’s 433-453 empire.

Barrington Hills has the highest average income of any town in McHenry County (although not much of it is in McHenry County).

And, as far as schools go, money is the name of the game.

The Barrington Hills residents have logic on their side, of course. They argue that they are part of the Barrington community and their kids should be able to attend school with their neighbors.

Unfortunately, logic has little to do with school finance.

Otherwise, District 300's Cary students would attend Cary schools and it Fox River Grove students would attend Fox River Grove schools.

Actually, it’s technically called “franked mail,” but it is really mail designed to re-elect 8th congressional district Congresswoman Melissa Bean.

The “frank” is Melissa Bean’s signature, which is used instead of a stamp.

Congressmen know that this privilege is a valuable one, but McHenry County’s other congressman, Donald Manzullo, a Republican, has never used “franked mail” as a way to mass communicate with this constituents.

McSweeney is calling upon his Democratic Party opponent to stop using tax dollars for mass mailing. He points out that she made still another franked mailing which arrived on April 15th, the traditional income tax payment deadline, while just the week before she had been bragging that she had over $1 million in her campaign fund.

“I will give her credit for not trying to hide it,” McSweeney said.

“At the bottom of each and every mailing she has sent out,” the Republican continues,” it reads,

This mailing was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.

"As a member of Congress I would push for legislation ending this perk, among others, and I would discontinue the practice in my own office voluntarily.

“I think Melissa Bean’s campaign can afford to pay for their own promotional mail without taking those dollars out of the pockets of the taxpayers.”

McSweeney also reiterated his call for debates in all 24 of the townships in the 8th congressional district.

“I walk door to door nearly every day of the wee

Dave Olien, a former top staffer of George Ryan when he was House Republican Leader has written a column for the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, which compares Wisconsin and Illinois convictions of political folks.

His conclusion:

It marks a major change of the "rules" of politics in Illinois and many other states, including Wisconsin, where insiders have routinely used access to governors to build strong lobbying practices as well as state resources to win elections.

Or, as the headline of the column says,

The Rules of the Game Have Changed

I’m not as sure as Dave. I’m still waiting for the Mike Tristano shoes to drop.

But Olien precdicts

It marks a major change of the "rules" of politics in Illinois and many other states, including Wisconsin, where insiders have routinely used access to governors to build strong lobbying practices as well as state resources to win elections.

He continues

Insiders in Illinois and Wisconsin both argued that it was standard practice to use state resources for political purposes. But in both the Federal Courthouse in Chicago and the Dane County Courthouse criminal prosecutions have demonstrated that standard practice was in effect a criminal undertaking as defined by both Wisconsin law and federal law.

Clearly, state employees in the executive and legislative branches in Wisconsin now are vulnerable to federal prosecution as well as prosecution by local authorities if they engage or have engaged in facilitating fundraising or other political activity on state time.

Olien escaped Springfield to the higher paying world of the University of Illinois and, there, underwent an extreme makeover. He also escaped from Springfield’s politically corruption atmosphere, ending up as a Vice President of the University of Wisconsin System.

Dave was set to staff my committee when Ryan plucked this able man for his own staff. We had such fun the year before when I was passing a bill to give local townships, cities and counties a larger share of Motor Fuel Tax. This was in pre-personal computer days. Dave calculated how much extra every township, county and municipality would receive, if the bill passed. And, under the bill townships, were able to use the extra money to fix up non-dedicated private roads (a major McHenry County problem), so they could be taken over by the township.

Originally, it was drafted just to give money to counties and townships, but freshman Chicago State Rep. Democrat Walt Kozlowski, who apparently had been assigned to cultivate me, also in my freshman term, came over and asked if cities could be cut into the deal. (Kozlowski eventually became Chicago City Clerk and was convicted for providing jobs to ghost payrollers.)

Without consulting Speaker Bob Blair, I said,

I don’t see why not.

Blair was angry I had amended the bill without his permission, but with the Democrats’ support, it sailed out of the House and freshman State Senator Jack Schaffer (R-Cary) got it through the Senate.

