Nominating petition challenges are a good thing.
They serve as a basic, first-level screening to identify those candidates who are at least competent, committed and conscientious enough to gather sufficient petition signatures so that no reasonable challenge can be posed.
And to identify those who are not.
So when someone like Patrick DeStefano files only the bare minimum 67 petition signatures to get on the 6th Ward aldermanic ballot, and then gets bounced because 17 of them are disqualified by the Cook County Clerk’s office, voters can legitimately wonder whether his candidacy was anything more than a lark, or the product of some late-night gripe session ending with a “Screw this, I’m running for alderman!”
The same can be said for incumbent Maine Twp. High School Dist. 207 Board member Jin Lee, who reportedly filed only 55 signatures – a mere 5 more than the required minimum – and then had to gather several affidavits to prove to the election board that enough live registered voters actually signed his petitions. Instead of owning his ineptitude, however, Lee whined – according to a recent article in the Park Ridge Journal (“Maine High School Candidates Names Will Be Placed On April 4 Ballot,” Jan. 15) – that he “wish[ed] there was more of a way for first-timers to know how to handle objections.”
Here’s a thought: Try getting 25 or 50 signatures more than the bare minimum, so you don’t have to “handle objections.”
That should also be the lesson for Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 candidate Monica Wojnicki, who reportedly has been knocked off that ballot by filing 52 signatures, only 2 above the required minimum, of which 32 were successfully challenged. And a lesson for Park Ridge Park District Board candidates Jennifer Barcal and Carol Becker, whose ballot challenges are still being sorted out.
But getting on the ballot is the bare minimum level of competence, commitment and conscientiousnous. At least one more level of screening is necessary to determining whether a candidate might be worthy of the office.
Motive.
For example, you can immediately write off any candidate who claims to be running to “give something back to the community.” That’s the default answer for all those empty-suit candidates trying to avoid admitting that they “got nothin’ ” in the way of ideas or agendas. And it’s those kinds of empty suits who end up becoming puppets or stooges for some special interest – assuming they aren’t already some special interest’s puppets or stooges trying to fly below the radar with their “give back” mantra.
If you want to know one reason why the D-64 School Board consistently ends up with so many puppets and/or stooges for the Park Ridge Education Association (the “PREA,” a/k/a the teachers union) and the PREA-beholden administrators, check out the sixth page of the recruiting handout for prospective D-64 Board candidates who attended Supt. Laurie Heinz’s dog-and-pony show last October 12, and you’ll see “give back” as one of the four reasons for Board service.
And if you can stomach wading through the rest of that propaganda piece (on which we detect the fingerprints of D-64 propaganda minister Bernadette Tramm as well as Heinz’s), we dare you to find the words “taxes” or “taxpayers.” That’s because Heinz and her current D-64 Board puppets/stooges don’t want nobody the taxpayers sent – or anybody that’s going to hold all those very well-paid PREA members and those overpaid administrators like Heinz and Tramm accountable for the boatloads of tax dollars being spent on what seems to be, by all objective measures, relatively modest educational quality.
Barely one notch above the empty-suited give-backers are the “teasers.” They’re the candidates who try to win over those clueless and/or stupid voters by teasing and tantalizing them with vague or veiled suggestions about what they might do about some situation or other…if only they were to be elected.
For example, this past Tuesday night mayoral challenger Lucas Fuksa posted news about the closing of the Jos. A. Banks store in Uptown and then (a) suggested there are “real reasons” for that retailer’s closing, which he teasingly chose not to identify; and (b) claimed Park Ridge needs to be made “business friendly” (How?), zoned “appropriately” (How?) and with improvement to “our parking situation” (Like what?).
But since that might not be quite enough teasing for some voters, Fuksa added – in a comment to a comment to his post – that we need “infrastructure improvements [Paid for how?], less restrictions [On what and why?], zoning changes [What kind?], branding [For the City’s cattle?], and long term future planning” [Gee, now that’s original!]. For a candidate who is already viewed as mostly a pawn of certain developers, that’s a whole lot of foam but very little beer.
