I started this debate back in 2004 or 5 when I was on the Peoria County Land Use Committee so I am pleased that the board has finally approved this control of septic tank overflow pollution similar to my proposal and my relentless pursuit of passage of this pollution control act. There were, at the time, approximately 13,000 septic tanks in the county unregulated. Many people who moved from sewer controlled locations to septic tanks on their new ownerships were often surprised that most septic tanks overflowed and polluted the land and water near them. I pressed for an inspection of these tanks every 3-5 years. Due to the efforts of Peoria County Board Members, the State of Illinois, passed a similar bill recently.
To cut mailing costs, I recommended the paperwork be tied in with the mailing of property tax bills and that other costs to all taxpayers be offset by fines to those who did not turn in an inspection certificate.
Pollution inspection controls were contested by many of those with septic tanks who were already properly attending their tanks so I do not know exactly how the wording of my proposal ended up in this new regulating pollution bill..
Anyway, thanks, Peoria County Board members for helping control a major source of pollution
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Friday, November 15, 2013
Caterpillar Plans to Close a Third Plant in Four Weeks
Caterpillar, headquartered in Peoria, Il., announced they plan to close a plant in Pulaski, Va. affecting 240 workers. Cat stock trades around $84 down from a 52 week high of around $100 a share.
Just another sign that Obama's time in office has produced disappointing economic benefits for the working class. However, if you visit Cat's trading site you will note that Cat's directors have benefited quite nicely this year from grants, etc. awarded to their board members and executives.
From not just Cat there are strong signals again that the wealthy are doing quite well while the poor struggle and the middle class economic gains suffer.
Another disappointment was Cat's building an unneeded Visitors Center in Peoria for $41 million down from a promised $53 million Center and then used part of the Center for Cat Headquarter offices. The Visitors Center was built as part of a promise to help the $100 million PRM (new downtown museum) that is struggling in all aspects from lack of funding to attendance to ambiance, especially the exterior structure.
Long term Cat investors still get a decent dividend but analysts predict the economy must show stronger growth than it has under Obama's leadership before Cat again shows the heady growth that once had their stock trading at $117 a share.
Just another sign that Obama's time in office has produced disappointing economic benefits for the working class. However, if you visit Cat's trading site you will note that Cat's directors have benefited quite nicely this year from grants, etc. awarded to their board members and executives.
From not just Cat there are strong signals again that the wealthy are doing quite well while the poor struggle and the middle class economic gains suffer.
Another disappointment was Cat's building an unneeded Visitors Center in Peoria for $41 million down from a promised $53 million Center and then used part of the Center for Cat Headquarter offices. The Visitors Center was built as part of a promise to help the $100 million PRM (new downtown museum) that is struggling in all aspects from lack of funding to attendance to ambiance, especially the exterior structure.
Long term Cat investors still get a decent dividend but analysts predict the economy must show stronger growth than it has under Obama's leadership before Cat again shows the heady growth that once had their stock trading at $117 a share.
Republicans Weak - What Have We Become?
New post on Waking America Up Blog |
|
|
Unsubscribe
to no longer receive posts from Waking America Up Blog.
Change your email settings at Manage Subscriptions.
Trouble
clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser:
http://wakingamericaup.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/you-are-all-missing-the-point/ |
| Thanks for flying with |
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Illinois Policy Institute Report
This is the kind of news that most affects the residents of Illinois. Why isn't this hammered on by the liberal local medias?? Merle.
It’s official: Illinois has more local governments than any other state in the country.
With 6,963 local governments, Illinois has 1,800 more than any other state.
Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that Illinois residents pay the second-highest owner-occupied property tax rates in the country, or that it’s the third most corrupt state in the country.
Illinois is a large state, but its size and population alone don’t account for its high number of local government entities. Florida, which has a 50% larger population, has less than one-fourth the units of local government Illinois does, with just 1,650 units.
Local government in Illinois is more redundant than it is in any other state — 61% of the state’s residents live under three layers of general purpose local government (municipal, township or county governments). In 40 other states, residents never have more than two layers of local government.
This leads to a duplication of services and higher taxes.
Illinois also has a large number of education districts – 911 – which includes more than 200 single-school districts. In the Chicago area, single-school districts cost taxpayers $2,000 more per student than multi-school districts. Much of these costs are due to higher administrative costs, including hiring a superintendent for a single school.
It’s not uncommon for an Illinois resident to have other special purpose local governments including parks, forest preserve, library, fire protection, sanitary and even mosquito abatement districts.
Just how much local government is too much?
In the report “Too much government: Illinois’ thousands of local governments,” we revealed that some residents in the Kane County portion of Elgin have no less than 16 local government agencies operating in their area.
