Requests to Governor Pritzker Analyzed

After a month under Governor Pritzker's executive order known as the "stay at home" order whereby Illinois' non-essential businesses were closed, threatening the financial livelihood of people and businesses alike, area mayors are antsy to begin opening up their respective economies.  As a result, several letters have been written to the governor asking for relief from the order.

The two letters focused on in this post will be the letter Rockford Mayor Thomas McNamara sent on April 14th and the letter sent by Stephenson County mayors; Jodi Miller, Freeport; Shawn Cox, Cedarville; Jason Knox, Dakota; Robert Knoup, Pearl City; Kim Kopp, Ridott; Charles Halbleib, Rock City; Leroy Wernet, Winslow; Dennis Bergman, Lena and Michael Siedschlag, Orangeville.

These letters were chosen as they both ask the governor for completely different things.  Mayor McNamara asks for "modifications" of the executive order.  The request from the Stephenson County mayors ask Governor Pritzker: "if you are considering extending any statewide restrictions beyond April 30th, we strongly request that you allow each community or region, that knows their businesses, their people, and the COVID impact on their community to make proper decisions on reopening businesses."

Let's look at Mayor McNamara's letter first.  The mayor's main point is that, "Big box stores are posting record profits, while the 'mom and pop' stores are sadly going insolvent."

The Rockford mayor requests a modification to the executive order to "Allow all non-essential retail businesses to provide curbside pickup for online and phone orders as part of their Minimum Basic Operations, while recommending appropriate health measures be taken."  He also would like any modification to "Allow all outdoor garden centers to remain open."   Among the measures suggested by the mayor are "curbside transactions be contact free" and that "employees wear masks" and patrons should stay in their cars as much as possible as well as employees have their temperatures taken at the beginning and middle of their shifts.

Mayor McNamara stated that "allowing big box stores to keep their non-essential departments open for business, while requiring standalone stores to close, we are encouraging more people to congregate at a select few stores."  The mayor also asked that if the governor could not "enact these changes for small businesses, we request that you close all non-essential departments of big box stores including clothing sections, she departments, garden centers, etc.  We urge you to act on these recommendations to help save our local businesses, which are the backbone of every community in Illinois."

Tutty found Mayor McNamara's letter straight to the point with a single focus...trying to save his "mom and pop" businesses and asked for nothing that would not apply to his neighbors.  However, please don't take that to imply Tutty agrees with  Mayor McNamara, Tutty is no pandemic expert but found no questionable statements in the mayor's missive to the governor.

The letter sent from the Stephenson County mayors was written on City of Freeport letter head therefore, for clarity, Tutty will refer to it as the "Freeport letter".  But please remember it was approved and signed by all the above named mayors.

The mayors are rightly concerned about their constituents economic well being.  However their approach may need some work for the following reasons.  The Freeport letter states, "Thousands of employees who work n the restaurant, service, event logistics, nonessential retail, gyms, salons, and child care industries are being unnecessarily harmed."  The Freeport letter states that the mayors have had numerous people ask, "if social distancing is working in big box stores, then why can't the same social distancing measures be safely applied to small businesses?"

While not wanting to minimize the economic damage to our people and communities, Tutty is not convinced that it has been "unnecessary."  Secondly, how does anyone know "social distancing is working" have we had enough testing to actually know that as fact?  Again, Tutty is no healthcare expert but either are any of the local municipal leaders that signed the Freeport letter.

The Freeport letter asks that if the executive order is extended past April 30th that Governor Pritzker "allow each community or region, that know their businesses, their people, and the COVID impact on their community to make the proper decisions on opening businesses."  The letter states that "Stephenson County is not Cook County" and that "counties like ours have a different culture that, by nature, normally utilizes social distancing."  Wow, Tutty thought about some of our cultural events in Freeport---Music on Chicago, Cruise Night, Pretzel City Beerfest and of course the Stephenson County Fair.  Do we really utilize social distancing?  But a larger stretch of the truth was the mayors' collective assertion that "most of our dining options are laid out at distances greater than 6 feet apart."  Can Tutty get a list of those places please?

The Freeport letter asks Governor Pritzker to "Please consider these common sense modifications to the Executive order giving counties or regions the autonomy to enact local self-determination for social distancing measures and protocol."  While sounding good the effectiveness of such an arrangement could be be a logistical challenge.  Because "regions" are not defined by statute that's just not feasible at present.  Letting every jurisdiction set their own protocols would be a mess.  Travelling down Rte. 73 from Lena to Lanark you could have five different sets of protocols, three municipalities and two counties.