Our favorite, however, is his teaser claim that he “spoke to Jos. A. banks [sic] so I know what some of those issues are” – presumably related to its closing – but he apparently is keeping those secrets to himself for now.
Doesn’t that just make you tingle with suspense?
It sounds to us like Fuksa is channeling 2013 mayoral challenger Larry Ryles’ business development strategy which – as we wrote about in our 03.19.13 post – consisted in large part of hugs and handshakes. But at least Ryles actually named some of the businesses he wanted to bring to Park Ridge: Urban Outfitters, Forever 21, Ann Tayor, Clarks and GameStop.
As best as we can tell, Fuksa was MIA four years ago during that last mayoral race, so we can understand how he may have missed such a failed campaign strategy and now considers it his original.
Besides, it’s so teasing and tantalizing.
To read or post comments, click on title.
28 comments so far
Believe it or not some people do genuinely want to give back to the community and just because they don’t have an agenda, such as shutting down a well used pool or nickel and diming the library out of existence, for example, it doesn’t make them empty suits. Your arrogance would be astonishing if it weren’t so tiresome at this point.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome back, MWR – your “anonymous” brickbats remain as empty-headed and pandering to the lowest common denominator (Park Ridge division) as they are predictable.
I don’t know who MWR is but geez he or she really gets your goat. And these dumb candidate wanna bes, lamenting that they wish they knew their way around the system as well as you do. Not everyone has the Tea Party playbook on how to infiltrate local government. Rule 1: Come up with catchy acronyms like HITA so the poor shmucks in town will think they’re voting for reasonable people. Rule 2: Wait patiently before you unleash your extremist views. Rule 3: Never miss an opportunity to demonize public employees and institutions. You too can help make Park Ridge great again!
EDITOR’S NOTE: This editor doesn’t own a goat.
“Tea Party”? Seriously? That term lost all meaning a while ago – except as an epithet frustrated “Progressives” desperately throw around at anybody who doesn’t agree with them.
HITA is just a “catchy acronym” only to those, like yourself, who can’t abide local government grounded on the principles of Honesty, Integrity, Transparency and Accountability rather than on grabbing money and power for themselves and their friends through insider wink-and-nod deals.
There are plenty of good/great public employees who aren’t greedy tools of the public sector unions and the Madiganocrats. One of the very best is a Holiday Lights Committee member. Unfortunately, there just aren’t enough of them.
I heard the newcomer mayoral challenger is aspiring to be like niles?! Dude aim high huh? “Make park ridge great again” come on!
EDITOR’S NOTE: We hear he’s aspiring to be like Howie Frimark, so he and Ryles would be more like political brothers.
I assume since you are asking all the “who, what, when, where, why, and how” questions about the Mayoral challenger from a published article, you will be posting the same type of questions on the blog for everyone to see to the current acting mayor when you view his public website. It’s funny, I was spending some time looking there for all the specifics he lists for why he should earn my vote (his platform), but I can’t find them. Not mentioning specifics from the current acting mayor, and an alderman before that, is not a failed campaign strategy? but wait, it is a failed campaign strategy for the new guy? You’ll probably just tell me to check his voting record for his platform, right?
EDITOR’S NOTE: You could have simply started and finished with your last sentence. And in case you need the help, you can Google what he did as an elected public official while on the Park Board from 2003 through 2011, as alderman from 2011 through March 2015, and as acting mayor since.
Can you point us to all of Mr. Fuksa’s accomplishments as an elected public official?
Your suggestion to google the candidates:
Here is one case that comes up. The mayoral challenger represented some shady developers that were disciplined by the federal courts for playing games during litigation lord help us. Is this the type of “loose restrictions and zoning ” that he wants to bring to par ridge to “make it great again”?!