The sheer number of local governments in Illinois makes it difficult for state and federal authorities to provide meaningful oversight of local governments. A study by the University of Illinois-Chicago that examined local government corruption in Illinois reported, “Since there are more than 1,200 separate units of government in the Chicago metropolitan region, there are too many jurisdictions and officials for the U.S. Attorney adequately to police.”
It's no coincidence the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois also had 1,531 public corruption convictions between 1976 and 2010 — the most in the country.
More than any other state, Illinois is in dire need of local government consolidation. Unfortunately, due to Illinois law, the consolidation process almost always has to start with elected officials. Very rare is the elected official who wants to eliminate his or her own position.
It’s easier to amend the Illinois Constitution than it is to consolidate or eliminate townships via referendum — the current process requires that any consolidation petition must be signed by 10% of the registered voters in each township of a county within 90 days.
The heavy burden required for citizens to consolidate or eliminate townships disenfranchises voters’ right to have the local government form of their choosing. The story is very similar for other levels of local government.
With Illinois’ crushing tax burden and high levels of corruption, taxpayers should not be on the hook for unnecessary layers of government that duplicate services and cause taxes to soar.
Consolidating local government makes financial and practical sense. It will save Illinois taxpayers money and help combat our public corruption problem.
Brian Costin
Director of Government Reform
Follow on Twitter
It’s official: Illinois has more local governments than any other state in the country.
With 6,963 local governments, Illinois has 1,800 more than any other state.
Knowing this, it should come as no surprise that Illinois residents pay the second-highest owner-occupied property tax rates in the country, or that it’s the third most corrupt state in the country.
Illinois is a large state, but its size and population alone don’t account for its high number of local government entities. Florida, which has a 50% larger population, has less than one-fourth the units of local government Illinois does, with just 1,650 units.
Local government in Illinois is more redundant than it is in any other state — 61% of the state’s residents live under three layers of general purpose local government (municipal, township or county governments). In 40 other states, residents never have more than two layers of local government.
This leads to a duplication of services and higher taxes.
Illinois also has a large number of education districts – 911 – which includes more than 200 single-school districts. In the Chicago area, single-school districts cost taxpayers $2,000 more per student than multi-school districts. Much of these costs are due to higher administrative costs, including hiring a superintendent for a single school.
It’s not uncommon for an Illinois resident to have other special purpose local governments including parks, forest preserve, library, fire protection, sanitary and even mosquito abatement districts.
Just how much local government is too much?
In the report “Too much government: Illinois’ thousands of local governments,” we revealed that some residents in the Kane County portion of Elgin have no less than 16 local government agencies operating in their area.
The sheer number of local governments in Illinois makes it difficult for state and federal authorities to provide meaningful oversight of local governments. A study by the University of Illinois-Chicago that examined local government corruption in Illinois reported, “Since there are more than 1,200 separate units of government in the Chicago metropolitan region, there are too many jurisdictions and officials for the U.S. Attorney adequately to police.”
It's no coincidence the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois also had 1,531 public corruption convictions between 1976 and 2010 — the most in the country.
More than any other state, Illinois is in dire need of local government consolidation. Unfortunately, due to Illinois law, the consolidation process almost always has to start with elected officials. Very rare is the elected official who wants to eliminate his or her own position.
It’s easier to amend the Illinois Constitution than it is to consolidate or eliminate townships via referendum — the current process requires that any consolidation petition must be signed by 10% of the registered voters in each township of a county within 90 days.
The heavy burden required for citizens to consolidate or eliminate townships disenfranchises voters’ right to have the local government form of their choosing. The story is very similar for other levels of local government.
With Illinois’ crushing tax burden and high levels of corruption, taxpayers should not be on the hook for unnecessary layers of government that duplicate services and cause taxes to soar.
Consolidating local government makes financial and practical sense. It will save Illinois taxpayers money and help combat our public corruption problem.
Brian Costin
Director of Government Reform
Follow on Twitter
Monday, November 11, 2013
Arrested-Not Convicted
Let the hatefull liberal media have their fun. Let other pile on. I still have broad shoulders, friends and am not gay.
Free Market - This Headline Says It All
Free Market Solutions—Not ObamaCare—Will Ultimately Cure Nation’s Healthcare Problems
By Pat Hughes
For a piece of legislation so wrought with top-down mandates and regulations, individual states were actually given the discretion whether or not to opt-in to a few key aspects of ObamaCare. One of those was a massive expansion of the states’ Medicaid programs. The other was the creation of state-run health insurance exchanges, where would-be enrollees could buy government-approved health insurance.