Needless to say, floor amendments were allowed then that did not have to get the approval of the Rules or substantive committee and, if approved by the substantive committee, then the Rules Committee again.

(I can hear current legislators asking, "What's a floor amendment?")

What did any of us care if Democratic Party Governor Dan Walker opposed it? (I think he vetoed it. We just overrode his veto. We called the veto session, the “veto override” session.)

Interstingly, the bio at the bottom of the column says that Olien "formerly worked for the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives," but does not say that Speaker was George Ryan.

Reading that Congressman Mark Kirk was using a Route 14 Mt. Prospect filling station as a backdrop to publicize himself and E85 fuel reminded me of my run for congress in 1980.

I had been approached by two Elgin inventors. (I represented Elgin west of McLean Blvd. in the 1970’s.)

Herb Hansen and Dale Pate, then a sergeant on the Elgin Police Department, had figured out how to make a car run on 85% alcohol and 15% water.

Really!

I was running for the U.S. Senate then. (Talk about ambitions exceeding one’s ability to marshal resources. I later decided on a Kamikaze run against my incumbent congressman Bob McClory. I carried McHenry County; he carried the larger counties of Lake and Kane.)

I remember driving a Buick to Lawrenceville in Southeast Illinois for a speaking engagement set up by my friend, former State Rep. Roscoe Cunningham.

The Buick gave me trouble, so I traded it for a Pinto, which the two inventors converted.

That little Pinto only stalled on me once. Fortunately, I was coming home from a congressional candidates’ night, driving east on Route 120 and was within walking distance of the farmhouse at the Northwest intersection of Rt. 120 and Charles and Greenwood Roads. I had it towed home to Woodstock.

That was 1980 and we had lived through the energy crisis of the mid-1970’s. I had become convinced that ethanol was the wave of the future, but I didn’t know that future would be so far away.

Ford was producing cars in Brazil that ran on pure alcohol. The big problem was that squeezing out the last 1% of water from the ethanol was very expensive. I figured that the Elgin men’s carburetor would solve that problem. 99.9% purity was not needed.

It did have the side effect of smelling like a brewery, however.

Now, Kirk has idea I had a quarter century ago:

What is holding back the use of alcohol to fuel cars is its availability.

I have often wondered why the corn growers did not open a string of filling stations in the outer reaches of the Chicago metropolitan area with one near Chicago and pay people to drive to and from work on the major expressways in cars with signs saying they were powered by alcohol. The stations would be expensive, but the cars would be cheap advertising.

Kirk’s apparent answer is to subsidize stations that will put in the 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline pumps. That was passed into law last year.

Subsidies have existed for ethanol production for decades now and the fuel is still not competitive. State government even had a still run by prisoners at Vandalia for a while.

I recently read a quote from an ethanol producer saying that it was getting more efficient all the time. His was countered by a quote from an oil producer noting that if ethanol production got too efficient, the price of oil would just be cut.

In 1980, besides that Cook County Route 14 station, the only place I could find to buy ethanol was FS. Fortunately, McHenry County’s operation was in Woodstock, where I then lived. So, when I came back from a campaign appearance, there was a handy place to fill up.

Found in the parking lot of Crystal Lake Jewel, odds are that the car belongs to a music teacher. This was one of two music related messages.

I was looking at the Daily Herald's Animal Farm blog and found this April 18th tid-bit about 8th district Congresswoman Melissa Bean:
Click to enlarge and make clearer.

In a Monday email, State Senator and third place GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady asked supporters to gather signatures to help place the Protect Marriage advisory referendum question on the ballot this fall.

He asked that they be delivered to his Bloomington campaign office by May 1st.
Brady explained the reason for his support like this:

The reason that the petition drive was started is because a few years ago the Massachusetts Supreme Court overturned its own state law defining marriage as between one man and one woman, a law similar to the one we have in Illinois.

After that action, concerned citizens in many states, including Illinois, decided to amend their state constitutions so their state supreme courts would not unilaterally overturn their own state laws – and thus re-define marriage.

