Reflections on a mayoral race

By Mike Fak

[MARCH 7, 2001]  Well, everyone, it appears that Lincoln will have a new mayor at the helm come next season. Pitching a near shutout, Beth Davis carried 20 of the 21 precincts in the city. The raw vote count was not as impressive to me as the fact that Davis drew support from all areas of the city, showing that Lincolnites had decided it was again time for a change on who swings the gavel at City Hall meetings.

The general election still is before us, but with Kenneth Scott Gray receiving little outward support from a sleeping Democratic Party, Davis seems at this time to be a prohibitive favorite to be the second female mayor in Lincoln's storied history.

The question will need to be asked if the election of Davis was a pro-Beth Davis victory or an anti-Ritter mandate. Taking nothing away from Davis nor laying any blame on Ritter, the norm in this state, as well as country, seems to show a mentality to continue to vote incumbents out of office. In a small community such as ours, an incumbent thick in the decision-making process can, with little effort, eventually sway voters in a direction away from continuing to support them. A mayor in Lincoln who makes decisions approved by 90 percent of the constituents still has caused 10 percent of the vote to be at odds with them. After four years those 10 percents can add up to a serious roadblock to being re-elected. Perhaps this is what happened to Joan Ritter, as it did to John Guzzardo, as it did to Pete Andrews.

 

Without judging, I believe it is safe to say that voters are becoming more and more fickle in whom they vote for. More and more, Americans displeased with the way things are, are going to vote someone out of office rather than someone into office. Is this what just occurred in Lincoln? I will let all of you tell me if that is why you voted for Davis or Mesner or Fults or Harlow rather than the incumbent.

On Mayor Ritter's behalf, I believe she stood her guns on many issues that did not win her any popularity contests. I have told her in person she was intractable on some of her positions. This noteworthy trait can be seen as a great strength by those who agreed with her but was viewed as stubborn and narrow-minded by those who disagreed. I personally did not agree with all of our mayor's decisions but never once felt that she did not believe in her heart that she was doing what was best for the community.

 

[to top of second column in this commentary]

I know Beth Davis to be a good person and can find no animosity in my heart to the fact she won the election fair and square. I do have a problem with Davis’ outlook on the mayoral position as well as the 1,309 of you who voted for her. The mayor of Lincoln can let department heads run their various agencies with no argument from me, but what about all the other things a mayor can do for Lincoln? Seminars, luncheons, meetings during the day when issues regarding the well-being of Lincoln are discussed will now, for the first time in 12 years, be without the mayor of Lincoln present. What will we do when a potential business comes to town for a tour and is told so-and-so will show them around because the mayor is working? For all the great things Beth will try to do for Lincoln, and I truly believe she also has our city’s best interests at heart, there are just some things that can’t be done if a person isn’t there.

Ten percent of the registered voters either decided that a part-time Beth Davis is better than a full-time Mayor Ritter or that Lincoln doesn’t need to have a full-time mayor. I disagree with 1,309 of you. Not because you voted for Beth but because you feel a mayor in Lincoln cannot find enough important things to do to fill a 40-hour workweek.

I, like Beth, have a full-time job as well as several part-time avocations. Often I find my full-time career causing my part-time aspirations to suffer. Sometimes it is the other way around, but always I have had to realize I cannot do all things to the best of my ability, because of time constraints. I will not be surprised if, after a few months in office, Beth Davis will also realize that it is impossible for mere mortals like ourselves to be in two places at the same time.

Joan Ritter will go down in history as Lincoln’s first female mayor. Perhaps Beth Davis will come to the realization it is time for Lincoln to have another first — the first full-time mayor in our city’s history.

[Mike Fak]

Click here to comment on this article.

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Gov. Ryan stories just keep coming

By Mike Fak

[MARCH 1, 2001]  I wrote an article last year that stated I believed a person could make a career out of following Gov. Ryan and his escapades in the state's highest office. I was probably only half right. I was only half right, because the continual stories of questionable actions while Ryan was secretary of state are just too juicy for even a novice inscriber to pass up.

