Peck Can Only Win By Losing

Despite announcing that he wasn’t going to be seeking another term as a village trustee, Garrett Peck is on the ballot. So much for those term limits guys like him are always squealing about. Peck’s spent the past few months attempting to rewrite his origin story, too. But, we don’t have amnesia, and we do have the internet.

A few years ago, as seen in this clip from WJOL, Peck was scamming a fat contract for himself at our park district and in response to strong public opposition to that claimed parks staff and board members had been unethical to the point of being criminal for a decade. He promised to show us the proof with a “forensic audit”. He was lying, and did no such thing. In this second clip, he holds forth on respecting the tax payer, and says "they can't hide". Then he spent the next eight months frittering away about a million of our dollars on his scams, schemes, patronage, legal expenses, settlements, fines, neglected and lost assets, etc. and his camouflage isn't any better.

The plot twist was that Peck was the disgraced center of more than one criminal investigation by the State’s Attorney, the State Police, and Plainfield Police just a half year later and was found guilty of violating EEOC regulations and Illinois State Labor Law, in separate actions. And, this wasn't his first sit-down with Plainfield Police, either.

To get up to speed, it’s as simple as doing a Google search on the phrase “Garrett Peck Plainfield Patch”. Peck clearly has zero respect for anyone, not just taxpayers. One of the best examples of that is this clip, of the park commissioner who handed him his patronage job, Peter Hurtado, besting him at Tic-Tac-Toe, during public comment at a park district meeting. Peck was on full display being a jerk, dropping the F-bomb when he loses, in front of about 60 residents, including a group of local high school students attending the meeting for a government course requirement.

Peck hasn’t improved since fleeing in disgrace from the park district. Despite a recent vague claim about “learning from mistakes,” he’s learned nothing. He’s the same unethical schemer he’s always been, the same liar people have dealt with for years.

For example, there’s now even more reason to doubt Peck’s “successful small business owner” line. For a boy who rails against government so much while bragging about what a biz whiz he is, he sure likes to chase a government paycheck.

In mid-2015 Peck applied for the Director of Tech Services position with Kendall County. His application is riddled with bad spelling and a sad attempt at revisionist history about why he left the park district. It also cites compensation from two tech companies he owns as being over a quarter million a year, yet says that he can start “immediately” if hired, could delegate the day-to-day operations of his businesses.

Delegate to whom? Peck has no employees or staff and I'd bet has very little to delegate.

The job at the county paid a maximum salary of $95,000. Would a person earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year drop that to go work for a salary of not even $100,000? Even Peck didn’t seem to want to. In his application, he asked for a salary 10-20K more than what was offered, and he scribbled in next to that figure “negotiable”! Imagine the sigh of relief over at Kendall County on reading that little note: “Squee! He’s willing to come down on his price!”

Peck’s answer to the question of why he left what was his first—and last--real world job, at CDW-G is interesting. People who claim they worked with him there have said that Peck got frog-marched out by management. Under “Reason for leaving” this job on his Kendall County application, Peck wrote “Clerical error miscoded applicable sales tax on chart of accounts. Error was approximately $500.00”.

Let's unpack that. He worked there three years, making 75K, and a clerical error, a correctable error, valued at 500 bucks, got him tossed? Those who know how business works, how management works, and how ledgers work, will find this preposterous. That sounds like a careful way of saying “I committed what management viewed as fraud/theft, but it was just an itty-bitty 500 dollar one and the important thing is that it wasn’t my responsibility or fault”. Which does fit with how Peck ticks. (Not for nothing, those two sentences were unnecessary and pretty stupid to put on a job application. Does Peck not understand how employment record checking works? Confirmation of dates of employment, kids, that’s it. No need to out yourself.)

Kendall County passed on the chance to employ Garrett Peck. Twice. My guess is that Peck’s terrible reputation preceded him, and his applications gave a few people a hearty laugh before they rejected him.

About six months before applying for the IT spot, Peck applied to be a probation officer in Kendall County, too. That would have paid $35,000, give or take. I think odds are he just wanted a gig where he could feel powerful AND have access to court system records for political purposes. Peck is very much about information being useful for how it can be used against someone. He used to text a local reporter little bits of “dirt” about an opponent’s kids or spouse, etc., angry that the reporter wouldn’t write shaming, negative stories from that “confidential tip”.

I still think there’s a bigger reason not to vote for Peck, though.

As the daughter of a man who served in the Army with pride during WWII, it’s Peck’s refusal to stop playing politics with military service, his borderline psychotic need to attach himself to the nobility of being in uniform without actually serving, that I can’t let slide.

Peck states as the foremost aspect of his biography on his Trustee Facebook page that he “Joined USAF at age 18, injured and returned to college immediately." Odd, isn’t it? A little ham-handed and desperate sounding? And, very different from how he used to paint that picture. To try and excuse lying for nearly a decade about being a veteran with some vague disclosure of injury makes it all okay? As if just saying you WANTED to be or do something should be enough to get you the praise and credit for the being or doing.

The truth is Peck was bounced out of the Air Force after only 16 days of basic training. The information from the USAF in response to a FOIA request about his service lists several designations of record as “N/A”, or not applicable, but the USAF response for information labeled “transcript of court-martial trial” is filled in with “not in file”. What does that phrasing sound like it means? Why doesn’t that box bear the notation “not applicable”?

Peck’s injury and discharge claim is also suspicious because it simply doesn’t fit with how military service works.

In any branch of the military, if you’re sick or injured, an assessment is made about your condition. If you can recover well enough to serve, they make you whole and then you go back into rotation.

If you are so injured or ill that you’ll never be able to serve effectively, then you get a medical discharge. Peck shows no signs of any physically incapacitating injury and we know he also brags how he went right back to college, “immediately”, so he didn't require any down time to heal. Equally important is consideration of why he ever lied about this in the first place. There’s no shame in having been unable to serve due to an injury, so if that was always the truth, how come he didn't tell it?

It's simple: Peck lies because he thinks he can and should use military service as political capital, as a play for votes.

In an unsolicited statement at the candidate forum the PACC ran a few weeks ago, Peck doubled down on this topic by saying something new that I can only guess he thought would be another chance at being viewed as a courageous patriot. Peck claims that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks he wanted to join the Marines—but they wouldn’t take him.

At this point, Peck’s statements in this area are like saying “I think marriage is the most wonderful institution and I always wanted to be married, but no woman would have me.”

Garrett Peck is a middle-aged Pinocchio who wants more than anything to be a real man, just without having to behave like a real man. He’s a wooden fraud, a liar, a cheater, and a failure who spends most of his days trying to hurt others and help himself.

But, here’s the irony: I really don’t care if Peck is re-elected. Either way, I win.

If he fades away, great. But, as long as he’s in public office, he’s public property. Like a pig in a pen at the state fair, he’s on full display and everything about him is subject to examination, comment, and judgement. Add to that the fact that in the years he’s been on this board, Peck’s accomplished exactly NOTHING. He’s basically inert as a trustee. At his worst, he’s ineffectual, taking up space saying and doing stupid things, a stammering champ of the malapropism.

Which is too bad, but not much to worry over.

I voted already. I voted for Newton. I grudgingly voted for Bonuchi, but only because I don’t like to under-vote. And, I’m taking a chance on Larson.

Everyone be sure to vote. And, if on Wednesday we still have Peck, then we’ll still have him, out in the open, and he’ll remain fair—and corralled—game.