Illinois Speaks in Peotone: No fans of ‘dirty’ politics

Posted 10-17-2006 at RRStar.com

PHOTOS BY JON GIFFIN | ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR Kathy Logan, owner of Lucky Horseshoe Cafe in Peotone, says she likes incumbent Gov. Rod Blagojevich. She admits there is corruption in Illinois politics, but she doesn’t place the blame on the governor. She likes the All Kids health-insurance plan, but says the third airport — proposed for Peotone nearly a decade ago — is not needed. Published: October 17, 2006 Local News Illinois Speaks in Peotone: No fans of ‘dirty’ politics Residents find their small-town status is slowly slipping away. http://www.rrstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061017/NEWS/110170040 By Chuck Sweeny ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR Click here for more information about Chuck Sweeny PEOTONE — Sherri Parker will definitely vote in the Nov. 7 election, but her opinion of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Judy Baar Topinka, his Republican opponent, is lower than low: “I think they both seem dirty, that neither one is a qualified candidate, and at this point I’d vote for the Green Party,” said Parker, who manages Judi’s Shear Pleasure, a cozy little beauty shop in this village, just a few miles south of the ever-outward march of Chicagoland. Parker admitted she doesn’t know much about Rich Whitney, the Green candidate, “but he’s got to be better than what we have already.” Parker, who is 43 but doesn’t look it, said one politician she’s tempted to trust is U.S. Sen. Barack Obama. She’d just heard on the radio that the freshman Democrat from Chicago might run for president in 2008.

“He appears to be an honest person it seems he has the best interest at heart. He’s not out for himself or what the party can do; he’s looking at what’s best on the whole,” she said.

Airport a sore spot

As do other people the Register Star talked to Monday, Parker opposes the proposed nearby airport being planned by the state.

“I’m not interested in having that. We moved out to Peotone to have a nice, quiet area to raise our kids. I’m not interested in having a plane rushing overhead. Our schools are so badly overcrowded already, and the village is planning to build more homes, and I don’t know how we’re going to educate the kids we have, much less what’s planned to come,” Parker said.

Peotone is a village frozen in time but rapidly thawing out. It boasts a rarity in the land of the strip mall: a fully functioning downtown with a variety of home-owned stores, offices, cafes and a bowling alley. People know their neighbors. But they also know change is coming in the form of hundreds of new homes being built nearby, and that makes them uneasy, for the newcomers don’t seem to want to become part of the old Peotone.

“People who come here don’t understand small-town life. They build their $2 million homes on the outskirts of town and they don’t fit in. They have no intention of fitting in,” said Mary Lou Clausing, office manager of Lyle Carstens Pekin Insurance agency, where she’s worked for 27 years.

Clausing of nearby Manhattan has experienced the pains of growth: Over the years, the property taxes on her 100-year-old home have skyrocketed, from $275 a year to $4,000. The Metra commuter railroad has recently been extended into her community, accelerating change by making it more convenient for people to work in the city and live on its far edge.

Clausing shares the disgust of other Peotone area residents interviewed about the governor’s race.

Blagojevich, she said, is “borderline (George) Ryan graft. He’s a little bit too smooth for his own good. I just don’t believe a thing he says. Topinka makes me ashamed to be a woman. She just comes off as a bitch. She doesn’t strike me as a politically viable person to run anything. Go home and get out of the public eye for awhile because you aren’t doing anybody any favors,” Clausing said. She, too, has considered voting for the Green Party, but isn’t sure that makes sense.

Clausing isn’t a fan of the proposed airport, either: “I don’t think it’ll ever happen.”

Some just don’t vote

Carpenter Tim Bastic, 24, said he’s tired of hearing about the airport since he was in the sixth grade. Bastic, of Peotone, said he doesn’t follow politics and was not ashamed to say, “I’ve never voted. It’s not going to make a difference in my world.”

What would it matter, Bastic said, if he were to go to a meeting and express his opinion against the airport to government and business leaders?

“I’m a nobody. To these people, I don’t even speak English.”

At the Lucky Horseshoe Cafe, owner Kathy Logan of Beecher likes Blagojevich. Sure, there’s corruption in Illinois politics, but she didn’t place blame on the governor.

“The woman (Topinka) I don’t like her at all. She was with Ryan, and she’s going to think like Ryan. Blagojevich is his own person. I think it’s good that the young kids that don’t have anything got insurance,” she said, referring to the governor’s All Kids health insurance plan.

Logan said, “I don’t think we need it” when asked about the airport. “I think it’s all political. The people out here don’t want it. These people have had these farms three, four, five generations. And the airlines don’t want to come here.”

However, Logan thinks the airport eventually will be built, and then, “the whole town will be gone, because the outskirt areas are going to be for UPS, Fed Ex, places that need fast access to airplanes. They say the airport is going to be international, for heavy cargo.”

Logan’s brother is in the Air Force and headed to Iraq, and she said she doesn’t think the U.S. should be in that country, because “it’s going to be non-ending. It’s a shame to see the way those people are. U.S. people don’t live like that.”

Susan Mosher, 42, is so dismayed with the political class that she won’t vote this year, “because they’re all corrupt. They’re all for the airport, and we’re against it.” Mosher, who owns Suzi’s Saloon, said she doesn’t understand how the state can be in deficit considering the amount of money people pay in taxes.

“What about the lottery? They take all that money and where’s all those taxes going to? It’s a joke. It’s just corrupt, corrupt, corrupt.”

Resigned to change

Jim Fox, owner of Peotone Quick Lube and Tire, will vote for Blagojevich because “he is the lesser of two evils. I voted for him the first time.”

Fox, 46, doesn’t think Illinois politics will ever be cleaned up. “It’s not just Illinois. It’s everywhere. Whenever there’s that kind of money, there’s a lot of corruption. There’s a lot of corruption in business, anytime there’s big money involved.”

Fox likes Peotone the way it is, and doesn’t want an airport. He’s not losing sleep over it, though.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever see it in my lifetime. It’s already been going on for 20-some years, and nothing’s been done. Another 20 years, who knows? But I guess it’s one of those things that you wake up one morning and there it is,” said Fox, who estimated that Peotone folks are divided 50-50 on the merits of having a huge airport in the village backyard.

Political Editor Chuck Sweeny can be reached at 815-987-1372 or csweeny@rrtar.com.

Copyright © 2006 Rockford Register Star.