Voting for Plainfield

See the Will County Clerk website for locations and hours for early voting, and all other election info. All Will County voters can vote at the Naperville location through this Sunday (limited hours). At the County Clerk’s office, you can vote through Monday. Early voting is an insurance policy against any surprise barrier to getting to the polls on Election Day, Tuesday, April 2nd.

Here’s how I voted, given that I don’t under-vote, in the competitive races (not addressing the uncontested races):

For Village of Plainfield Trustee, I voted for Benton, Calkins, and Faheem.

In my own research to vote, the take away is that the incumbents should be voted out.

Benton, Calkins, and Faheem all put themselves out there for the public and are clearly open to working with one another and with anyone else to better life in Plainfield.

Benton is young, a new dad, and has lived in this immediate area his whole life. He comes to this with a real, working person’s job. He’s thoughtful and direct, listens well and willingly, and can disagree without being a jerk, etc. As of very recently, I happen to serve on our HOA board with Benton, so I do know him a very little bit.

Calkins has a long family history here and most of my info about him was from friends and neighbors, who say he’s a good and fair man. He and his family have been against people that sought to harm Plainfield and other area taxpayers, like during the debacle at our park district a few years ago, or the on-going corruption in Plainfield Township, etc.

Faheem has been what amounts to astoundingly transparent and been very proactive to really dialogue with the citizens and his peers in campaigning. He's been quick and direct in answering questions, but does not claim to have all the answers. He seems to take a very collaborative approach.

To touch on a rumor that Calkins and/or Faheem were “faking” Plainfield residency for this campaign, I confirmed that Calkins surely isn’t. I doubt Faheem is, either.

Lamb, for good and bad, has served long enough. He’s been on the board for 14 years. He can punch-out.

Wojowski is the weakest link here. He runs with a corrupt local political crowd, which has meaning. The public issues where he’s failed are big ones. He was against, in a disingenuous way, the Muslim community center a couple of years ago. He was on the wrong side of Project Jupiter this past year, too. There have been many things I don’t agree with his votes on, but fair to say some I've agreed with.

The larger problem is that Wojowski’s goal has ever been as much to serve the people as it’s been to get what he really wants, a seat on the judicial bench (around here it's called “pulling a Rippy”).

I’m not against anyone having a larger goal. But, Wojowski isn’t being a good trustee on the way to becoming a judge. He’s a mediocre trustee as a means to becoming a judge. The citizens of Plainfield are just a rung on his ladder.

When Wojowski first ran in 2015, he copped (no pun intended!) a lousy attitude towards law enforcement. He has been named in a couple of lawsuits as a police officer, including for excessive force. He defended that by claiming—and this bugs me big time, more than the actual lawsuits—that lawsuits like those just come with being a cop. Nope. Most police officers, especially with 15 and less years on the job, go a whole career doing that tough job without that baggage. What Wojowski said was and is an insult to good cops, doing a good job, and it reflects a contempt for policing, citizens, and the rule of law.

For D202 Board, I voted for Doyle, Drake, and Miller. Doyle and Miller are new. Drake is not perfect, but Kirberg is really bad news. He’s an eight-year incumbent and his voting record is lame. In 2012, he was the central figure in the mishandling of documents and checks/money at CAPE (see Patch story on that). Call it stupidity, call it corruption, or call it (as Kirberg did) his inability to “say no” to people. (I didn’t know that was an excuse that grown-ups could use for malfeasance.) Kirberg ought to be out. Actually, he should have resigned from the D202 board then.

From the eight people running for the three seats on the JJC Board, none of the choices are fantastic, but the ones I could not vote for were Garcia, Mccullagh, and Williams. Garcia is supported by people in the community who do not back faculty and she seems to support them right back. Mccullagh and Williams are being pushed heavily by Steve Balich (on Will County Board) and Cornel Darden (a local activist/candidate). Well, the company you keep, and that keeps you, matters. The routinely expressed ugly, cheap, and false flag opinions of Balich and Darden, usually in tandem, make them sound not just unintelligent and often misogynist, but weird and a little creepy. Anyone they back can’t be worth much, so at least they were useful by pointing out who not to vote for.

A more issue specific reason I don’t support Mccullagh and Williams is that they both have ideas about cutting programs, but it seems like they don’t understand how funding works, that cutting some programs would likely result in net loss of money into JJC. Honestly, any three on the ballot are likely to do better than Garcia, Mccullagh, and Williams.

Finally, for fire district, I went with Barnes and Melaniphy. I don’t have anything to say about the third candidate, Peszynski. I have heard positive things about Melaniphy. I’ve disagreed with Barnes a few times, but I think he tries to do a good job.

Please be sure to vote and make your ballot count for you and everyone else.