For a while, it was assumed that these two programs would get through the Illinois legislature without much resistance. Illinois is, after all, the home state of the legislation’s unofficial namesake, and the Democrats have supermajority control over the State House and Senate.
Medicaid expansion sailed through both chambers—without a single Republican vote—and is now law in Illinois (meaning 1 in 3 Illinoisans will eventually be trapped in a program that leaves its recipients with long waits and substandard care). But the ObamaCare exchange was never implemented. Somewhat surprisingly, Illinois’ political class balked on implementing its own health insurance exchange.
As result, Illinois joined 33 other states by using an exchange created and operated by, or in partnership with, the federal government. By doing so, Illinois saved itself $100 million dollars each year. When the federal exchange website launched on October 1, we saw exactly what that meant—the site was completely nonfunctional. Error messages were everywhere, there were very significant privacy and security risks, and the customer service was all but non-existent.
This is the website taxpayers were presented with after three years and a whopping $500 million worth of construction. And people stayed away in droves. In fact, more people had signed up for a one-way trip to Mars than had signed up for ObamaCare over two weeks after the website had launched.
Even at the exact moment when Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was testifying before Congress on Oct. 30, the site still was “experiencing technical difficulties.”
Not surprisingly, the problems run deeper for ObamaCare than merely a dysfunctional website. Recently, President Obama’s oft-repeated line, “If you like your doctor or health care plan, you can keep it,” has been proven false. At least 3.5 million people have already been told their plan will be discontinued as result of ObamaCare. This number has been estimated to grow to as high as 93 million people.
As the problems and consequences of this attempt at health care reform become frighteningly tangible to average Americans, ObamaCare becomes more and more indefensible by its supporters. Because with every letter being delivered to a family informing them that they are not allowed to keep the health care plan they are happy with, the discontent with this law—and this President—continues to grow.
This creates opportunity for real, market-based reform.
Americans are not now—and have never been—sold on ObamaCare as acceptable health care reform. They have seen the big-government solution, and now it is time for the free market alternatives. Market-based solutions are out there in bits and pieces, but they need to be presented in a way that Americans see as tangibly improving their day-to-day lives. Now is the time.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Who Built ObamaScare 678 Million Dollar Website??
Subject: Fwd: FW: Who Built
Obamacare's 678 Million Dollar Website?
Do you think that there might be a problem here?
Another looming scandal that is going to be ignored by mainstream media to the tune of 3/4 of a billion dollars.
Meet:
[cid:7B8C1A519ECD4B4BAC93C30F45C61387@ChrisHome]
Toni Townes-Whitley
Senior Vice President at CGI Federal
The Feds only reviewed one bid to build the ACA (Obama care website)
http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2537194#.UlvHPWwQRGk.twitter
"Federal officials considered only one firm to design the Obamacare health insurance exchange website that has performed abysmally since its Oct. 1 debut.
Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.
CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov<http://healthcare.gov/>, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal."
Some allegations have come to light.
*Toni Townes-Whitley, Senior Vice President at CGI Federal for Civilian Agency programs, is Princeton Class of 1985. Michelle Obama is Princeton Class of 1985. Both are members of Association of Black Princeton Alumni.
*CGI "donated" $47 Million to Obama's campaign.
*CGI executives were large campaign bundlers for the Obama. They helped him shut off all the security features on Obama's campaign donation website in 2008 and 2012 in order to take multi-millions in foreign donations.
Why are the Main Stream Media not asking questions?
Do you think that there might be a problem here?
Another looming scandal that is going to be ignored by mainstream media to the tune of 3/4 of a billion dollars.
Meet:
[cid:7B8C1A519ECD4B4BAC93C30F45C61387@ChrisHome]
Toni Townes-Whitley
Senior Vice President at CGI Federal
The Feds only reviewed one bid to build the ACA (Obama care website)
http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2537194#.UlvHPWwQRGk.twitter
"Federal officials considered only one firm to design the Obamacare health insurance exchange website that has performed abysmally since its Oct. 1 debut.
Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.
CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov<http://healthcare.gov/>, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal."
Some allegations have come to light.
*Toni Townes-Whitley, Senior Vice President at CGI Federal for Civilian Agency programs, is Princeton Class of 1985. Michelle Obama is Princeton Class of 1985. Both are members of Association of Black Princeton Alumni.
*CGI "donated" $47 Million to Obama's campaign.
*CGI executives were large campaign bundlers for the Obama. They helped him shut off all the security features on Obama's campaign donation website in 2008 and 2012 in order to take multi-millions in foreign donations.
Why are the Main Stream Media not asking questions?
Guns Are Safe in the Hands of the Sane - The Sane Protect us From Evil
AMERICA'S HUNTERS ---
Pretty Amazing!