Family leaders in Illinois met and decided to pass a constitutional amendment protecting marriage. This requires passage in both the House and Senate in Springfield.

While the votes were there to pass it, the House Rules Committee bottled it up so it couldn’t get hearing.

Therefore, Protect Marriage Illinois was formed to collect enough signatures on a petition so as to legally put the question before the voters this November. If enough signatures are gathered, then voters will have a chance to weigh in on this critical issue – and legislators will finally have to listen.

The results of this November ballot will be used to push for passage of a real constitutional amendment to protect marriage once and for all in Illinois.

Most of McHenry County Blog readers aren’t near Bloomington, of course, so, if you want to pass a petition, you can download it from this web site.

I assume that if someone from around here collected any and drove them down to the Family Taxpayers Network office at 8 East Main Street in Carpentersville that they would be taken to the assembly point.

We're not talking about the space agency here. In Crystal Lake, NASA stands for National Association of Systems Administrators. While researching yesterday's article, I found this press release by Kathy Chwedyk, Development Director of the National Association of Systems Administrators Education Corporation. Here it is, as the former reporter wrote it.

It is a powerful piece about how one veteran was brought back into society after a serious bout with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

As veterans come to Washington, D.C., to petition their government to live up to the promise to provide medical care, this story about a severely affected McHenry County veteran is worth reading.

Veteran Participant in Project Fresh Start Accepts IT Position

Ed Bolf, a Vietnam-era U.S. Air Force Sergeant and former resident of New Horizons Veterans Center in Hebron, Illinois, has completed his training with Project Fresh Start, a program of National Association of Systems Administrators Education Corporation (NASA Education), and has accepted a position that will place him in an IT role with an international company. Bolf relocated to Indiana and assumed his duties in mid-March.

Project Fresh Start seeks to prepare displaced, disabled and other transitional workers for IT careers. NASA Education is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that Executive Director John Blanchard founded in 1999. Blanchard is president and CEO of National Association of System Administrators, Inc. (NASA), a provider of hardware maintenance and operating system support that he founded in 1994, and National Association of System Administrators Corporation (NASA Corp.), a software development company that he founded in 1998.

“Ed is about to embark upon a promising, long-lasting career in the IT field that will make the most of his skills and talent, and we couldn’t be prouder of him,” Blanchard said. “I commend our trainers for their dedication to the program and their patience in teaching the trainees. I commend the hiring company for making Ed such a good offer. Most of all, I commend Ed for his tenacity, his intelligence and his hard work. Bravo Zulus are due all around.”

Blanchard himself is a veteran. He served with the U.S. Navy in Beirut and considers the training and placement of veterans a priority for the Project Fresh Start Program. He is participating in Veteran’s March 2006 in Washington D.C. today.

“It was an honor for me to serve my country,” said Blanchard, “and it is an honor for me to be in a position to help veterans. The veterans in our program have exceeded our expectations, and I am not surprised by that. Men who have received training from the best military organization on the planet can handle anything we throw at them.”

What Project Fresh Start Did for Ed Bolf

Asked how Project Fresh Start has changed him, Bolf said the question made a line from the Jack Nicholson movie "As Good As It Gets" pop into his head.

“Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt, ‘You make me want to be a better man.’ That’s how this program makes me feel. It makes me want to accomplish things again, to rejoin society, to feel good about myself.

“Taking this job has been a milestone for me. Project Head Start has given us (him and other program trainees) an opportunity to do something, to be something. Much of that has to do with just feeding off of John’s unbelievable energy.”

Before Project Fresh Start, Bolf said,

“I felt that I had been all I was ever going to be – and that was 25 years ago. Now I’m living out here in this apartment, like a real human being. New Horizons was a roof over my head, and I was grateful for it. But this is a real life and a real job.”

During his four years with the Air Force, Bolf was stationed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines as a medical laboratory specialist.