Clueless.
https://www.law360.com/articles/507115/7th-circ-affirms-413m-judgment-in-business-park-rico-suit
Anonymous on 01.19.17 6:23 pm:
H.I.T.A. is one of the main reasons I took a chance on the late mayor Schmidt and was not disappointed. Even on the occasions I disagreed with him I always believed that his positions and decisions were driven by H.I.T.A., which is why he was elected and then re-elected by an even bigger margin.
I’m no schmuck (learn how to spell it, goy), and neither are all the other Park Ridge residents who were fed up with the Homeowners Party and secret insider deals, whether they involved the Napleton property, Uptown Redevelopment, giveaways to favored charities, the facade improvements, or zoning variances, to name just a few.
If I had my way, H.I.T.A. would be put on the Park Ridge flag.
HITA? More like BullsHITA!
EDITOR’S NOTE: To folks like you it probably is.
Your cynical posts are exactly what is wrong with politics at a high level and have made its way all the way down to small towns like Park Ridge. You have the nerve to judge people who get the REQUIRED (focus on that word for a second) signatures and say they are doing the bare minimum. Nowhere are these candidates REQUIRED (there’s, that word again) to get more than what is necessary. Instead folks like yourself use it as some sort of silly measuring stick and give a “pass” to those that submit a petition with double the amount as if they are out there doing twice the work. But for some reason your cynicism doesn’t seem to wonder if those “extra” signatures are legit. Meanwhile you have particular people (Gary Gale) targeting multiple candidates that don’t match his politics to get them removed from the ballot. Yes, he targeted 3 separate candidates. That’s stunning to me and doesn’t seem to garner a cute post on your blog. I would completely agree with a concerned citizen of a town challenging a particular candidate because he\she doesn’t believe that candidate obtained the necessary signatures. But when one person goes after 3, you really have to ask the question “why” what’s their MOTIVE (you seem to like that word).
EDITOR’S NOTE: We don’t know Mr. Gale or anything about him, other than what’s been written about him in the local papers. But we’ll entertain your “cynical” comment by assuming he’s some partisan Republican tool whose “motive” is doing the bidding of some Republican mastermind or other: So what?
The simplest way to neutralize him and others like him is to make the effort to get “double the amount” of required signatures; and to make the extra effort to ask petition signers whether they are registered voters in the relevant jurisdiction rather than just hand them a petition and pen and ask “Will you please sign this?”
And since you seem to have a problem with the concept: Getting “double the amount” of the required number of signatures IS “doing twice the work.” That’s just math.
What a piece of crap that d64 candidates handout is! Its like a brainwashing script. And you are right, there is no mention of taxes or the taxpayers. God forbid anybody on the school board would be concerned about those, even though they are almost 4x the City’s share of our tax bills.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve seen that from the moment we started publishing this blog with regularity in September 2007: No matter how bad the schools screw up, no matter how they might squander money, no matter how stagnant educational quality might be, they seem to have a Teflon coating. Meanwhile, City government and, to a much lesser degree, the Park District – both of which take a fraction of the schools take, percentage wise, out of our tax bills – are like tar babies.
Actually you don’t need to get twice the amount of sugnatures IF you do things right –meaning get access to a “walk sheet,” only have registered voters from within your ward/district sign, make certain that they sign -not Print- their names, make certain they put their correct address at which they are registered. Do that and the only challenge that may arise is bc someone’s signature no longer looks like it did when they signed their voter registration back when they were 18. In that case you gather affidavits from them.
It ain’t brain surgery or rocket science.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Nothing in local government or “politics” is either of those.
In fact, most of local government is just honesty and common sense – which probably explains why it’s botched so badly and so often.
On other issues this FuksA guy is posting pictures shaking niles mayor’s hand congratulating him on flawless snow removal. Do we want to become like niles?! He must be clueless. And easing zoning restrictions? For who his buddy with the VFW hall property? Or the various developers that wanted more rental multi units than the code allows?
