If I want to look into the camera and talk to the people I can do that. My concern for using my toy poodle and the other dogs of Elgin as a revenue generator has helped keep the council from taxing our dogs.

They could have used the pit bull incident as an excuse to tax all dogs but they know how much I am opposed and how I would remind all the voters before the election of who wanted to tax our dogs.

You are a much better person when you are helping the family of that soldier who had a bathroom that needed repairing. I would urge you to do more of that type of service rather than trying to criticize me for singing against taxing our dogs with George Harrison’s The Tax Man lines and looking out into the crowd and the camera.

Peace to all.

Soon after, it becomes apparent that the content of the post is not the significant portion. Rather, it’s the branding of the name that becomes important followed by the need to spout off the topic and focuis more on the writer than the topic.

I shamefully refer to it as the Oprah Syndrome.

Maybe 99% of this site doesn’t have a starved ego.

I don’t agree with Mike’s politics a lot of the time but I too like him as a person.

Mike stuck up for me one time when Tom Sandor tried to muzzle me after a council meeting so to speak after I spoke at a council meeting taking the city council to task.

Peace to all.

This is one of the most historic photos in Elgin’s history. If Elgin has some kind of historical society, they really need this shot. To understand its significance you have to know the man on the right, John Cullerton. Cullerton is the living embodiment of the Chicago Machine. White guy, Loyola lawyer practicing in all the clout areas of “government relations,” zoning, licensing and real estate assessments, he also passes his time as a registered lobbyist. All the basic activities commonly found among the Chicago-style “public servant.” But that’s not all,… Mr. Cullerton also maintains business relationships with State Sen. Jimmy DeLeo, who managed to avoid any hard time and got probation in the fallout from the Operation Greylord scandal (refresh your memory on that scandal if you are thinking of putting a Democrat on the Kane Co. judiciary). You can almost feel the warm pleasure radiating from the shining faces of Mike Noland and Ed Schock at their good favor at falling within the presence of such a man.

But the historical character of this photo does not lie in its showing the normally sullen and thuggish Noland with a smile. It lies in capturing the moment when Mayor Ed Schock beamingly surrenders Elgin to the Chicago Machine’s emissary. Here we have the culmination of Ed’s busy life and commitment to making Elgin just another Chicago “neighborhood” like Englewood, Pilsen, Humboldt Park… Of course, Ed would graciously concede that he could not have done it alone and would generously point to all those names endorsing John G. Dalton and Michael Noland as vital to the project. Let’s just credit them all for meeting the Machine prerequsites. Destroyed public schools? Check. Illegal alien sanctuary? Check. Huge unemployment? Check. Massive, ethnically-divided non-white poverty? Check. Violent gang activity? Check. Empty storefronts? Check. All the pieces in place for Elgin to move from an independent American community to just another ghetto cog in the Chicago Machine. And to think that the moment was recorded here on the Elginite blog.