Trib: Gentes Regrets Lying – But Stops There

State Senate candidate says he regrets lying about his professional background — chicagotribune.com

Gentes still refuses to discuss leaving his previous employer further:

“I did not disclose this fact because I was embarrassed,” Gentes said. “That’s my statement on it.”

Apparently Gentes doesn’t feel the voters are entitled to any more information on this matter. Again, I think he should come clean with what happened and release his former employer from confidentiality in discussing it. This is not the simple matter of a “tough economy” when his former employer has endorsed Dan Duffy and their PAC has donated to the Duffy campaign. Makes you wonder why they would do that if Gentes left on good terms or was laid off, doesn’t it?

Daily Herald Endorses Duffy For Senate

Photo by Team America.

Today the Daily Herald made it official by endorsing Dan Duffy for State Senate. While his opponent’s lie to their editorial board about his employment status has been much covered here and elsewhere, they instead focused on Dan’s great qualities that he brings to the table and why I endorsed him as well.

Dan’s a successful businessman and is the youngest of eleven children, that’s right, eleven. I don’t know what better way to prepare you for the dog-eat-dog nature of Springfield than growing up with 10 brothers and sisters, especially when you’re the youngest! Seriously though, Dan has survived the tough world of building your own small business and would bring that perspective to Springfield with him.

When I met with him I was instantly at ease with his genuineness, his sincerity and his down to earth nature. Here I was, a school board member and he made time to meet me for lunch for some one-on-one discussion of the issues facing our state. It didn’t take me long to figure out Dan was the man for the job.

The Daily Herald agreed joining the News Sun and the Pioneer press along with myself and a host of others in endorsing Dan. I encourage you to get to know Dan some more if you have not yet decided and I think you’ll find he’s the clear pick to represent you in Springfield.

Gentes Short Of Full Disclosure

Photo by Cal Skinner.

Bill Gentes wrote of contrition in his letter to the editor in the October 17 Daily Herald, however he states the reason why he was not truthful about his employment was that he was embarrassed to be unemployed. Gentes made it a point to tell the Daily Herald editorial board and others during his campaign that he took a leave of absence from his job, yet only after the Daily Herald looked into this claim was it determined he was, in fact, terminated.

The larger issue is that, by his own admission, he was fired, not just out of work. Now we the voters are supposed to assume that it was through no fault of his own that he was terminated and give him a promotion when his previous employer fired him? It’s pretty tough for an average person to get another job after they have been terminated but any good employer will look into it and get both sides. The people are not getting both sides though since Gentes’ former employer is bound by confidentiality.

In the interest of full disclosure not only should Gentes explain why he was fired, he should release his employer from confidentiality in talking about it. Let his employer give their reasons, if they care to, why he was terminated. Mr. Gentes can make his case and then let the voters decide. Normally this would be beyond the scope of what voters are entitled to know, but Gentes opened the door when he lied to the Daily Herald and lied to the people.

It’s The Lie That Gets You

Photo by Cal Skinner.

Richard Nixon learned a cold hard truth of politics and paid the price, Bill Clinton nearly did the same. That truth is, no matter how bad the thing is that you’re trying to cover up, it’s the lie that people remember and the lie gets you every time.

Apparently Bill Gentes, Round Lake village president and candidate for Illinois Senate District 26 didn’t get the memo because he decided to outright lie to the Daily Herald editorial board, on his website, and elsewhere. What was the lie? That he was on a leave of absence from his job when he was actually fired six months ago.

Per the Herald article:

When asked Monday about handling all that goes with running for the open Senate District 26 seat, Gentes responded he’s on a leave of absence from his full-time job as operations director at the Realtor Association of NorthWest Chicagoland.

However, association Chief Executive Officer Peggy Kayser refuted Gentes in a statement issued Tuesday.

“On advice of counsel, I cannot give the terms of his separation, but Bill stating he is on a leave of absence is an outright lie,” Kayser said.

In fact, his former employer has endorsed Dan Duffy, his opponent in the upcoming election.

To be honest with you, I had a lot of respect for Bill Gentes at one point and, like many residents, thought he had done a great job for our village. Then before long I started to look deeper into things and had more personal dealings with him and that opinion changed.

In fact, that opinion did a 180 last summer after a tense meeting at the village hall with myself, district administrators and Bill where he demanded RLAS come to an agreement with a developer to lower our impact fees or he would dictate to us what we would get. We had researched our impact fees before adopting them and they were in line with other school districts. But because the developer had been quoted fees from several years ago and had already negotiated impact fees with other entities they were unwilling to give RLAS what we wanted. Here I thought Bill would step in on our behalf, we’re under state oversight after all and we’re talking about critical funds to help provide infrastructure for the additional kids we would take on, and he was telling me our fees were way out of line.

He then accused me of threatening him when I said I would take my case to the village trustees and said, “Do you know who runs the village, Guy?” I hesitated and replied, “the board of trustees.” Bill leaned forward in his chair towards me at that point and said, “No Guy, the mayor does” as he pointed a finger into his chest looking dead at me. In a matter of a few moments my opinion had totally changed and it was clear to me that Bill was not the person I thought he was. So this latest admission on his part comes as no surprise to me.

Things might be a lot easier for me if I kept my experiences to myself, didn’t work to support candidates I believe in and I know some people think I should step back and be impartial. School board is non-partisan but not un-partisan. I shouldn’t have to forfeit my rights as a citizen to say what I believe in just because I serve on the board.

When the future of our state is at hand and a rare opening of a state senate seat is at stake I think people are entitled to know who they’re voting for. I’m not supporting Dan Duffy simply because he’s not someone with a skewed sense of power like Bill Gentes. I’m supporting him because he’s a down to earth man with a beautiful wife and family who built his own business. He knows what it’s like to struggle just like you and I do from day to day and he knows what an impact the General Assembly has on our everyday lives.