The world's largest army... America 's hunters!
I had never thought about
this...
A blogger added up the deer license sales in just a
handful of states and
arrived at a striking
conclusion:
There were over 600,000 hunters
this season in the state of Wisconsin ..
Allow me to restate that number:
600,000
Over the last several months,
Wisconsin's hunters became the eighth largest army in
the world.
More men under arms than in Iran.
More than France and Germany combined.
These men deployed to
the woods of a single American state, Wisconsin, to hunt with
firearms, and no one was killed.
That number pales in comparison to the 750,000 who hunted the woods of Pennsylvania and
Michigan's 700,000 hunters,
all of whom have now returned home safely.
Toss in a quarter million hunters
in West Virginia and it literally establishes the fact that the
hunters of those four states alone
would comprise the largest army in the world.
And then add in the total number of hunters in the other 46 states.
It's millions more.
The point?
America will forever be safe
from foreign invasion with that
kind of home-grown firepower.
Hunting...
it's not just a way to fill the freezer. It's a matter of national
security.
That's why all enemies,
foreign and domestic,
want to see us disarmed.
Food for thought,
when next we consider gun control.
Overall it's true,
so if we disregard some assumptions that hunters
don't possess the same skills as soldiers, the question
would still remain...
What army of 2 million would want to face 30, 40, 50 million armed citizens???
(IF YOU AGREE, AS I DO, PASS IT ON, I FEEL GOOD THAT I HAVE AN ARMY OF MILLIONS WHO WOULD PROTECT OUR LAND AND I SURE DON'T WANT THE GOVERNMENT TAKING CONTROL OF THE POSSESSION OF FIREARMS)
For the sake of our freedom,
don't ever allow gun control
or confiscation of guns.
He is a Disgrace to This Nation
Forwarded to me by a friend. Merle
Every time I read this I just get furious.
Four times in 69 years!! SHAME ON AMERICA FOR ELECTING A NON-VETERAN PRESIDENT WHO DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF:HE IS ABSOLUTELY A DISGRACE TO ALL WHO FOUGHT FOR THIS NATION AND GAVE THEIR LIVES.VETERANS - PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO YOUR VETERAN FRIENDS AND CONTACTS!!!!!!June 6, 2013, the 69th anniversary of "D-Day", the largest invasion ever attempted, where 200,000 Americans stormed the beaches at Normandy to begin the final push to defeat Nazi Germany in WWII. D-Day marked the turning point in WWII in Europe, where the Nazis were engaged in mass murder of Jews and minorities by the thousands.
Today, European heads of state make it a point to recall and honor the sacrifices of those who landed in Normandy, as do our Presidents....
well, most of them....In the 69 years since D-Day, there are four occasions when the President of the United States chose not to visit the D-Day Monument that honors the soldiers killed during the Invasion.The occasions were:
1. Barack Obama, 20102. Barack Obama, 20113. Barack Obama, 20124. Barack Obama, 2013For the past 69 years, every American President exceptObama have taken the time to honor the memory and sacrifices of the 6,000 American soldiers killed on D-Day. ...Except Obama!June 6, 2010, Obama had no events scheduled.June 6, 2011, Obama met with the National Security team and was interviewed by WEWS Cleveland and WDIV in Detroit about the auto industry - FAR too busy to visit the D-Day memorial.June 6, 2012, instead of honoring our fallen soldiers, Obama made a campaign trip to California on Air Force 1 (at our expense) to raise funds for (his) upcoming election.June 6, 2013, Obama was doing ANOTHER fund raiser with the multi-millionaires in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Palo Alto, CA, once again at our expense.America - Aren't you proud?I'll forward it!!
_______________________________________________
Thursday, November 07, 2013
More Bad News About ObamaScare
Forwarded to me by a friend. Merle
John
McAfee, founder of anti-virus company McAfee, Inc, on the ObamaCare exchanges:
On Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto” on Wednesday, computer programmer and founder of McAfee, Inc. John McAfee said the online component of Obamacare “is a hacker’s dream” that will cause “the loss of income for the millions of Americans who are going to lose their identities.” For starters, McAfee said the way it is set up makes it possible for fake websites be set up to fool people to think they’re signing up for Obamacare.
“It’s seriously bad,” McAfee said. “Somebody made a grave error, not in designing the program but in simply implementing the web aspect of it. I mean, for example, anybody can put up a web page and claim to be a broker for this system. There is no central place where I can go and say, ‘OK, here are all the legitimate brokers, the examiners for all of the states and pick and choose one.’” “Instead, any hacker can put a website up, make it look extremely competitive, and because of the nature of the system — and this is health care, after all — they can ask you the most intimate questions, and you’re freely going to answer them,” he continued. “What’s my Social Security number? My birth date? What are my health issues?”
