DuPage County should stay Republican

DuPage County has to remain Republican, and not being taken over by the Chicago gang with their highest taxes in the U.S.A.

Roy Bartholomae, Downers Grove

Tax change is needed in Illinois

I’m writing about Alexa Jenner’s article, “Jobless (in Illinois) hits highest level in 15 years” (8-30).

A recent report by renowned economist Arthur Laffer, and the Wall Street Journal ranks Illinois 42nd of 50 states in economic competitiveness. In fact, most national surveys put Illinois in the worst 10 states for job climate due to high workers compensation costs, high business taxes or poor litigation climate.

Had Illinois added jobs at the rate of other states, we’d have 286,000 more jobs than since Gov. Blagojevich and the Democrats seized control of Springfield. In four years, Illinois jumped from 28th to 14th in tax burden. For the first time in history, Illinois now has more people on a government payroll than working in manufacturing — a bad trend.

My Senate Republican colleagues and I have put together a plan to “shock” Illinois’ economy back to life. It is a simple plan to add $10 billion to our local economy and create 40,000 good paying jobs.  Among other things, our plan eliminates Illinois’ additional sales tax on gasoline — we are one of only six states with TWO gas taxes.

Illinois’ second gas tax is a “tax on tax” windfall and is not even used for road, bridge or mass transit construction. The additional sales tax on gas has been used by Democrats to expand Illinois welfare rolls from 1-in-9 to 1-in-6 over the past few years — another terrible and unaffordable trend.

I encourage you to view our Senate Republican plan to create Illinois jobs at www.kdillard.com. Illinois workers and families cannot afford Blagojevich and his Democratic buddies in Springfield anymore. It is time for a change in Illinois government!

Kirk Dillard, Illinois Senate Republican Whip
Westmont

Obama not ready for President

There have been numerous blogs, letters to the editor, pundits and sycophants in the left-wing media attempting to convince the American voter that Barack Obama is better qualified and has more leadership experience than Sarah Palin. This shouts a volume about this man’s credentials. He is running against the Republican vice presidential candidate!

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden stated “the Presidency is not something that lends itself to on the job training.”

There is only one man running for the presidency of the United States; John McCain.

He has the wisdom, character and experience to lead from day one.

Bryan Bentley, Downers Grove

Palin speech dirty, media needs to shape up

Sarah Palin gave an entertaining speech, though her attack on Barack Obama’s Greek columns was misplaced. It was her speech that was more reminiscent of a Hollywood movie.

In Hollywood, the political speeches can be made colorful, without regard for the truth.

She talked of “thanks, but no thanks” on that bridge to nowhere, but Alaska took the money appropriated and used it elsewhere. All of this was in progress when she came to office. There was no gracious “give-back.”

She also dramatically exaggerated Senator Obama’s experience, identifying him as a man who “has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the state senate.”

She missed his work to require interrogations to be videotaped; or his first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years; or his co-authorship of the new lobbying reform law that requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who “bundle” contributions for them. If you want to see more — look them up.  Don’t take her word for it.

She went on to talk about “victory.” The Republican Party likes to frame everything in terms of winning and losing, black and white. This is the theme of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, where America either wins or loses alone. Where compromise is a dirty word, and working together with our allies is all about our way or the highway.

This cannot continue.

She suggested about the Obama plan that “his tax increases are the fine print in his economic plan. And let me be specific. The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes and raise payroll taxes and raise investment income taxes —  and raise the death tax — and raise business taxes — and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.”

This might have been true if her audience was just the 54-year-old wealthy white males that made up the bulk of the convention attendees, but the Obama plan does not increase taxes for the votes they are seeking with this statement. See the article in the Sun-Times by a non-partisan review of the Obama versus McCain tax plans.

The media needs to provide the service of fact-checking instead of the sport-like analysis of points scored during each speech. They complain about the scripted conventions and miss the real news.  Hold the speech-writers accountable for accuracy in both parties.

The American people deserve better than Hollywood as reality TV.

Scott Pfieffer, Downers Grove

Village should now focus on different water solution

As a Downers Grove resident, I hope that the latest round of flooding that occurred around the Barth Pond/Patriots Park area, including in my subdivision, Deer Creek, will finally cause the Park District and village to realize that we do not need any further development around the park.

It is time to abandon the plans for an unnecessary water park in this area and increase storm water retention capacity. The park district ego trip, aka Water Park, was unofficially present all weekend in our neighborhood as we fought rising creek waters and overflowing sanitary manholes in our front yards. All enjoyed frolicking in the water littered with various types of debris unique to sanitary sewers.