“During our training as medics, an instructor told us that 80% of us would be field medics in Vietnam. We wouldn’t be given weapons because the enemy wasn’t supposed to shoot at us. But he said the first thing we should do out there was to get rid of the helmets which bore the red cross, which made an easy target for snipers. Then we should put on any parts of a regular uniform we could find, and find a weapon.”

Medics, Bolf soon learned, had a very short life expectancy in any combat zone. He was considered lucky because he didn’t actually see combat, “but there was no comfort in that because I had to face the carnage of war day after day,” he said.

Continuous Battlefield Conveyor Belt in Philippines

“USAF Hospital at Clark Air Force Base was like part of a continuous conveyor belt bringing in casualties from the battlefield or medical facilities such as Cameron Bay (in Vietman). Then the conveyer would take them back out again to send them to the States – either in a box, or alive and all too often missing much of themselves physically or emotionally.”

Bolf, the son of a World War II veteran, was so focused on the injuries of his patients that he didn’t realize that he was being damaged emotionally, too.

“I was only in my twenties, and so were most of them. It was impossible not to identify with them. Many had limbs amputated in the field, and often they would need further amputation at our facility in the Philippines.

"We fought to save them from life-threatening systematic infections such as gangrene. I knew their names. When I could, I’d go up to visit them because they had no family there. None of us did.

How to Answer, "Am I going to die?"

"The hardest thing was when you’d go to check on a guy, he’s your brother, and you know he’s not going to make it. He might not know it yet, but one day he asks you, ‘Am I going to die?’

"I couldn’t answer that at first. I would lie, as most people do and try to convince both myself and the patient not to even consider any such thing.

"Having read about hospice care, a rather new concept then, I learned that when they ask if they’re going to die, you should tell them the truth so they have a chance to make amends, say their goodbyes and for most, to arrive at their end with some dignity and relative peace. I began to practice that, but it was hard.”

When he received his honorable discharge from the Air Force, he went to work in January of 1970 at the University of Illinois as the Technical Director of the Blood Bank and Transfusion Service. It was a good job, and he thought now he could put the war behind him and re-enter civilian life.

Unrecognized Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Appears

“Two weeks after my return, the unexplainable anxiety began and the first of many future panic attacks occurred,” he said. After being assured that he wasn’t suffering heart attacks, he did his best to ignore the episodes, hoping that in time they would subside and the associated anxiety would go away.

They didn’t.

In 1981, Bolf accepted a position as Director of Hospital Services at the Oklahoma Regional Center of the American Red Cross in Tulsa.

In 1982, he said, “all of this came to a head.”

Bolf didn’t know it then, but he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The intensity of the anxiety and panic attacks increased. His condition increasingly affected the personal and social aspects of his life. He couldn’t travel by airplane once he left military service, and when his job required him to attend seminars across the country, he found excuses to drive instead. Often he would put in for vacation time and take his family along to hide the fact that he was afraid to fly.

“I’d feel trapped,” he said of airline travel, “like I was boxed in and I couldn’t escape. It was easy enough to avoid air travel, but I would have the same feeling in a large department store or a closed-in mall. Later still, even family gatherings exceeded my shrinking comfort zone.

“My life took on a nightmarish quality. You can’t imagine it, not unless you experience it. The panic becomes overwhelming and you know only that you must escape or something dreadful will occur.”

The medical laboratory specialist who fought so hard to heal his fellow soldiers could not heal himself.

What people need to know about PTSD, he said, “is that it’s real. Many people think it’s just something you can shake off if you think about other things and get on with your life.

Ex-Wife Could Not Understand

“I don’t believe my ex-wife ever understood how or why it affected my behavior and our relationship; but I don’t blame her for that because it’s incomprehensible.”

When his last car was destroyed in an automobile accident, he said, “it was sold for parts and the remainder was crushed for recycled metal. People understand that kind of damage – it’s physical. It’s visible.

“PTSD did that much damage to me emotionally, but it didn’t show. All people could see was my unexplained avoidance patterns or seemingly rude behavior.”