EDITOR’S NOTE: With 8,000 less residents, 2+ fewer square miles of land to manage (and fewer streets to plow), roughly the same amount of annual revenue, but approx. $25 million less in annual expenses, it’s probably pretty easy to have “flawless” snow removal and a bunch of other things.
But we don’t hear about too many Park Ridge emigrants to Niles.
http://m.journal-topics.com/news/article_b3649f06-c2f1-11e6-83bd-df679e2c4b92.html?mode=jqm
Niles tax levy is going up by 3.9% despite being “friendly to business” –aka letting developers go hog while and residential area impact be damned.
Remind me again what Park Ridge’s tax levy is doing this year? Oh yeah..actually going down. Yet Fuksa wants to “do better” like niles and “surrounding communities” (des plaines? Rosemont? Edison park?!). If Uptown TIF fiasco was “business friendly” …and standing up to Whole Foods threats of give me a portion of tax revenue or I won’t build in town was “unfriendly to business” …I prefer the latter.
This guy is taking a page from the “alternative facts” playbook crying falsely about how bad our town is.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Actually, it sounds more like a page from the Howard “Let’s make a deal” Frimark/Larry “Hug and a handshake” Ryles “playbook.”
Fortunately, only one member of the City Clowncil that engineered the “Uptown TIF fiasco” – Ald. Rich DiPietro – was still around for the no-bribes-for-Whole Foods triumph. And to DiPietro’s credit, he learned the lesson of the TIF and voted “no” to the Whole Foods developer’s shakedown.
Why does D64 have a candidate recruitment program? That’s the only local gov’t body that has one, and it consistently gets the worst officials. 2 + 2 = 4.
EDITOR’S NOTE: What they get is what they want. And the best way to ensure that is to “vet” them under the guise of sharing information to help them run.
The only thing more thick on this site than your cynicism is your condescension.
What I was trying to say, and you pulled a nice lawyers trick by manipulating my words, is according to you signatures is some sort of litmus test that can be used to “screen local candidates”. And its your belief that if someone turns in just over the REQUIRED 50 signatures they are doing minimum work therefore they will do the bare minimum as an elected official. Meanwhile in your world when someone turns in double or triple the amount of signatures they “clearly” are more hard working.
Yet Mr. Cynicism doesn’t think that its worth a critical eye when someone turns in a nomination form with all those signatures, huh? Who’s to say they are all legit? But, when someone like a Gary Gale or others are looking to pick someone off a ballot they don’t target the person with 100 or 200 signatures. Those people get a free pass because of the perception of all that work they did. That’s a joke and an insult to good people trying to run and you should be ashamed for summarizing their character because they met the requirements of them.
You really are a terrible person the more I read what you post on this site. You attack EVERYONE. From the career politician to the everyday parent. You cloak yourself in this mission to expose the bad or bring things to the forefront, but in the end you’re running over the actual good people out there, many of which will want to stay away from really trying to help out their community because of people like you. I know writing you this won’t make a bit of difference, and you’ll pick apart my post to try and make me look bad… but I’ve seen too much crap on this site to no longer say something about it.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, when someone turns in double or triple the amount of signatures they clearly ARE more hard working than the bare-minimum filer. That’s not just in our world, sweetheart, but also everywhere else – except, unfortunately, in unionized public employment.
And, yes, that’s why those hard workers with all those signatures usually do “get a free pass” while the slackers with the bare minimum get picked on.
Over the nine years this blog has been regularly publishing, we have praised and defended as many people as we have attacked – maybe even more. So if the slackers, the freeloaders and the parasites think this editor is “a terrible person,” he will wear that mantle proudly.
And if you don’t like all the “crap” on this site, don’t let the cyber-door hit you in the derriere.
Thank you… that just made my day!
EDITOR’S NOTE: And you, ours.