According to McAfee, there’s not a quick fix — and as long as it set up this way, it could be a playground for computer hackers. “Here’s the problem: It’s not something software can solve,” McAfee continued. “I mean, what idiot put this system out there and did not create a central depository? There should be one website, run by the government, you go to that website and then you can click on all of the agencies. This is insane. So, I will predict that the loss of income for the millions of Americans who are going to lose their identities — I mean, you can imagine some retired lady in Utah, who has $75,000 dollars in the bank, saving her whole life, having it wiped out in one day because she signed up for Obamacare. And believe me, this is going to happen millions of times. This is a hacker’s dream. I mean I cannot believe that they did this.”
So, instead of redistributing wealth from the middle class to welfare deadbeats, ObamaCare will redistribute that wealth to Internet thieves. Can you visualize the mob of fleeced ObamaCare customers forming from coast to coast?
On Fox Business Network’s “Cavuto” on Wednesday, computer programmer and founder of McAfee, Inc. John McAfee said the online component of Obamacare “is a hacker’s dream” that will cause “the loss of income for the millions of Americans who are going to lose their identities.” For starters, McAfee said the way it is set up makes it possible for fake websites be set up to fool people to think they’re signing up for Obamacare.
“It’s seriously bad,” McAfee said. “Somebody made a grave error, not in designing the program but in simply implementing the web aspect of it. I mean, for example, anybody can put up a web page and claim to be a broker for this system. There is no central place where I can go and say, ‘OK, here are all the legitimate brokers, the examiners for all of the states and pick and choose one.’” “Instead, any hacker can put a website up, make it look extremely competitive, and because of the nature of the system — and this is health care, after all — they can ask you the most intimate questions, and you’re freely going to answer them,” he continued. “What’s my Social Security number? My birth date? What are my health issues?”
According to McAfee, there’s not a quick fix — and as long as it set up this way, it could be a playground for computer hackers. “Here’s the problem: It’s not something software can solve,” McAfee continued. “I mean, what idiot put this system out there and did not create a central depository? There should be one website, run by the government, you go to that website and then you can click on all of the agencies. This is insane. So, I will predict that the loss of income for the millions of Americans who are going to lose their identities — I mean, you can imagine some retired lady in Utah, who has $75,000 dollars in the bank, saving her whole life, having it wiped out in one day because she signed up for Obamacare. And believe me, this is going to happen millions of times. This is a hacker’s dream. I mean I cannot believe that they did this.”
So, instead of redistributing wealth from the middle class to welfare deadbeats, ObamaCare will redistribute that wealth to Internet thieves. Can you visualize the mob of fleeced ObamaCare customers forming from coast to coast?
Peoria Detective Roger Martin Showed Little Interest in Jewelry Theft
After the police responded to the jewelry theft at my home, they turned the case over to Detective Martin who, with another Detective visited my house and interviewed me. After a couple of weeks, I contacted Detective Martin who told me that they had a lot of cases to work on and they would get to my case in time. He also told me he delayed interviewing the most probable suspects because he doubted my theory. After one more short contact with Detective Martin, I determined the case was going nowhere.
My next action was intended to address the council. At the meeting I spoke with Chief Settingard who was visibly upset that no interviews with the most logical suspects had taken place. On the following day I received a phone call from an also upset policeman who said the Chief was upset that my case got pigeonholed. The officer said that Martin would be in touch with me. When Martin didn't call me, I called him and he was irritated saying that I never told him where the bedrooms were located. Bedrooms? The suspects were never shown the bedrooms nor my office. Besides, he visited my house and didn't note the layout of the rooms?? He then told me I delayed reporting the theft. Of course, I did. I didn't know anything was stolen until my wife came home and a few days later discovered her jewelry was missing. Even then we spent a couple of days reaffirming the jewelry was missing.
So it took Detective Martin almost 5 weeks BEFORE he interviewed a suspect and then only two because he said the third was 'out of town'. He said they denied taking the jewelry. Sure they did. He also said the one not interviewed was in Colorado. That was the young one who may have taken the jewelry to a bigger city where it would be easier to pawn.
Martin bragged he was 23 years on the force and he knew what he was doing. Maybe that is why things stolen are seldom recovered in Peoria.
I was the one who contacted all the local contacts and circulated 200 pictures of the most expensive necklace.
I would advise any prominent people who invite people into their homes and have things stolen not to report the theft. Also, it is a mistaken belief that all women who are performers are thieves. There are a lot of thieves that hold elected or appointed offices or people who have a habit of stealing that enter the homes of many people, prominent or otherwise.