Eventually Bolf was divorced and lost his home. After he lost his job with the Red Cross, he held a series of mostly menial jobs. For two years he worked nights so he could hide in his room at the YMCA to avoid the outside world, which had become a fearful place.

Pete Castillo of Woodstock Office of Illinois Department of Employment Security Offers Help

His life took a turn for the better when he was referred for the Project Fresh Start Program by Pete Castillo, the Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program Specialist at Illinois Department of Employment Security in Woodstock, Illinois.

“What we have with John Blanchard and NASA Education is a case of veterans helping veterans while utilizing state and Federal programs,” said Castillo, who served with the U.S. Army during the Cold War. “What John (Blanchard) has done is truly remarkable, and I hope NASA will be a role model for other companies in the state to help provide training, jobs and better lives for those who have sacrificed so much for their country.”

Freed from Fear of Flying in John Blanchard's Plane

A personal milestone for Bolf came during his training, which took place at the NASA corporate headquarters in Crystal Lake, Illinois.

“John (Blanchard) asked me to fly with him in his private plane to go on a service call out of state at a client facility. My anxiety level jumped at least two levels on a scale of 10, but I had to find out if I could do it.”

It turned out well.

“I didn’t have any discomfort at all,” said the triumphant Bolf, who considers this a definite milestone after being treated with little success by civilian professionals for nearly two decades for social anxiety, depression and a sleep disorder before going to a VA medical facility and learning about PTSD.

Blanchard was dismayed when Bolf told him on the flight back to NASA headquarters that it was the first time he had been able to fly since Vietnam.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Blanchard asked.

“Because I was afraid you wouldn’t take me,” Bolf answered, “and I had to know if I could do it.”

In addition to veterans’ organizations, NASA Education accepts referrals of candidates for Project Fresh Start from homeless shelters, disaster relief agencies and other social service entities. Prospective candidates can also apply directly through www.nasaeducation.org, the NASA Education website.
# # #

NASA Education also accepts equipment donations, including cars. Since it is not-for-profit, a tax deduction is available as an added incentive to assist folks in rehabilitating their lives.

Here is the information that was on top of the press release:


3305 South IL Rte. 31, Crystal Lake, IL 60012, 800-724-9692, 815-455-5296 (FAX)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kathy Chwedyk, Development Director
National Association of Systems Administrators Education Corp. (NASA Education)
Phone: (815) 455-5190
Fax: (815) 455-5296
kathy_chwedyk@nasaeducation.org
www.nasaeducation.org

To return to McHenry County Blog, click here.

Labels: Ed Bolf, John Blanchard, NASA Education, New Horizons Veterans Center, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Monday, I pointed out that the reporter covering the State Capitol for Illinois Issues had started a blog.

Yesterday, I found out that reporter Bethany Carson is from Algonquin.

Illinois Issues is a monthly magazine that helps people keep up on state issues. The statehouse blog is a welcome addition to the very few news sources that keep citizens informed on what is happening in Springfield.

I asked the new blogger for a brief biography and here is what she sent:

I graduated from Jacobs in 1998 and went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to major in journalism. Four days after graduation in 2002, I started working as the managing editor of a weekly newspaper in Hoopeston.

I left in 2003 to attend the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. I earned my master's degree while interning for Illinois Issues magazine.

Two days after I finished the internship in 2004, I became the health reporter at the Herald & Review in Decatur. I stayed there for about a year-and-a-half.

The day I finished at the Herald & Review, I moved back to Springfield to serve as Illinois Issues' Statehouse bureau chief. I've been here for three months, and I absolutely love it.

Another reporter with Algonquin roots is Natasha Korecki. She covered the George Ryan corruption trial for the Chicago Sun-Times.

A warm January brought forth the daffodils on the left.

To the upper right one can see the growth during a cold February.

Below are the same daffodils in full bloom on April 15th.
They are wilted already.

The Veterans March 2006 is being held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. this Tuesday and there is a significant McHenry County connection.