Ummm…. hey, why not try doing a little work before you type away at your keyboard; try doing a little research. Mr Gary Gale is a partisan Republican! He is a member of the electoral college for the state of Illinois. He is the Republican presidential elector.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ummm…hey, why not try getting 25 or 50 more petition signatures so that Mr. Gale – whether he be a “Republican presidential elector” or the last living Romanov heir – and his petition challenges would be irrelevant?
Why not deflect and change the subject from the issue at hand which is that time and time again the PR Republican machine is hard at work limiting constituents choices by kicking people off the ballot? I agree that some people need to do more homework, but the point should be made, that election cycle after election cycle, the same actors are undertaking the same work.
EDITOR’S NOTE: No, the “issue at hand” is how certain people think they deserve to be elected as stewards of our major institutions and the tens of millions of dollars extracted from their fellow citizens, yet they are too lazy, ignorant or stupid to get on and stay on the ballot.
Additionally, your “election cycle after election cycl, the same actors are undertaking the same work” is what used to be called “a lie” or just “b.s.” but has now been reborn as “fake news” – because there appears to be no record of Mr. Gale filing the ballot challenge that knocked PREA-approved Kristin Gruss of the D-64 ballot 2 years ago, or the ballot challenge that failed to knock Cindy Grau of the Park Board ballot that same election cycle.
I find it curious that even though it seems to be common knowledge or at least belief that Bublitz, Dziedzic and Schaab are PREA “stooges” (to use PW’s word) by virtue of their being married to D-64 teachers, the “REpublican” petition challenger Gary Gale didn’t challenge their petitions. Do you know how many signatures over the minimum they had? I would love to know whether Gale is a partisan or sexist troll or just looking for the low-hanginng fruit.
EDITOR’S NOTE: We don’t know how many petition signatures they had. But since he challenged Jin Lee’s petitions, that would suggest he’s not a “sexist troll” (but maybe an anti-asian troll?) We’re betting on the “low-hanging fruit” explanation, since from what we’ve heard his challenges were directed to the bare minimum petitions.
“certain people think they deserve to be elected as stewards of our major institutions”
So just to be clear, people that don’t get 100, 150, 200, or signatures are people who think they deserve to be elected? Wow. Here I thought they were filling out a form to be allowed on the ballot to be considered for election. How ignorant and stupid of you to go there.
And time and again you are clearly side-stepping what is clearly an issue… why is one person like Gale challenging 3 separate nominations? Why is his hired lawyer for all three cases, Laura Jacksack, also tied in deeply to the Republican Party? There clearly is a motive there. I’m not clued in enough to know if its personal, political, or otherwise. But it does seem intentional and just doesn’t fall into the simple answer you like to stick to of the folks applying just “not getting more signatures”. For someone to go to the lengths that Gale has in this shows there’s more to it. And for you to keep ignoring that means you either are in on it with him or you are the one thats too lazy, ignorant or stupid.
EDITOR’S NOTE: As we believe we’ve said before, we wouldn’t know Mr. Gale if he walked up Prospect on stilts. That being said, however, Gale apparently makes no bones about being a Republican, so he very well might be trying to make the way easier for candidates he perceives to share his Republican values. So what?
Local Democrats have been doing that for years, going back at least to the 2003 City elections. It’s just that they didn’t use petition challenges because the Republican-leaning candidates back then got way more signatures than the lazy, ignorant or stupid candidates – like yourself? – who make themselves low-hanging fruit for such challenges by doing the bare minimum.
The Wojnicki train is full stream ahead now. Although I don’t think all the wheels are on. After saying she’s done, she’s jumping back on. Under the assumption that despite 30 of her 50 signatures removed for being fraudulent and getting tossed from the ballot signatures the school board will appoint her and will win in a write in come April.
Just because Mr. Gale’s name is on this set of objections does not mean it’s not the same people behind the objections. Nice try.
It appears that Carol Becker for Park Board successfully fought off her challenge.