There is a definite drawback to covering Gov. Ryan and the stories that seem to have an association with him. The drawback is that in the event you submit an article, which I did last week, and it isn’t run for a few days, a columnist finds himself having to rework the piece to include another new and questionable situation while Gov. Ryan was our secretary of state. This has happened to me before. It seems it has happened again. I do hope LDN decides to run this soon before I have to update my words again.

 

So let’s see what has transpired in the continuing investigations of then-SOS George Ryan. It seems Ryan as secretary of state received moneys from Anthony DeSantis, a land developer, to the tune of $2,500. Our governor finds no problem with the fact he and his wife put the funds in the family checking account and considered those remunerations as just another group of Christmas presents from admirers. DeSantis, it seems, wanted the just-available Illinois vanity plate "217" for the family station wagon and, amazingly, was able to pull off this request. For any of you vanity plate aficionados out there, I’m sure you will agree with me that getting a three-digit plate in Illinois is harder to do than finding Bigfoot in your basement. But maybe we just don’t understand the process. Perhaps it really isn’t that hard. All one needs to do is ignore the $50 request for a vanity plate on the license application and mail the Ryans $2,500 instead.

The governor also is having trouble with those darn campaign spending reports again. You know, the ones that Ryan is constantly updating to include items that his lawyers and accountants forgot to include the first time around. Well, according to the last CSR, Ryan paid Nancy J. Smith, his mother-in-law’s longtime caregiver, $6,000 from his campaign fund for services rendered. The governor says he pays a lot of people for campaign work and leaves the task of who gets what up to his accountants and lawyers. So we are left to believe that Ryan doesn’t know what Smith did for him nor how much she received until reporters reading that doggone campaign spending report brought it to light. The fact that the Ryan family considers Smith like a member of the family after so many years of personal service but is not involved in the doling out of campaign funds to her is just too long a stretch of the imagination for even a dreamer like myself.

 

[to top of second column in this commentary]

The Associated Press has broken a story about a ghost payroller by the name of Philip LaPuma. LaPuma, it seems, has been on the state dole ever since Ryan became secretary of state but has done no work except to raise money for George Ryan’s campaign for governor. LaPuma, while treasurer of the Ryan campaign in a Chicago district, caused area businesses which have to deal with the secretary of state's office on a regular basis to suddenly become enriched with financial enthusiasm toward helping fill Ryan’s gubernatorial coffee can with money. LaPuma, by the admission of several key SOS directors, has never been one to show up for work, fill out reports nor handle any of the backlog of work which, by his hiring, he was supposed to be doing. Ryan, of course, through his damage-control specialist Dennis Culloton, claims never to have heard of the guy, and that is as believable as all four clocks on our county courthouse having the same time showing on them.

Our governor is also miffed with Sen. Peter Fitzgerald for bringing up the reality that a Ryan bid for re-election is so far removed from the realm of possibility that Ryan needs to bow out of the campaign soon to prevent the Republican Party from going down the tubes next gubernatorial election. The governor is grousing that he will decide when and if he will run and doesn’t need an upstart young senator telling him what he should or should not do.

The Democrats in Illinois are delighted with Ryan’s rift with Fitzgerald and half the Republican Party to the point they are already deciding what color the new drapes in the executive mansion should be. A Republican power struggle between an incumbent governor and his party, who wants someone to run who can actually win, will cause a divide in the party that will allow the Democrats to stroll into the executive mansion in 2002.

 

Ryan won’t accept the fact the people of Illinois don’t trust him nor believe him. He refused to notice that President Bush treated him like a typhoid carrier while campaigning in Illinois and that the governor, as head of the Republican effort to elect Bush, delivered the state to Gore. Gov. Ryan does what he wants and doesn’t like anyone to question his decisions, so the likelihood he will run still looks good for those of us seeking an Election Day revenge against him.

Through all of this Ryan continues to conduct business with no instinct that voters find his actions self-serving and pompous. It just doesn’t dawn on him that creating a "Friend of Tourism" award and then giving it to his wife, Lura Lynn, is just another example of his disdain for what the voters of Illinois think is honest and fair-minded.

Ryan really does take the cake. Soon, however, the voters in Illinois will blow out the candles on this man’s political career.

[Mike Fak]

This article is re-published courtesy of www.fakmachine.com.

Click here to comment on this article.

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