Remarks to the Zion Township Republican Committee

This evening I participated in a candidate meet and greet with the Zion Township Republican Committee.  I am happy to report that all of the candidates for Commissioner attended, and the question and answer session I think was lively, and hopefully gave the Committee members a better picture of the candidates to share with others.   Special thanks to Marti Korpi for being our host.

Each candidate was given a ten minute window to present a statement about themselves, why they are running and what they hope to achieve if elected.  What follows is the text of my presentation as written.

Good Evening.

To begin, I wish to thank Mrs. Korpi, and the Committee for inviting us here to speak with all of you. Hopefully it will prove to be a useful and informative exchange for everyone.

Some of you may have attended the Candidate Forum held here at the Library a couple of weeks ago, or watched the videos provided by ZBGuide.com.  So, I don’t want to bore you too much by re-hashing my statement from that event. 

Instead, since I have a more generous time limit today I would like to provide a little more in depth background of myself. Then I want focus in on an item in my platform to help illustrate my conception of how the city government can help Zion grow, and develop for the future.

I was born in Kansas City Missouri, 48 years ago.  I am the eldest of four boys, my brothers Mark, John, and Matthew. My father said later that if he had planned it out, I should have been named Luke.  In those early years we lived in the suburbs on the North side of K.C., and did the typical suburban kid stuff of the time; banana seat bikes, idolizing Evel Knieval, and tree forts.

Now, my father always had this idea of getting into self-sustained small scale farming, so we moved out to a farm that we rented for a couple of years. We had goats and chickens, so I and my brother had chores every day, taking care of the animals, gathering eggs, and milking the goats. Later, we moved to another place, a pre-civil war Federalist style home located on a wooded hilltop. To be honest, it was not in the best condition, and since the primary heat source was wood burning stoves, my brother Mark and I became pretty handy at splitting wood with an axe, sledgehammer, and steel wedges.  It’s a pretty direct proposition, if you want to stay warm, split that stack of wood first.

When we moved to Indiana, the property covered about seven acres, with two ponds and a stream. Taking care of that, and the fowl, and the four head of dairy cows we boarded was a lot even with four boys to help out. Cows can’t wait to be milked, so I would have to get up at 4:00 am and take care of them before going to school.  I will say that spending a few years shoveling manure makes me more appreciative of working in an office today.

Now, at the time, I didn’t enjoy going out to the barn on a dark winter morning that much, but the lessons I learned about being self-reliant, responsible, hard-working, and honest have been the basis for everything else that I have undertaken in my life.

After High School, I joined the Army. I was a Signals Intelligence Analyst, with a Top Secret Codeword Clearance, and that is a lot of responsibility for any 19 year old. I was sent to West Germany, and to the 103^rd Military Intelligence Battalion.  There, I worked with some of the smartest people I have ever met and forged friendships that endure even today. The most important of which is my wife Christie. Who took notice of me in the motor pool when I almost hit her with a 75 lb bag of camouflage I tossed off the top of a truck. She was from Indianapolis, so she often says that she went all the way to Germany to meet the boy next door. 

After our enlistments ended, we were married, and then moved to Illinois on a job offer. The job didn’t work out, so we found other employment. That is when I went into the Security business. With my military experience, I was soon put into management positions, and over time I learned some important lessons on how to be a good manager. One of the most important is that it’s easy to be a hardass; it’s a lot harder to be a leader, and a mentor.

Eventually, I took a position supervising the security staff at the American Medical Association; this was not long after we had bought our home here in Zion. Three years later, I was offered a position with the AMA in the Human Resources Division.  Where, for the last 13 years, I have had the unique opportunity to observe, and learn how a large organization functions, both good and bad.  Obviously, I can’t cover everything I have experienced and learned in the time available here tonight, but I do believe that the sum total of my experience will serve the people of Zion well if I am elected.

We face many challenges here in Zion; the housing crisis, crime, the economy, and high taxes that burden all of us.  The prescription for many of these challenges, as they concern the city, is to either cut services, or increase alternate revenue to offset the taxes on homeowners.  Rather than get caught up in the nuts and bolts of where to cut and how to raise revenue, I want to talk about how we might create a broader vision for the future of the city.

A couple of weeks ago, at the invitation of Township Supervisor Cheri Neal, I went to a candidate meet and greet with the residents at Carmel House.  We gave our presentations, and answered questions from the ladies who attended.  As things were winding up, and I was getting ready to leave, I spent a moment chatting with a Mrs. La Belle, who is 96, if I remember correctly.  She said something that has stayed with me; “I would just like Zion to be like it was back when I was a little girl.  We all knew each other, and did things together, it was nice then.” Now, obviously we cannot return to that time when everyone knew each other but, maybe we can recapture that sense of community through developing a plan for what we want Zion to become in the future.

One part of my platform proposes creating a new Comprehensive Development Plan for the city.  One of the great things about our time is the availability of information. If you have an idea, you can bet that someone somewhere has had a similar idea and actually put it into practice.

One of the examples I found, is the Southern Illinois town of Pinckneyville.  The citizens there decided to take control of the development of their town, establish a vision for the future, and created the mechanisms to carry it out.  The primary means to establish this vision was the creation of a non profit Foundation that combines the efforts of the government, the business community, and the citizens.  Through their efforts, guided by a strategic plan, this small city was able, among other things, to establish the Illinois High School Basketball Hall of Fame, which has become a destination for visitors to the area.

Zion should take advantage of examples like Pinckneyville. To learn to develop destination drivers, to involve people using techniques like crowd sourcing; developing an interactive communication with the public to create community initiatives to promote the city, and to make it a more desirable place to live and work.  Above all, if the public has a substantial role in conceiving a new development plan, it invests them in the community and gives them a greater stake in working to achieve the goals that have been set forth.

In essence, what I am proposing is creating an environment that encourages a sense of public service, not only in our elected officials, but in the community as a whole.  With a vision to guide us, and some good old hard work, I think we can get to know each other better, and do some great things for this city.

So, that is a little about me, where I am from, and where I hope we can go together.  If you share that vision, I hope that you will give me your support on Election Day.

Thank You.