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Health & Fitness

City Council Preview Aug 20 - Memorial Service

At this week’s City Council meeting there will be a memorial service to mark the passing of “truth and justice”. Fans of Superman are familiar with his never-ending fight for “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” It first appeared in the 1940s radio show and then became the opening for the popular TV show in the 50s. But if the “Man of Steel” showed up at the Lake Forest City Council today, he’d be hard pressed to find “truth” or “justice”.

TRUTH

“Truth” was in ICU and on life support going into the Council meeting of June 6th. It was put in such a tenuous situation by the constant stream of lies and mis-truths told by, in succession, Council members Herzog, McCullough, and Voigts. That sad story was reported on these pages a while ago and you can read it by clicking here. Then Mayor Pro Tem McCullough dealt another bodily blow in February (Click here). But the final coup de gras came on the night of July 2nd when council members Herzog, McCullough, and Voigts recited a long list of false claims about their campaign spending. Click here if you can bear to read that story. Thus endeth whatever “truth” was still alive in our City.

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JUSTICE

“Justice” was the next victim on the executioner’s list. Justice was put in critical condition by years of favoritism dealt out to the businesses that poured money into the campaign coffers of City Council members. By my count, nearly $100,000 went in from these businesses, and more than $13,000,000 went out into their hands. Not a bad investment, was it?  Having a city council member in your pocket can be profitable. For every $1 the businesses spent in campaign contributions, they got back $130 in contracts.

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But Justice was more hardy than Truth, and held on, even when the City Council members ruthlessly replaced every Commissioner up for re-appointment regardless of the quality of their service. It clung tenaciously to life even when the Council voted 4 to 1 against “sunshine” ordinances, even when they passed a ridiculous “term limits” ordinance that limited future council members to serving 24 out of 26 years, and there was still some signs of life, however dormant, when they voted to drown the City in stores selling alcohol, knowing full well that we had one of the highest DUI arrests. Through all these many traumas, Justice hung in there, until the night of July 30 when it slipped into a coma.

On July 30, “The Brookfield Boys” (i.e., Voigts, Robinson, and Nick) voted to ignore the overwhelming opinions of their residents, to reject the pleadings of their staff, and to throw out the decision of the Planning Commission (where even they had stacked the deck) in favor of granting, using measures that are probably illegal, privileges to Brookfield Homes, a company that helped elect the Brookfield Boys in the first place.

Justice has been in a coma ever since. At the upcoming Tuesday night meeting of the Council, the Brookfield Boys will have the pleasure of “pulling the plug” once and for all, relieving Justice from the misery they put him in, and relegating him to a place in history. If they vote, once again, to allow Brookfield to bully its way past procedure, convention, and propriety, any pretense to fair and equal treatment will be unceremoniously killed.

Attendees at the memorial service are encouraged to wear black.

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