There’s been so many fireworks with PR politics the last 2 weeks, yet PubDog has been silent about it. I think it speaks volumes about the so called “unbiased” views of this website. Mr. Trinza you like to portray something you are not and are a giant hypocrite and i’m glad its showing itself finally.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The name is spelled T-R-I-Z-N-A, Ms. Wojnicki. And the reason there have been no new PW posts since Jan. 19 is because this editor has been too busy with his day job to comment on all the silliness that you call “fireworks.”
But since you want to start taking personal shots from ambush, we’ll respond with some shots of our own – first by pointing out your cowardice in submitting the following comments to this post, not in your own name but as:
Tired of your cynicism: 1/21/17 @ 9:44 a.m.
Tired of your cynicism: 1/23/17 @ 8:59 a.m.
Tired of your cynicism: 1/23/17 @ 10:45 a.m.
Anonymous: 1/23/17 @ 11:02 p.m.
Disgusted: 1/25/17 @ 8:28 a.m.
And submitting the following comments to our 01.06.17 post as:
Anonymous: 1/7/17 @ 10:21 p.m.
Anonymous: 1/9/17 @ 12:22 p.m.
Monica Wojnicki: 1/9/17 @ 4:07 p.m.
Monica Wojnicki: 1/11/17 @ 11:05 a.m.
Now go change your IP address so it’s not this easy to I.D. your “anonymous” comments.
“GET OFF MY LAWN!!!” Says the angry old man
EDITOR’S NOTE: A comment that doesn’t sound any more intelligent with age or repetition.
Some candidates just aren’t cut out to serve the public. They’re too busy serving themselves. Aurora Austriaco, who squeaked by with her petitions needs to have her full story told. http://www.anybodybutaurora.com/
EDITOR’S NOTE: When you choose to play partisan politics in Illinois you end up supporting, being supported by, contributing, and receiving contributions from unsavory people. That has been Ms. Austriaco’s playground, so those questions are bound to arise.
The thing that concerns us most is that Ms. Austriaco missed over 30% of Her Park Ridge Planning & Zoning Commission meetings. Whether the voters think that disqualifies her for the D-207 board is an open question, but we don’t believe it does.
I love how you attack Lucas for not being specific but fail to attack the acting mayor for voting to raise our taxes. At least Lucas has the right idea, things need to change.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Fuksa is all foam, no beer – including (as we pointed out “channeling 2013 mayoral challenger Larry Ryles’ business development strategy” which was stupid-approaching-idiotic. Fuksa’s next original idea will be his first.
If he, and you, had been paying attention you both would know that things HAVE changed, substantially and for the better, over the past six years. But that doesn’t play into the narrative Fuksa and his developer cronies are trying to sell to the stupid and the clueless.
I love how you attack Lucas for not being specific but you spare Maloney. He raised our taxes. A lot.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Maloney has walked the walk while Fuksa can only talk the talk – and not even very well.
Maloney and the Councils over the past six years have raised taxes to cover the sins of the previous mayors (Wietecha, Marous and Frimark) and alderdolts who borrowed tens of millions of dollars so they could give it away to developers.
And if you really cared about who’s raising your taxes “A lot,” you’d be paying attention to the D-64 and D-207 school board races, because those two units of government represent around 70% of your RE tax bill, while the City represents 11%.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL-PAC
Fuksa is a real estate agent and developer lawyer tied to at least one pending project in town -vfw hall they was forcibly annexed to the chagrin of the new owner who apparently is waiting to do work on the project –until his buddy gets elected?
Watchdog— How do you feel about Alderman Moran sending letters on behalf of Maloney, as well as spreading fundraiser info??
Seems like the OLD BOY club is back which got us in this mess. Not a shock since it’s in his lineage.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Please direct us to where it says Moran gave up his 1st Amendment rights when he became an alderman.
The “club” that “got us in this mess” was run by Ron Wietecha, Mike Marous and Howard Frimark – and it had plenty of girls in it: Sue Bell, Andrea Bateman, Sue Beaumont and Dawn Disher, to name just a few.
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