The 6,000 chairs, the port-a-potties and streaming video are being provided compliments of John Blanchard, CEO of the National Association of Systems Administrators, located on Route 31 north of 176. The firm was founded in 1994 and recently purchased a 24,000 square foot corporate headquarters in Crystal Lake.

This is not Blanchard’s first foray into philanthropy. He is a member of Angel Flight America (AFA), a non-profit, grassroots volunteer corps of more than 6,000 private pilots from all 50 states who transport patients and their families for free to hospitals for medical treatment. He served in the U.S. Navy for eight years.

One of the march’s organizers is McHenry County’s Disabled Veterans Outreach Program Specialist Pete Castillo (who was my legislative assistant).

Commenting on the Veteran’s March’s goal, he said,

Remember…the primary purpose of our march…we are in the business of unifying all…veterans across this great Nation for economic prosperity, good health, and a well wishing journey. This, you might want to make note, is from the Word of God, where my Fellowship, Prosperous Journey Troops gets its name and mission statement.

They are flying to Washington in Blanchard's plane as this is published. Tuesday both will speak to the assembled veterans. Wednesday, they will speak to members of congress.

Pete has been working with NASA Education’s Project Fresh Start, an opportunity for veterans (and others) to get well-paying jobs as systems administrators and other information technology jobs. So far, Castillo has placed five veterans with the firm. Another one, a female vet, is coming in probably in a week or two, according to Kathy Chwedyk, Development Director for NASA Education.

There are four phases to Project Fresh Start:

· Phase 1: Unpaid training for a week or two to determine where trainee best fits and desire to continue
• Phase 2: Paid training for approximately three months to prepare trainee for employment
• Phase 3: NASA will place trainee in an On The Job (OJT) position for up to two years
• Phase 4: Trainee may take advanced study for earning certification in a product family; NASA will provide study materials and may assist trainee with certification testing costs

“We never pull the plug on them and leave them on their own,” said Chwedyk. “They know that if they’re at a customer’s site and they’re having a problem, or they see something they haven’t encountered before, they can call us 24 hours a day at our toll-free number. There’s always a technical specialist available to help.”

One of the veterans just placed in an Indiana job is Ed Bolf. He served as a medic in Vietnam and ran a blood bank for the Red Cross before succumbing to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (You can read his story here tomorrow.)

Another success story is Ron Taucher.

“It is important for us as Americans to support the troops of all eras,” Blanchard said. “Putting a yellow ribbon decal on your car bumper is a nice gesture, but it isn’t enough.”

Castillo stresses that the success in placing homeless veterans

came to pass because of the Inter-Agency Sharing Agreements that I(llinois) D(epartment of) E(mployment) S(ervices)/VETS has with the McHenry County Veterans Assistance Commission and New Horizons' Transitional Living Services homeless veterans center in Hebron, Illinois.

Labels: Ed Bolf, John Blanchard, NASA Educational Foundation, Vets

Carl Becker headed the Illinois Non-Game Wildlife Fund (since re-named the Wildlife Preservation Fund) from the time of its inception in the early 1980's until shortly before he retired in 2002. That was the first bill passed to allow an income tax check-off for a specific program.

He died at age 56 on April 13,according to his Chicago Tribune obituary.

Becker must have been the one who gave the Boone County Conservation District’s Roger Gustafson a rejected copy of a bill to create the fund near the deadline for introducing bills during my last term in the 1970’s (79-81).

Gustafson came up to me near the rotunda and asked me to introduce the bill. I noticed that the upper right-hand corner of the first page of the bill had been cut off.

Who was walking down the stairs at the time, but the Illinois Revenue Director Jim Zagel.

I asked the Director what he thought of the bill and he told me it looked like the bill he had just rejected. I told him I was going to introduce it. He was not happy.

I figure that newly minted state employee Becker had given it to Gustafson in the hope of doing an end-run around the Revenue Department’s opposition.

Pretty brave, I’d say.

The bill passed, but the Revenue Director had the ear of Governor Jim Thompson, who vetoed the bill. I didn’t manage to override the veto. The next session, State Rep. Virginia Macdonald got the same bill passed. Thompson signed it, along with a number of other check-off bills that were spawned in its wake. But, he gave the publicity to one to help fight child abuse.

