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| Anne Schaible candidate for the 19th Wars. Top Left ( Blue Jacket) |
“Whether it’s one resident or one thousand, I believe we owe it to our fellow residents to appear before them and answer their questions,” Schaible said.
Schaible said she found O’Shea’s statement to be condescending and insulting to her and every resident of the 19 th Ward. She said a call for solutions, answers and transparency is not “silly”. She added that to be an effective Alderman who fights for the best interests of your fellow residents you must engage in public debate day in and day out in the council chamber and there’s nothing silly about that. In a January 13 article in the Beverly Review O’Shea said, “Frankly, I think debates are kind of silly.”
“Public debate is the cornerstone of democracy,” Schaible insisted, “and that Mr. O'Shea honestly believes that public debate is a waste of time is anything but silly, it's disturbing, and it flies in the face of him claiming to want a substantive and issues based campaign. Schaible said two important topics that need to be publicly discussed are the 19 th Ward SSA funds that have made no visible improvement to the ward’s infrastructure and the TIF Funs. She says a very public discussion of these two programs is long overdue.
“Under Mr. O’Shea’s watch we’ve collected these taxes yet we haven’t seen any tangible benefit. Where has the money gone Mr. O’Shea,” Schaible asked. Schaible also called on O’Shea to be truthful about the Campaign Ethics Pledge issue. While the League of Women Voters has put forth an objective Campaign Ethics Pledge, that is not the one O’Shea sent to Schaible. “I completely support the LWV ethics pledge,” explained Schaible, “but what Matt sent me and asked me to sign was his own version of that pledge. I will sign the LWV pledge but not a concocted campaign stunt version that O’Shea created for his own political advantage.