The good news is that my wife has stopped drinking and making efforts to recover her health. I am very pleased. The bad news is that if Martin worked for me...............
Why the Peoria Journal Star Has Tried to "Kill" Merle Widmer
This "put down Merle Widmer" effort by the Peoria Journal Star started to my knowledge back in the late 1990's when I studied and saw tthe folly of building a then $500 million new highway from Peoria to Chicago. I wrote many a blog on why this highway didn't make sense. The need for the highway was even refuted in print by Dale Risinger, our IDOT District Manager, who would later be elected to the House of Representatives in Springfield. At the time this potential boondoggle died for lack of funding it's projected cost had reached $800 million and additional costs were rising monthly.
The Journal was a strong advocate for this highway as were most prominent "movers and shakers" in the area. (some eventually dropped their support) but the Journal, always setting their attacks on the weakest, attacked me regularly for my opposition, even ending some negative editorials with the byline 'Widmer also does not support the highway to Chicago'.
When I ran for election Peoria Public School Board District #150 in 1994 (there were 6 candidates for one board seat) the Journal attacked me by saying I did not understand public budgets despite the fact that I had in 1992 sold my company for $2 1/4 million, the most money ever paid for a local office equipment company based in Peoria. (I started the company in 1964 with a secretary and a serviceman) They touted and helped elect a woman whose major experience was in 3rd grade education. Those of you concerned about District #150 downward slide over the years may note that this slide gained acceleration in the mid nineties.
In 2000, when I was encouraged by outsider Republicans to run for the Peoria County Board against 9 year Republican incumbent Zan Ransberg, the Journal pulled out all the stops on attacking me. They even ran an Editorial attacking me and supporting Ransburg TWICE as they explained, they may have overlooked some readers. They asked why I would want to oust someone doing such an outstanding job a Ransburg. They suggested I run for the Peoria Park Board instead. (When I ran for office on the Park Board, they thoroughly condemned me) I defeated Ransburg, who was in line to be the next County Board Chairman, by 27% points. I became one of 18 board members of a nearly defunct board who had to borrow $1 1/2 million to meet payrolls 6 months later. The attacks came so virulent that when with the help of my prime supporter, we uncovered facts about Ransburg's shortcomings, Editorial Page manager Mike Bailey made me produce documentation to support all my allegations. (When I was attacked by a supplier to the Park Board who said I raised taxes 25%, a blatant lie, Bailey said he didn't have time to check out the validity of all who commented on the opinion page. yet I was forced by Bailey to validify my comment) To the JS's chagrin, I ran for Peoria County Board positions 7 times and won 7 times without the support of the Journal and without the support of many leaders of my own party. (To spite them, I spent no money on my last campaign nor put up any yard signs and still won) I served 3 full terms on the board and announced early that I would retire after completion of my third term. My retirement was given minor coverage by the Journal in the same article with congratulations to a 6-month term Democrat who was not re-elected to an appointed position.
During my Campaign to unseat Ransburg, there appeared to be some type of a "love affair' going on between Barbara Manz Drake and Zan Ransburg. And Mike Bailey had the gall to write a column asking 'who was going to be watching Merle Widmer'. Mike, who couldn't make a living in the private sector!
As I announced my opposition to excessive expenditures by Peoria County taxpayers like taking up the expense of State owned property for which we had no use, to the opposition to the County's ownership of the bound to fail Peoria Riverfront Museum; this museum strongly supported by the JS, my strong opposition to the Journals' strong support for taxpayer dollars support for the doomed from the beginning, FireFly, my opposition to the Rec/Plex, later renamed the RiverPlex, a money loser since day one for all parties concerned and a drain on the taxpaying private sector and other tax saving positions that during my three terms, allowed Peoria County to have the highest dollar surplus in decades.
During the negotiations with Lakeview Museum and the County, I was the only board member who ever raised the question "show me the money" yet my monthly or more protests never once appeared in the Journal. The Journal's editorial board even refuted me by saying the all money had all been raised by year 2010 when even to this day the new museum (PRM) has yet to raise the money promised to the taxpayers.
There was a remark made by a county publicist that appeared in the JS as to how people like me would know about whether of not the museum would succeed than the museum 'experts'.
Hm. Wasn't Richerson forced to resign and "whatever happened to Kathleen Woith"??
The latest attack was the most virulent attack that could ever be made on Peorian who had done so much for his community. When my wife who was confined to nine weeks in the hospital and a nursing home for illness brought on by her unwillingness to seek proper treatment for ailments including severe alcoholism. with my house unoccupied, I invited a woman performer from a legal entertainment club to my home to discuss the possibility of her becoming a companion to a wealthy friend who was looking for female companionship as he did his globed-trotting. This woman was recommended by another of my "friends" who had more knowledge of her and was the man that occasionally invited me to attend lunch with him and another friend at the Club Caberet in East Peoria.