I took my time to get to know him asking to sit down one-on-one which he gladly accepted several months ago. I think if you take the time to get to know Dan you’ll find he has the makings of a great state senator. Elections should be about the candidates and who they are, what they stand for, what standards they embody — not the party banner they carry and most definitely not about who’s running for President of the United States.

Bill forgot the second most important lesson of politics — you don’t run anything, the people do and at the end of the day you will be answerable for what you have done and what you have led people to believe. When you lie to the people to try to get their support they remember, and I think they will remember the first Tuesday in November.

Gentes Needs Some Workin’ On The Railroad

Photo by David McNeary.
In today’s Daily Herald, Bill Gentes, village president of Round Lake and candidate for the Illinois State Senate 26th District is crying foul about his opponent, Dan Duffy, pointing out the numerous real estate ties in Round Lake of Gentes and his wife.

The classic Shakespeare line “thou doth protest too much” instantly popped into my head knowing the nonsense that Gentes’ campaign has been throwing around concerning railroads. Gentes has made it a point to let everyone know the Duffy campaign has taken a $2500 donation from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and then linking that to support for the highly controversial issue of Canadian National’s proposed acquisition of EJ&E.

First off, Gentes claims he’s just noting the donation and it has nothing to do with the CN issue — hogwash! The Lake County Democratic Party’s website proudly touts “Bill Gentes is the only state Senate candidate in our area who has pledged to fight against this acquisition, which will be disastrous for our communities.” He has been repeating the allegations in person when meeting with people as one Daily Herald letter writer states. All of this despite clear support from Ela Township Clerk Bill Donnan and one of Barrington Communities Against CN Acquisition’s founders, Dave Nelson. This is a clear case of the candidate saying one thing to the paper (where he is certain to get picked apart with this ridiculous non-issue) and then saying another thing in person to people and having his campaign circulate it as true.

So, I have a lesson for Gentes on railroads because apparently he spent too much time playing Monopoly and not actually understanding how business works with this silly linkage of one railroad to another. BNSF, you know, the modern day equivalent of “the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” (great tune!) is a completely different railroad company than Canadian National, the operative word being Canadian. Saying that taking money from BNSF shows support for CN is a bit like saying someone taking money from Chevrolet shows their support for Toyota. It’s utter nonsense.

Dan Duffy is from Barrington, he’s been in the lead on the issue of the CN acquisition, he understands how it would impact our community and has been against it from the start. Look through the smoke and mirrors of his opponent’s campaign and you will see that Dan Duffy is the right candidate for the 26th.

Daily Herald | Lake Co. forest preserve wants to buy more land

Photo by birdfreak.com.

Daily Herald | Lake Co. forest preserve wants to buy more land

Well, it looks like $170 million over the past several referenda isn’t enough for the Lake County Forest Preserve District. They want to do another referendum that exceeds the last three successful referenda combined, oh, but it won’t raise your taxes.

First of all, I challenge anyone in this county to find a place where it takes them more than ten minutes to drive to a forest preserve. Then I challenge you to drive more than 10 minutes to find one of those parcels that just has a sign saying it was bought “thanks to your support” and yet the district hasn’t done anything with it yet. Then I challenge you, after using that gas, to put together enough money to play golf at one of the high end golf courses the district owns that is far beyond the reach of most of the average taxpayers. It’s clear to me the folks at the Forest Preserve District have become out of touch, and that means some of your Lake County Board members have let the administration go too far.

According to the Herald article the district has 27,000 acres of land already — 27,000 acres of land that will never yield another tax dollar to any entity. Property acquired by the Forest Preserve comes off of the tax rolls and obviously that tax revenue has to be made up somewhere else, usually by the homeowner.

The Forest Preserve is also engaging in an alarming new tactic – come up with another bond issue when one is expiring so you can get more money but claim that taxes won’t go up. Previous bonds are going to be retired, taxes would actually come down (what a novel concept) if this measure failed. So the district puts out a proposal to borrow more money than its previous three successful referenda combined when the stock market is in the tank and folks are just trying to get enough money to put gas in their car.

The voters have taken care of the Forest Preserve very well over the the past fifteen years, it’s time to turn off the spigot and tell them no, that’s enough now.

I’m Voting Democrat

Photo by riot jane.

No no, you read that right. Please, this is COMEDY, for pete sake I can watch a bunch of nasty Sarah Palin videos let me post my one video poking fun at Dems. So don’t start up with how nasty and vicious Republicans are, this is a SPOOF. I aspirated Pepsi One at 1:06 so I had to share.

Thank you.

And now on to the video……

All Staff Welcome

It was a great day led off by the RLHS Marching Band. Dr. Martindale gave some remarks and I followed with some remarks about all the progress RLAS has made in the past year and about exciting new plans. Then I had to scoot for work.

I hope to write more later.

The Forgotten Wing

There’s a wing of Magee that appears to have been largely forgotten over the years and was used for storage. I’ve posted some very interesting photos of the area, there are some interesting “artifacts” remaining in this area and I certainly would like to hear from someone who knows more about it!

It looks as though this was the old locker room area for the gym before the gym was rebuilt. I believe the Magee gym was redone at the same time the south addition was done which was also around the time of the RLHS gym addition. There are a couple of “stairways to nowhere” in this area and I’d sure appreciate an older Magee alumnus filling us in! Feel free to post comments here on my blog, on the photos or shoot me an email with your information!

Magee Revisted

I went back out to the Magee site and am happy to report work is really progressing!! Visit my photo album on Flickr for more pictures!

Be sure to catch the photos in the “Forgotten Wing” as those are pretty interesting!!

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