County Updates

This post has a couple updates from the County Executive on what that office does and announcing applications for the next term of the County's Supervisor of Assessment, currently occupied by Paula Bates, who is likely to also be in consideration to continue in that role. There's also an update on some local party politics with the County Board Chairman and the District 8 primary race versus challenger Emily Rodriguez.

The County Executive was in the news with an explanation of her job as the County Executive. We've added her description to our Executive page on the Cheat Sheet to help people understand the new Executive form of government the County is organized under. Although there has been a recent local push to go back to the old form of County government with a hired administrator instead. More on that here.

The County Executive is also accepting applications for the currently occupied position of County Supervisor of Assessments. From the News-Gazette last week:

Champaign County Executive Darlene Kloeppel is advertising for a county supervisor of assessments, though current Supervisor of Assessments Paula Bates said Friday she wasn’t planning to resign or retire...

Kloeppel said she assumes Bates will be among those who will apply for the upcoming term...

Bates has been supervisor of assessments in Champaign County for nearly four years. She was appointed in April 2016, and before that, was supervisor of assessments in Piatt County and chief deputy supervisor of assessments in Champaign County.

That full article here. More details on the appointment requirements and the February 21st deadline to apply here. For general information and links on County appointments, see our Appointments page here.


County Board District 8 Primary Race Update:

The Champaign County Democratic Party has continued to put its divisions on public display lately, and especially in the Champaign County Board District 8 race. The last Cheat Sheet update on that race highlighted a candidate forum where the incumbent and County Board Chairman compared other County Democrats to Cuban communists. Other updates on the party divisions on appointments, diversity concerns, and insinuations of racism in a contentious January here.

This time, Chairman Giraldo Rosales had put on his campaign website, a message citing Joseph Goebbels to warn voters about propaganda coming from either party. The full message appeared to many, including his local Democratic rivals, to be lumping his local Democratic rivals in with Trump supporters and their tactics reminiscent of Goebbel's propaganda. He went described Trump and those who carry out his agenda "our collective enemy."

He's edited that page and added a clarification insisting that he opposes attacks on fellow Democrats and rejecting interpretations that suggested he did so:

Unfortunately, I have had to edit this page because its original message was gleefully taken out-of-context and reinterpreted with opinions that did not remotely reflect my overarching message--a message that was intended to promote self education, understanding issues and not relying on hearsay to feed and fester false narratives as Trump has apparently done during his reign as commander-in-chief. Taking truth and making it unrecognizable --and his version of Democracy as a banality of normalcy, instead.
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What separates Democrats from the Party of Trump is that we work from righting wrongs and establishing equity both locally, nationally and globally.
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If anyone misunderstood the spirit and scope of my original text--I am clarifying now. We, as Democrats should not attack one another--I will not participate in attacks against Democrats. Regardless if we disagree--or not-- about our approach to uphold our Democratic Platform and Preambles--in the end, as Democrats, we are aligned by those basic beliefs.

Full edited page available here. A screenshot of the previous version is available below (click to enlarge) and a snip of the original text below that. I leave it to the reader to decide if they can parse the opposition to and denial of attacking other Democrats with either the current or previous version of the text. For his opponents, they read an accusation of using Nazi tactics leveled against them, or at least a clear and direct implication of the same:

Screenshot (click to enlarge):

Text snippet:

From what I've been able to understand thus far, this was his response to criticisms of his working with Republicans on the board to gain the Chairmanship, on some policy votes, and on some appointment advisory issues. He believes it shows that he's a Democrat who can act independently and pragmatically in the interests of his constituents. Many other Democrats on the board believe he has been thwarting a mandate by their constituents for Democratic policies on the County Board after overwhelming victories in the last midterm.

For voters new to local party politics in the primary, it may be impossible to explain all of the perspectives involved without getting to know the party players and attending organizational meetings where the concerns and personalities interact and sometimes clash. I have a brief overview on the Cheat Sheet here, in my best attempt to describe the party politics objectively. I encourage listening to other perspectives and coming to your own conclusions.