Letter to the Editor: Costco, Trader Joe's Coming to Town Never Discussed by Village Board

Early voting (has begun.)  The very important process of picking our leaders for our local governments has a huge impact on how our community will prosper or suffer from good and bad decisions made by our leaders.

How do we know a candidate will make a good community leader?  It is not possible for any leader to always make the right decision in hindsight.  Perfection is impossible.  What standard should a community use to judge whether a candidate is worthy to serve in a leadership position?  

In my opinion, the most important quality above all is good character.   The most obvious character flaw that can be detected in a candidate is the willingness to make false statements to get elected.  It is a further flaw to repeat false statements and refuse to retract them.  

Finally, when a campaign’s supporters are actively engaged in spreading false statements repeatedly in email campaigns, it is clear that this more than a character flaw.  Spreading false statements is their campaign strategy to discredit their opponents by misrepresenting their records. 

There are four candidates who have made repeated false statements about the village board record on business development.  In a nutshell, they claim the village is anti-business and always voting “No” on business development.  As of March 15, the village board has approved all 32 of the last 32 opportunities to support business development.  

You can go on the Oswego Village website and make your own list from the meeting minutes.  These candidates are unhappy that the village board chose to vote “Yes” to support the downtown project with $800,000 in road, water and sewer improvements.  These candidates wanted the board to instead provide more than $10 million in tax money of which the vast majority would be turned into private property to be resold at a large profit.     

Which candidates are repeating these false statements?  Judy Sollinger is running for Oswego Village President.  Gail Johnson, Amanda Mancke and Dave Schlaker are running for Oswego Village Trustee. Judge for yourself the quality of the character of people that continue to make these false statements.  Can you afford to elect people that will say anything to get elected? 

Several residents in the community have sent me copies of the original source disinformation email that was created by Chrisi Vineyard to support these four candidates.  This email made a number of false statements most notably that the village board made it impossible for Costco and Trader Joe’s to come to our community. There has never been a discussion at the village board on either of those two stores.  This can be confirmed in the village minutes and agendas on the village website.  I would encourage you to dismiss any further correspondence from that source of false information. 

I asked Chrisi Vineyard to provide me proof of these claims.  She simply stated that she had information from unnamed township governments outside of Kendall County, that she had 10 years of information, she was working with the Kendall County Democratic Central Committee (KCDCC) and that they had a copy of her information.  She also stated she would not disclose the source of the information or provide me a copy of the information that she claimed substantiated her charges. 

I sent an email to all 6 members of the KCDCC executive board with several specific direct questions.  I also asked if they approved, condoned or disavowed the claims made by Chrisi Vineyard as to their involvement. Their reply was evasive and refused to answer one question.  They even refused to state they were not involved.

Whether you choose to vote early or vote on election day, make your decisions based on accurate facts and the character of the candidates and do not reward candidates with your vote who think that repeating false statements is a good campaign strategy.

Kevin Dombkowski, Oswego