The performer arrived with a 49 year aunt and a 22 year old sister. After showing them. the living room, the dining room, kitchen, kitchenette and den, my tennis trophy's, pictures, etc., the four of us sat outside and chatted under a shade tree adjacent the pool and backyard. The 22 year old said she was a student in Miami and we talked about Florida where I spend my winters. When the performer said she wanted now to talk to me personally, she and I went into the den and talked for about 5 minutes about meeting this man and her availability to travel. No sexual activity occurred other than she kissed me once and touched me once as the police report so states. She then said she had to take the other women home and would return. The time was around 5 P.M. (She did not return)
About three days after my wife returned from the nursing home she opened the file in the office where she kept her jewelry. She noted that 2 pieces of jewelry were missing and accusations and searches began. After several days, I became convinced that the jewelry had been taken by someone and called the police. Two policeman arrived and took a detailed statement from me. About three days later the Peoria Journal Star slandered me by saying the "jewelry was taken from an UPSTAIRS cabinet". We live in a ranch house and their is NO UPSTAIRS. The police report clearly states that the jewelry was taken from the office but the Journal Star, wanting to make the situation really make me look bad insinuated "upstairs" is where the bedrooms are located. The police report clearly states that the bedrooms and office are in the back of of the house yet that did not satisfy the lying JS reporter, Matt Buedell. Buedell, making further attempts to ridicule me, stated I 'stepped down' from the County Board. Stepped down means 'resigned' which all records show I did not do.
Who took the jewelry will never be known as little action was taken by Peoria Detective Roger Martin. The jewelry was not insured except through my homeowner policy. I reported the theft as I believed was my citizen duty. That the Journal Star would even send this slanderous report to the Associated Press to show how Republicans are so immoral and Democrats (100% of the management of the JS and most of the reporters are Democrats), are so moral, is further indication of the the power of the liberal far left media.
I have not named the prominent Peorian who was an occasional visitor to the Club Cabaret and first introduced me to the Club over lunch nor the wealthy also prominent Peorian who asked me to help him find a girlfriend who was free to be his travelling companion. They will never be revealed by me. That I was a frequent visitor to this club are words put in my mouth be the police interviewer. Until this story appeared, no one in Club Caberet management had seen me enough to even know my name. I might add, on my infrequent visits, I did see some prominent people including some from Caterpillar and out of town Caterpillar visitors altho I hear that out of towners' attending conventions visitors go to Big Al's, to which the City of Peoria contributed in the neighborhood of $11 million to make way for the new hotel.
The Journal was a strong advocate for this highway as were most prominent "movers and shakers" in the area. (some eventually dropped their support) but the Journal, always setting their attacks on the weakest, attacked me regularly for my opposition, even ending some negative editorials with the byline 'Widmer also does not support the highway to Chicago'.
When I ran for election Peoria Public School Board District #150 in 1994 (there were 6 candidates for one board seat) the Journal attacked me by saying I did not understand public budgets despite the fact that I had in 1992 sold my company for $2 1/4 million, the most money ever paid for a local office equipment company based in Peoria. (I started the company in 1964 with a secretary and a serviceman) They touted and helped elect a woman whose major experience was in 3rd grade education. Those of you concerned about District #150 downward slide over the years may note that this slide gained acceleration in the mid nineties.
In 2000, when I was encouraged by outsider Republicans to run for the Peoria County Board against 9 year Republican incumbent Zan Ransberg, the Journal pulled out all the stops on attacking me. They even ran an Editorial attacking me and supporting Ransburg TWICE as they explained, they may have overlooked some readers. They asked why I would want to oust someone doing such an outstanding job a Ransburg. They suggested I run for the Peoria Park Board instead. (When I ran for office on the Park Board, they thoroughly condemned me) I defeated Ransburg, who was in line to be the next County Board Chairman, by 27% points. I became one of 18 board members of a nearly defunct board who had to borrow $1 1/2 million to meet payrolls 6 months later. The attacks came so virulent that when with the help of my prime supporter, we uncovered facts about Ransburg's shortcomings, Editorial Page manager Mike Bailey made me produce documentation to support all my allegations. (When I was attacked by a supplier to the Park Board who said I raised taxes 25%, a blatant lie, Bailey said he didn't have time to check out the validity of all who commented on the opinion page. yet I was forced by Bailey to validify my comment) To the JS's chagrin, I ran for Peoria County Board positions 7 times and won 7 times without the support of the Journal and without the support of many leaders of my own party. (To spite them, I spent no money on my last campaign nor put up any yard signs and still won) I served 3 full terms on the board and announced early that I would retire after completion of my third term. My retirement was given minor coverage by the Journal in the same article with congratulations to a 6-month term Democrat who was not re-elected to an appointed position.
