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My wife, Penny, and I have been married for over 20 years. We have
lived in Lincoln for almost 15 years with our three children,
Ashley, Reid and Kenton. Penny is a registered nurse with Abraham
Lincoln Memorial Hospital. She works in the Cardiopulmonary
Rehabilitation Unit. Our daughter, Ashley, is a student at ISU in
Bloomington. Our older son, Reid, is a freshman at Lincoln High
School. Our youngest, Kenton, is a seventh-grader at Lincoln Junior
High. Our family also consists of two Siamese cats and two very
spoiled basset hounds. My family and I are all members of local
Christian churches. My sons, Penny and I are members of Jefferson
Street Christian Church. My daughter is a member of Lincoln
Christian Church. Shortly after graduating from high school I
joined the Marine Corps. I was honorably discharged from the Marines
after severing for four years. I attended college on the GI Bill,
earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Olivet Nazarene
University in Kankakee. I applied to be a trooper with the Illinois
State Police approximately two years after graduating from college.
Upon acceptance I attended the State Police Academy. Once
commissioned as a trooper, I was assigned to the toll road in the
Chicago area. I worked on the toll road as a road trooper for the
next two years.
In the late '80s, I decided to go back to college. I took a leave
of absence from the state police to attend law school at Northern
Illinois University, College of Law. During my sabbatical from the
state police, I was transferred to the Illinois State Police
District 7 office in Rock Island County. I graduated from law school
in 2 1/2 years and returned to the state police. After returning to
work I served in District 7 as a road trooper until the results of
the bar exam were posted. Upon passing the bar exam and being sworn
as a licensed attorney, I was reassigned to the state police legal
office in Springfield.
I have worked in the state police's legal office for more than 10
years. While in the legal office, I completed a graduate law degree
at The John Marshall Law School. The actual degree is an LL.M. in
information technology. I left the legal office as the deputy chief
legal counsel and transferred to the department's Medicaid Fraud
Control Bureau, where I commanded a unit of investigators and
support staff for more than 3 1/2 years. This bureau's cases are
generally white-collar crimes and cases involving criminal abuse of
residents in long-term care facilities. I supervised approximately
40 personnel, most of whom were investigators. Approximately eight
months ago, I was transferred back to headquarters to work as an
attorney.
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 The following are some of the reasons I'm seeking a
position on the county board. I have been concerned about the manner
in which the animal shelter has been handling their
responsibilities. The shelter's hours are not amenable to working
families being able to go there to adopt the pets. It is only open a
few hours during weekdays, which are the same hours that most people
work. The shelter has not been keeping these animals alive long
enough to have a reasonable chance at being adopted. My concerns
prompted me to attend a meeting at Einstein's a couple months ago
regarding the animal control issue. Pat O'Neill was there. Someone
at the meeting told the crowd something like, if you disagree with
how things are going run, for a seat yourself, and went on to
indicate that there was still time to get the petitions completed to
put a candidate's name on the ballot. The next day I picked up
petitions. The recent letter to the editor in The Courier by Dr.
Hepler demonstrates the problem. He found a dog and turned it into
the shelter. When he called back the next day to check on the dog,
it had already been put down. According to Dr. Hepler the dog was
fine when he dropped it off at the shelter. I know others have
disputed the health of the dog, but they are the ones who killed it
and have a vested interest in saying the dog was sick. Now there is
no way of knowing whether the dog was sick or not, because it is
dead.
Animal control is not the only issue. It seems to me, the Logan
County Board promised to do a great deal for Sysco Corporation to
entice them to move to Logan County. As an outside observer, it
appears that what the public was led to believe regarding the number
of jobs to be created in Logan County and the salary level of those
jobs was different from what we are being told about those jobs now.
Now we are trying to entice another business to locate an ethanol
plant in Logan County. At some level, the feasibility of this
proposed ethanol plant being located in Logan County depends on an
adequate road being constructed between the interstate and the plant
site. However, the county board has obligated a great deal of the
money to the Sysco deal, to the point of running a deficit budget,
and there appears to be no money for building this needed road.
I believe in family values, fiscal responsibility and honesty. I
believe that it is extremely important for people in the government
to be honest with the people they serve. I think governmental
transparency is one of the best means of guaranteeing honesty and
integrity on the part of government officials.
I believe I am well-qualified to be on the county board. I am a
dedicated public servant. I have served my country as a Marine and
my state as a police officer. I am a licensed attorney with a great
deal of experience in applying the law to public policy and
government. When the Illinois State Police transferred me to
Springfield almost 15 years ago, my family and I chose to live in
Logan County. We do not regret the decision to live here in any way.
[Michael D. McIntosh] |
