Qualifications of an Elected Official

What qualifications do you feel an elected official in Bolingbrook must posses? 

Does the educational degrees factor? 
What about length of residency? 
Does having children assist in qualification? 
What about careers? 
Publishing's?
Knowledge of IL Laws?
What about general ability to serve others, rather then oneself?

So we took a look at the last two elections to determine what qualifications are necessary in Bolingbrook, since this has been a hot topic in the last two years.

Local positions have the following requirements by law.  You must be 18 years of age.  You must be a US citizen.  You must be a resident of the village for one year up to the election and a registered voter.  The law does not state any of the above questions need to be answered.

So when did Bolingbrook residents lose control? 
We took a look at who has run for elections recently and who is sitting in office.  Sure, some of the Trustees have "High School Diploma's" and not much else.  Sure they are long time residents.  So why would their political team attack credentials of candidates running against them?  Credentials that make their credentials look like nothing?  It is called political madness in Bolingbrook. 

They created a political attack against likely candidates to mud sling, and finding nothing to attack the candidates on, they stomped on high education and high work experience.  This is what we would call "a "stupid" move.  Did they never think we would point out their lack of education or work experience?

For example, look again at the questions stated above.  Now compare this to Bonnie who held a Phd abd, has lived in Bolingbrook for over 30 years, is a mother of two, knows her laws, is well published and her careers are working in the Fortune 10 as a top leader.  Does this not rank as the highest levels one could achieve according to those questions above? 

So the attackers drive this frenzy to question her PhD in hopes it would dissuade voters.  They forget that none of the other Trustees hold this high of degrees.  Matter of fact, they don't even hold a Master's like she has.  So they focused their attack for having a PhD, abd.  Regardless, a PhD abd means she took all her PhD coursework and passed all her comprehensive exams, which less then .5% of the population is able to do.  They failed to inform people that she was still finishing her publishing, and has since then.  Yet, the same people promoted Mr. Mitchem who was told to go back to school to get his degrees.  Whereas Bonnie had essentially finished her degree and passed all her exams.  It was her choice if she wished to pursue another publishing.  It had nothing to do with quitting, not making it, or other words they told people.  This lie spiralled out of control for the past two years.

Many residents stupidly jumped on this bandwagon and joined in, forgetting that the other elected officials running against her held only High School Diploma's.  It was an effective campaign for the other team, but would only stand to hurt other Republicans future chances of running for office.  Now they have set the standards that people that run must hold full PhD's, plus hold all other requirements that Bonnie held in order to run, plus some.  So now we have these "Bonnie haters" running around, all stewed up by false information supplied during an election, and they don't even know why they hate her.  It is because they jumped on the bandwagon without opening their eyes.

These band wagoners never stopped to look at qualifications of whom they were voting for and only did what they were told to do when voting, which was vote incumbent.  They became rubber stamp voters to match the rubber stamped Trustees they voted for. 

Now let's look at Bob Bowen.  Bob is a top exec for a Fortune 500 company and holds a Master's Degree.  Rhonda Reed Slaughter also holds an Accounting degree.  Joe Napionello holds a Master's degree.  All these individuals were higher qualified and hold more workplace experience then the trustees that have a high school education.  Right?  Did they get voted in?  Nope.

Let's look at the incumbents. 
Leroy Brown's education states an Arkansas College but no degrees earned.  He holds a high school diploma, and is the deputy mayor and head of school security, making big bucks on tax payers. 

Carol Penning holds a high school diploma.  AKA, she holds a high school diploma and makes $70K or so a year.

Pat Shanks holds a high school diploma.

Rick Morales holds a BA degree

Joseph Morelli holds a high school diploma and something called a degree in tooling at a manufacturing institute, which does not state a BA/BS degree.

Mike Lawler holds a high school diploma and has studied communications, but no degree is listed.

Sanda Swinkunas holds a BA in Education and a Masters in Gifted Education.

So to sum it up, 5 of the 7 elected officials that criticized Bonnie's PhD, Bob and Joe's Masters all held high school diploma's.  The other two held degrees irrelevant to their duties.

So the next election, stakes will be high and people will know that the one's running Bolingbrook are not highly educated.  People will also know that those that jumped on the band wagon criticising one's education when they held lower educational achievements, will be seen as ignorant. 

And people wonder why we defended the candidates?  Because they were more qualified to serve the residents in every way, not just in education, but experience and servitude.