Briefly:
Geneva home rule? Not while I’m still breathing!
It’s one thing to make the kind of bond payment error that forces you to withdraw a referendum because no Genevan will foist a $400 property tax hike upon themselves regardless of the ballot question.
But it’s another thing entirely for those progressive councilwomen to somehow believe they can get a new police station, a new fire station, and home rule – all at the same time. Not only does it demonstrate their absurd political naivete, but it proves something this reporter has been saying for years. Aldercreatures:
- Martha Paschke (The head incompetent loon)
- Anais Bowring
- Becky Hruby, and
- Amy Mayer
have convinced themselves their job is to represent themselves and not the constituents who elected them. They must’ve slept through their high school civics classes.
Now, I don’t think home rule will pass here regardless, but because those pompous ladies insist on underestimating me, let me make one thing perfectly clear. As long as I’m fucking breathing, home rule will NEVER pass in Geneva. And I fully intend to keep breathing – right here in my favorite hometown – for a very long time.
Given its sub-25,000 population, home rule would have to be approved at the polls. And if Genevans are dumb enough to vote for it (never underestimate them, either), it would provide the city council with the power to issue bonds and levy taxes without asking us first.
Put more simply, if you think your taxes are high now, just wait until they pass home rule.
Ah! But unlike Blanche, I’m not willing to rely on the kindness of strangers, so I’ve already lined up the financing to defeat any such measure. My readers tell me I’m kind of slow, but I do have a 75 percent winning political campaign track record. So, to the progressive ladies of the Geneva City Council, Mayor Burns, and City Manager Dawkins, I assure you that: not only will I dedicate the $5,000 to $10,000 already promised, but no amount of consultant-based city messaging will ever match mine.
My advice would be to let home rule go because it WON’T happen here in my lifetime.
And speaking of City messaging…
The absurd irony is this journalist has been more effective in advocating for a new police station – in one column – than the entire City of Geneva and their nitwit consultants combined. And they had a six-month head start, too! They seem to think that all they need to do is issue one stilted telephone push poll and the voters will swoon at their feet.
Those useless $20,000 “consultants” told the council to insert the bond issue into a smaller consolidated election cycle because the older, more conservative voters would blissfully go for any law enforcement initiative. That may have been (somewhat) true before COVID, but it certainly ain’t the case now.
How do I know this? Because unlike Mayor Burns, City Manager Dawkins, and the council loons, I pay attention to history to avoid repeating it. And that history is the measurably more conservative backwater of Elburn, Illinois, voted down a far less expensive police station in 2023, despite their semi-fascist village board’s best efforts to pass it.
So, what makes Geneva think they’re the exception?
And when I said, “not effectively messaging,” here’s what I meant. I was all set to write about how I’ve been through most of that facility (Don’t ask!), and between those areas and the station entrance, everything looked brand new. So, why do we need a new building?
But then I spoke with one City individual who convinced me of the error of my ways in just five minutes. AND I WROTE ABOUT IT, TOO! But instead of running with it, Geneva petulantly refused to make a similar case because they love killing the messenger. Especially if that messenger is me. And the absence of any message would’ve doomed the bond question even if it wasn’t withdrawn for some exceptionally poor math.
What I really want to say right now is, “fucking idiots,” but that wouldn’t be nice, so I won’t.
But Campton Hills is even worse!
Hard to believe isn’t it? I keep trying to tell you there’s something in the water out there, but nobody listens.
First, the village board censured trustee Janet Burson for leaking the contents of executive sessions and abusing elected officials.
My theory is, if it weren’t for elected folks cluing me in on those private meetings, my journalistic career might have been downright mediocre. Not that it’s much to write home about to begin with. Then there’s the reasonable contention that elected officials need to be abused simply by virtue of choosing to become an elected official.
But that feat paled in comparison to that same board appointing blowhard Kane County GOP Chairman Andro Lerario to their planning and zoning commission. You remember Andro! He’s the Party chairman who owes $44,000 in back taxes. And after he ignored all their love letters, the IRS slapped a lien on his house, too.
What could possibly go wrong with that scenario?

I gave my long-time friend and Village President Barb Wojnicki fair warning that The First Ward would not take this sitting down, but she has, so far, refused to do the right thing.
So, Barb! Please consider this to be my opening salvo in the promised offensive against this abundantly poor choice. Should tax cheat Lerario continue to serve on that commission, I will come out of semi-retirement and I will be relentless.
And if that’s how I treat a friend, imagine what I’d do to the rest of you motherfuckers in a similar circumstance.
Oh! And let’s not forget that if Treasurer Chris Lauzen owed the IRS as little as 50 cents, the abysmal Kane County Chronicle would make it headline news for a week. But they haven’t begun to cover errant planning commission Lerario.
Why? Because Andro is Breda Schory’s imaginary boyfriend and she’s terrified he’ll virtually dump her if they do. Have I said cancel your subscription to the Chronicle if you haven’t already?
The rapid descent of the ECC Blizzard Theatre accelerates!
My lovely wife and I just received the “spring events” mailer from ECC’s Blizzard Theatre. To say the possibilities continue to suck would do avast disservice to suckage everywhere. But why listen to me re-ramble on about this topic when a friend put it so perfectly!
I just got their upcoming shows schedule in the mail the other day and thought, from the likes of Graham Nash and Suzanne Vega to this crap?! Who wants to see an imitation Ferrante and Teicher piano duo, or some African ‘healing dancers’ in garb straight out of a 1957 National Geographic magazine?
My sentiments exactly! And they keep lowering their ticket prices, too, because no one’s showing up to these “shows.”
So much for my legendary brevity. And now it’s back to semi-retirement.