Further redevelopment will only exacerbate the problems. Forget the water park and create something useful: a place to park the water!

Don Cassier, Downers Grove

Board needs to stop messing around

And we wondered what the Park District would do next?

After voters said no, our Park Board built a Rec Center on Belmont with a no-bid contractor who was caught cutting corners. Impacted: one neighborhood and our historic golf course.

Then this Park Board built a ball park for a private youth baseball organization at Whitlock Park last year, costing the taxpayers roughly $400,000. This has resulted in extreme storm water impact to the Shady Lane neighborhood. Neighbors seldom see new field in use.

This summer, 40 trees were removed overnight at Patriots Park using taxpayer money and impacting other neighborhoods, without notice.

The Park Board has now stooped further. At the Sept. 4 Board meeting held to a capacity crowd at Lincoln Center, but without cable broadcast, President Gelwicks first eliminated public comment at the start of the meeting. The Downers Grove police were then called to stand watch, another waste of taxpayer dollars. The Park Board proceeded to filibuster, continuing to promote the community pool agenda, “that will not cost taxpayers.” The Park Board has now spent the better part of $100,000 on two consultants without either a plan or a location for this silly notion of a self-supporting pool. This is after the financial analysis of the first consultant did not support the notion of a “self-supporting pool.”

Land acquisition would be necessary according to Mr. Arthur Jaros, who is the self-appointed leader of this campaign to construct an “Olympic training facility” in our community. We all know how much land acquisition costs in Downers Grove. Does Mr. Jaros intend to seek funding from the International Olympic Committee in preparation for 2016?

Maybe the Board should advise the Park District to grow money trees. We residents are not stupid people, yet the Park Board is intent upon continuing to push this agenda without voter input by referendum. Cathy Mahoney ran on a platform of bringing a pool concept to referendum for an up or down vote. Where is that plan? Where is that referendum? The voters have said “no” in the past, and they will likely say no in the future.

The first pool consultant indicated that a pool cannot be built without taxpayer dollars. We have been funding this pool-in-the-sky notion for years with every consultant hired, and committee created, and survey sent out, and meetings with Park Staff to fulfill this quest.

Quit wasting our money and time. Select a location. Present a plan. Put it to the voters for an up or down referendum.

Laurel Q. Bowen, Downers Grove

Board disregarding pool analysis

Some comments regarding the untelevised Sept. 4 DG Park Board meeting:

The Ramaker Report determined that the topography at Patriots Park does not well support the facility and parking. However, this site “is seen as an advantage, as neighborhood opposition to the proposed project is less than expected.” Is the park board testing the citizen response at this stage? Is that why they scheduled this agenda for the Sept. 4 Board meeting at Lincoln Center, when cable was not broadcasting to the public? Once it becomes clear that neighborhood opposition is significant, does this site now get dropped down to “less advantageous” and the board moves on to the next neighborhood in line, with more consultants hired for the next test site?

The Economics Research Associates were commissioned by the Park District to investigate whether an aquatic park could pay for itself as a business in the private sector. ERA concludes that “it is not possible to generate revenues high enough to cover operating costs and annual bond payments for the facility.” The problems listed for the anticipated deficit in revenues versus total costs are:

Too many competitors in the area.

Downers Grove is relatively old with households comprising children under 12 being in the minority (i.e., the ones that would use an aquatic center), and population headed towards being even older in the future.

No sites are within view of I-355 or I-88, which would provide a competitive advantage.

No competitive facility in the United States has paid for itself.

That report, in itself, should negate any further consideration of a Park District pool facility. The previous park board should be applauded for the concept of pool membership with neighboring communities.

Even though the last referendum showed 55 percent against and 45 percent for an aquatic facility, Art Jaros stated that he is doing this for the 45 percent who voted for it. This is the same Art Jaros who said the park board would keep the 11 p.m. lights out at McCollum rather than return to the original 10 p.m. requested by the residents due to the noise level at that hour even though there were no objections to the 10 p.m. closure. Amazing, isn’t it? Why bother to vote if it doesn’t make a difference?

This park board and the park district paid staff should instead be concentrating their time and efforts discussing and/or negotiating with School District 99 for sharing the community facilities. Expanding and creating park fields when District 99’s fields are unused makes no sense.

The board members are abusing the fiduciary responsibility they hold as elected officials.

Marilyn Kratochvil, Downers Grove