Mayor’s Row…….by Ned Mitchell
Welcome to 2006! Sesser had a relatively quiet New Year’s weekend as we all in our own way ushered in a new year. We said goodbye to 2005 and greeted 2006. There were whistles, fire trucks, gun shots, fireworks, noise makers of all kinds and people cheering to greet the New Year. Folks all over are busy making New Year’s resolutions. I have about quit that practice as I had trouble keeping the resolutions beyond two weeks. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of room for improvement. Perhaps I set some really lofty goals for myself and wanted the challenge in years past but the end result was I was basically the same person at the end of the year as I was at the beginning. Concerning Sesser though I do look at last year’s failures and in my own mind try to plan a course of action for the coming year that will be better for our citizens. There are many areas where we can improve and we will be working on that in the next few weeks. I look forward to another year as Mayor and promise that we will continue to make improvements in our town.
We had two driving while intoxicated arrests over the New Year’s weekend in Sesser. One person was from another state who thought it would be okay to drive at night with no headlights and another was on the way from Murphysboro to Christopher, only problem is they drove through Christopher and were roaming around in Sesser looking for Christopher. Both drivers tested and blew over a .16 which means they were twice drunk! Both drivers were repeat offenders and had been coddled by the court system for past driving while drunk charges.
Does anyone other than me think we are way too lenient on offenders in the court system? I can see giving a break to a person the first time, really I can. But to keep giving break after break to people who violate the law is absurd. The Christmas day shooting in Franklin County where several officers were under fire and wounded was caused by a person with many prior arrests always ending up with court supervision or conditional discharge. A few days later another repeat offender was caught after a lengthy foot chase and a fight with two officers being injured. Again, this is a multiple offender with a lot of court supervision and conditional discharge. The papers are full of dispositions in this county every day and upon reading the outcome it is quite clear that we are basically slapping people on the wrist for serious crimes. We are starting out all wrong in this country with our young people. There is very little discipline at home, schools cannot discipline and then when these people grow up to commit crimes our judicial system does little to curb their appetite either. The police officer on the street then has to deal with the person and very often has their life in danger in doing so. I can’t tell you the amount of times that we have arrested people in Sesser for violent and serious crimes to only be told by the offender that “nothing will happen to me”.
As I have said before I would make a terrible judge when it came time to sentence a person to prison so I can relate to the theory of giving a person another chance. But, just how many chances do we need to give out? Could it be that I am the only one who notices what is going on here? I doubt that since I travel a lot in the surrounding towns and constantly hear folks talk about how if they got caught one time the book would be thrown at them but someone they know is given chance after chance to get their act together. We could do better than what we have been doing and there is room for improvement in our court system. Lets hope 2006 brings on a new era of swift and sure punishment for those who are among us that cannot abide by the law of the land.
Another federal investigation has been opened into the administration of the reformer/unreformer governor here in Illinois. Last week the feds launched an investigation into the Chicago Toll Authority concerning lucrative contracts that have been awarded to advisors and fund raisers for the governor. Specifically the feds want to know how to Blagojevich operatives Tony Rezko and Christopher Kelly improved their lifestyle with contracts for restaurants on the Toll Way system. They also want to know why a California firm, Wilton Partners, was given a 25 year contract to handle restaurant leases then within a few weeks wrote the reformer/unreformer a check for $50,000.00 for his campaign. Why would the reformer/unreformer have his legal staff block a Freedom of Information request on these shenanigans by the Chicago Tribune? If there is nothing to hide let us all take a look at what is going on. The Chicago Toll Way Authority has long been a hot bed of corruption and insider deals. The pay to play syndrome has done very well under this governor not only here but in other areas as well. Blagojevich recently spent over $250,000.00 of taxpayer money to have his name put on signs on the Toll Way. This latest investigation joins others that have been launched in other agencies controlled by the reformer/unreformer, namely the Illinois Department of Transportation, Illinois Department of Corrections, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, and the governor’s own office. Is there a pattern here? None of the other constitutional officers in Illinois are facing these kinds of investigations. Of course none of the other officers have a 20 million dollar campaign fund that was created by people either doing business with the state or working as an employee. Is it true where there is smoke there is fire? Time will tell but my personal opinion is this will be very interesting soon! Follow the money and you will be surprised where it will lead you.
IDNR Director Joel Brumsvold of Milan, Illinois retired last week or was booted out the door, which ever story you want to believe. An aide said the Director wanted to spend more time with his family. Phooey! Looks like they would come up with a better line than that worn out phrase. Anyhow the Director will draw a cool tax payer funded pension of $96,200.00 for life. It gets better though. He will also have an automatic 3% increase in pension for every year he draws it. So in 10 years add another $29,000.00. Brumsvold was a former State Representative whose normal retirement would have been about $55,000.00 per year. Not chump change by any means but by taking a high paying state job for a few months he has increased his pension to over $96,000.00 per year. I have to wonder how he will make ends meet? Or how do the thousands of workers he once represented feel now that they have found out they have no pension to draw? We have the same thing going on in our area with former state and federal legislators landing high paying state jobs that will drastically increase their pensions. What is so sad for us who are democrats is the fact that these guys will have such huge pensions they might possibly become fat cats with all that money and turn into republicans! When they chose to retire if I am still writing this column I’ll report the amount of their tax payer funded pensions. It is public information. By the way, how is your pension doing?
Edna Harle, known to most of us as Nonnie will be celebrating her 94th birthday on Sunday, January 8th with an open house at her home. Friends are asked to drop by for a visit at 509 West Matthew in Sesser between the hours of 2 and 4 pm. Actually Nonnie turned 94 the day after Christmas. We hope to see you there!
If you have comments or suggestions to make Sesser a better place, give us a call at 625-3611 or 625-5322 or write us at nedmitchell@verizon.net or www.sesser.org . We will appreciate your imput!
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