During my Campaign to unseat Ransburg, there appeared to be some type of a "love affair' going on between Barbara Manz Drake and Zan Ransburg. And Mike Bailey had the gall to write a column asking 'who was going to be watching Merle Widmer'. Mike, who couldn't make a living in the private sector!
As I announced my opposition to excessive expenditures by Peoria County taxpayers like taking up the expense of State owned property for which we had no use, to the opposition to the County's ownership of the bound to fail Peoria Riverfront Museum; this museum strongly supported by the JS, my strong opposition to the Journals' strong support for taxpayer dollars support for the doomed from the beginning, FireFly, my opposition to the Rec/Plex, later renamed the RiverPlex, a money loser since day one for all parties concerned and a drain on the taxpaying private sector and other tax saving positions that during my three terms, allowed Peoria County to have the highest dollar surplus in decades.
During the negotiations with Lakeview Museum and the County, I was the only board member who ever raised the question "show me the money" yet my monthly or more protests never once appeared in the Journal. The Journal's editorial board even refuted me by saying the all money had all been raised by year 2010 when even to this day the new museum (PRM) has yet to raise the money promised to the taxpayers.
There was a remark made by a county publicist that appeared in the JS as to how people like me would know about whether of not the museum would succeed than the museum 'experts'.
Hm. Wasn't Richerson forced to resign and "whatever happened to Kathleen Woith"??
The latest attack was the most virulent attack that could ever be made on Peorian who had done so much for his community. When my wife who was confined to nine weeks in the hospital and a nursing home for illness brought on by her unwillingness to seek proper treatment for ailments including severe alcoholism. with my house unoccupied, I invited a woman performer from a legal entertainment club to my home to discuss the possibility of her becoming a companion to a wealthy friend who was looking for female companionship as he did his globed-trotting. This woman was recommended by another of my "friends" who had more knowledge of her and was the man that occasionally invited me to attend lunch with him and another friend at the Club Caberet in East Peoria.
The performer arrived with a 49 year aunt and a 22 year old sister. After showing them. the living room, the dining room, kitchen, kitchenette and den, my tennis trophy's, pictures, etc., the four of us sat outside and chatted under a shade tree adjacent the pool and backyard. The 22 year old said she was a student in Miami and we talked about Florida where I spend my winters. When the performer said she wanted now to talk to me personally, she and I went into the den and talked for about 5 minutes about meeting this man and her availability to travel. No sexual activity occurred other than she kissed me once and touched me once as the police report so states. She then said she had to take the other women home and would return. The time was around 5 P.M. (She did not return)
About three days after my wife returned from the nursing home she opened the file in the office where she kept her jewelry. She noted that 2 pieces of jewelry were missing and accusations and searches began. After several days, I became convinced that the jewelry had been taken by someone and called the police. Two policeman arrived and took a detailed statement from me. About three days later the Peoria Journal Star slandered me by saying the "jewelry was taken from an UPSTAIRS cabinet". We live in a ranch house and their is NO UPSTAIRS. The police report clearly states that the jewelry was taken from the office but the Journal Star, wanting to make the situation really make me look bad insinuated "upstairs" is where the bedrooms are located. The police report clearly states that the bedrooms and office are in the back of of the house yet that did not satisfy the lying JS reporter, Matt Buedell. Buedell, making further attempts to ridicule me, stated I 'stepped down' from the County Board. Stepped down means 'resigned' which all records show I did not do.
Who took the jewelry will never be known as little action was taken by Peoria Detective Roger Martin. The jewelry was not insured except through my homeowner policy. I reported the theft as I believed was my citizen duty. That the Journal Star would even send this slanderous report to the Associated Press to show how Republicans are so immoral and Democrats (100% of the management of the JS and most of the reporters are Democrats), are so moral, is further indication of the the power of the liberal far left media.
I have not named the prominent Peorian who was an occasional visitor to the Club Cabaret and first introduced me to the Club over lunch nor the wealthy also prominent Peorian who asked me to help him find a girlfriend who was free to be his travelling companion. They will never be revealed by me. That I was a frequent visitor to this club are words put in my mouth be the police interviewer. Until this story appeared, no one in Club Caberet management had seen me enough to even know my name. I might add, on my infrequent visits, I did see some prominent people including some from Caterpillar and out of town Caterpillar visitors altho I hear that out of towners' attending conventions visitors go to Big Al's, to which the City of Peoria contributed in the neighborhood of $11 million to make way for the new hotel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)