Nevertheless, the wildlife check-off bill has survived since the beginning, always getting above the minimum collection figure of $100,000, imposed to limit check-offs to the most popular.

There was a lot of fun on the way to the first year veto, however. To read the rest of the story, click here.

Ken Neumann, President of the family-owned Neumann Homes, is the subject of a “we’re not in financial trouble” article in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune.

It seems that Neumann—whom the Tribune says is one of “the fifty biggest builders in the United States--has decided to concentrate on mass produced homes in subdivisions of 1,000 or more.

The “financial troubles” rumor apparently started when it auctioned off 1,000 acres in areas like Huntley, Sugar Grove and Montgomery, but still has 20,000 lots left. The Tribune reports the firm builds 2,000 homes a year.

Interestingly, Neumann Homes was not one of the donors to this spring’s tax hike referendum committees.

But, then again, the article reports his firm has a cash flow problem in January.

Neumann Homes is building subdivisions in Woodstock and Wonder Lake. Both are in District 200.

Illinois Issues is a monthly magazine on policy issues. It has a Capitol reporter named Bethany Carlson who has started a blog giving stories that I doubt you will read elsewhere.

Two Daily Herald political reporters—Springfield’s John Patterson and Chicago-area Eric Krol have joined forces to publish the blog “Animal Farm.”

There is a lot of news that will not fit into the relatively tiny news slot now allocated to state politics. If you are a junkie, you might want to bookmark these two.

The McHenry Classroom Teachers Association just amended its pre-election report.

The political action committee gave $4,000 to finance District 15’s successful tax hike referendum.

It reported having $14.22 in the bank the beginning of the year in its first report. The correction says there was $4,022.66.

Tough to donate $4,000, if one only has 14.22 in the bank, but this looks like just a misunderstanding of what was being requested by the form.

The PAC’s chairman and treasurer is Jason Erber of Ingelside.

Another tee shirt found on sale for about $13 at New Life Book Store in Crystal Lake.

Underneath “Now Stay There!” is Romans 16:20

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

Carl Becker headed the Illinois Non-Game Wildlife Fund (since re-named the Wildlife Preservation Fund) from the time of its inception in the early 1980's until shortly before he retired in 2002. That was the first bill passed to allow an income tax check-off for specified purpose.

He must have been the one who gave the Boone County Conservation District’s Roger Gustafson a rejected copy of a bill to create the fund near the deadline for introducing bills during my last term in the 1970’s (79-81).

Gustafson came up to me near the rotunda and asked me to introduce the bill. I noticed that the upper right-hand corner of the first page of the bill had been cut off.

Who was walking down the stairs at the time, but the Illinois Revenue Director.

I asked the Director what he thought of the bill and he told me it looked like the bill he had just rejected. I told him I was going to introduce it. He was not happy.

I figure that newly minted state employee Becker had given it to Gustafson in the hope of doing an end-run around the Revenue Department’s opposition. Pretty brave, I’d say.

The bill passed, but the Revenue Director had the ear of Governor Jim Thompson, who vetoed the bill. I didn’t manage to override the veto. The next session, State Rep. Virginia Macdonald got the same bill passed. Thompson signed it, along with a number of other check-off bills that were spawned in its wake. But, he gave the publicity to one to help fight child abuse.

Nevertheless, the wildlife check-off bill has survived since the beginning, always getting above the minimum collection figure of $100,000, imposed to limit check-offs to the most popular.

There was a lot of fun on the way to the first year veto, however. To read the rest of the story, click here.

I was listening to WLS-Talk Radio one Sunday afternoon when I heard an Indian who raised golden eagles being interviewed. He lived in the Metro-East area and told about how he artificially inseminated eagles to increase the number.

After tracking him down, we talked for a long time. He told me how Indians thought the golden eagle was their messenger to the gods. I asked if he would be willing to bring an eagl