Casey Cora, Patch Staff

Born, raised and schooled in Joliet, Casey set off for Eastern Illinois University as a 17-year-old with a plan to coast through higher education and land a gig writing prize-winning features for Rolling Stone magazine.

You could argue that Casey coasted through school, but Rolling Stone certainly hasn't called. Yet. So he worked odd jobs, then headed south for graduate school at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, where he was lucky enough to take classes across the street at the vaunted Poynter Institute. 

That led to community news and police reporting jobs for the St. Petersburg Times, where he also worked hard as the early-morning breaking news reporter (read: lots of car wrecks, fires and homicides) for the paper's website.

Perhaps more importantly, studying the rapidly shifting media landscape in school — while working for one of the country's truly great newspapers —  afforded him a whole new perspective on journalism and the way stories can be told.

He returned to the area in 2008, and after a nearly two year stint covering Oak Lawn on the southwest side for the SouthtownStar, he's in Oak Park-River Forest with Patch, ready to roll.

And he has never been so excited for an opportunity to do what he loves.

<b>Beliefs<br></b><i>At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. However, we also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. So in the spirit of simple honesty, our policy is to encourage our editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable.</i>

<b>Politics</b>

I&#39;ll put it this way: I have friends who are wild, card-carrying Socialists and friends who repeat as gospel the crazy stuff they&#39;ve heard from right-wing radio shock jocks. I&#39;m somewhere in-between, but lean left on most of the big issues.

<b>Religion</b>

Ooh boy. I went to Catholic grade school and high school, but haven&#39;t actively practiced the faith in quite some time. Holidays, mostly. Outside of organized religion, I&#39;m a pretty Jesus-y kind of guy, in that things like flagrant prejudice, senseless violence and injustice of any stripe really honk me off. I&#39;m a big fan of peace, so anything that helps achieve that goal is OK by me.

<b>Local Hot-Button Issues</b>

It&#39;s Oak Park-River Forest. Pick one. Property taxes. School funding. Guns. TIFs. Tolerance. Stadium lights.

From what I can tell, the biggest issues revolve mostly around the effort to preserve the area&#39;s rich historic charm, while at the same time evolving the area into a sophisticated urban center.