Tutty thinks it is obvious that the Freeport letter was approved by part time mayors with very little real experience in public policy much less public health.

While I believe the Stephenson County mayors in the Freeport letter have very good intentions, none of them are well versed in a pubic health crisis that even the experts find daunting. Secondly, they offered no real plan to prevent the spread of COVID, they basically just said let us do what we want.

What's more, these mayors need to put much greater effort into reviewing what they put forth for public discernment.  The most glaring error in their letter to Governor Pritzker was found in the first sentence of the their letter which reads, "On behalf of Northern Illinois Communities of the greater Freeport region we are writing about the impact of Executive Order Number 8".  Actually the stay at home order was Executive Order 2020-10.  Executive Order 2020-08 involved Secretary of State operations.

Such a glaring mistake, sure to jump out to whoever on the governor's team reads the original letter next, makes a body wonder if these Stephenson County mayors have even bothered reading Governor Pritzker's executive orders.  How can nine elected officials miss what jumped right out to Tutty if in fact they've done their diligence and studied the executive orders?  Such official sloppiness just doesn't look good from people that purport to have our best interest at heart.

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker  tutty.baker@gmail.com

  

Northwest Illinois Values?

Tutty believes in being as honest as possible when it comes to speaking or writing in public.  The public must have good information if this democracy experiment is to be successful.  The public, in Tutty's opinion, should be able to expect at least an attempt by local officials to be forthright in every occasion.

Unfortunately, in the day social media, bluster, phoniness and personal attacks have taken the place of quality public discourse. Tangible facts are thrown out the window as half-truths and out and out lies pervade the news feeds of everyone's social media accounts.

That said, Tutty believes that the Stephenson County Republican Central Committee (SCRCC) as well as State Representative Andrew Chesney owe our U.S. House of Representative, Cheri Bustos, a public apology.

This past Thursday the SCRCC shared a post on Facebook which stated, "Cheri Bustos unloads Stock (sic) impacted by COVID!"  The SCRCC, for attribution, relied upon a post from Mr. Chesney with the claim, "Congresswoman Cheri Bustos dumps Stocks (sic) impacted by COVID-19 after private briefing!"

Mr. Chesney, in an effort to support these claims linked a Breitbart article to his post. Here is a link to the Breitbart article:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/02/dccc-chair-unloaded-upwards-50k-stock-coronavirus-briefing/?fbclid=IwAR0XGXwkrhsAGH9D5cMyDTDo7eENOXEHhuJPv5iceNIxoQ86aNa1-Bhv4HQ

Let's forget the fact that Breitbart is not objective, and leans so far right as to defy gravity.  However, even this article provides nothing about Ms. Bustos behavior worthy of public mention and completely fails to support its own sensational headline alleging wrong doing by a member of congress.

The article states that Ms. Bustos, "sold off between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of stock in the Walt Disney Company on February 10, according to financial disclosure forms.  The sale was accompanied by a purchase in the same amount of shares of the retail giant Target" and that the Congresswoman's action took place after she was "privy to briefings from Trump administration officials regarding the pandemic."  A long confusing paragraph later the article starts a new paragraph with, "It is unclear if Bustos did attend the briefing."

In the first place, the article that Mr. Chesney--and by default the Stephenson County Republican Central Committee--used to support their claim of alleged wrong doing by Congresswoman Bustos corroborates no such thing.  Secondly.  Ms. Bustos, per the article, did not "dump" or "unload" any stocks as both Mr. Chesney and the SCRCC claim.  She traded one stock, Walt Disney, for another, Target. For the record, shares in both stocks have taken a beating in the days since the trade.

Perhaps local Republican Illinois Senator Brian Stewart and his political party mates, Sheriff David Snyders and State's Attorney Carl Larson should look into this matter and if  Mr. Chesney's allegations prove to be unfounded, there should be a public apology issued to Congresswoman Bustos.  Surely your constituents and hers are worthy of the truth.

Representative Chesney repeatedly cites  "Northwest Illinois Values" on his Facebook page.  Well gentlemen, now is your chance to prove that public integrity is one of those values.

As always, yours in honesty, Tutty Baker  tutty.baker@gmail.com