The same lobbyists that donated to several DuPage County Board members, including Pat O'Shea, Dan Cronin , Robert Larsen and Jim Zay received one year contracts with DuPage County. This is not the first time DuPage County Board members have come under fire for rewarding contracts to those that donate to their campaigns. In January of 2011 nine of the 18 DuPage County Board members handed a no bid contract to Schirott, Luetkehans & Garner P.C. to help redraw the county's electoral map.
Last night the recipients of the contracts that donated to county board members were V.A. Perisco Consulting Inc. who received a $60,000.00 contract for one year. V.A. Perisco has donated to the campaigns of Pat O'Shea, Dan Cronin, Robert Larsen and Jim Zay. The concern with All Circo is that John Kelly, Jr. is the owner and his wife Julie is an unpaid volunteer for Dan Cronin.
Besides the fact that some of these contracts have the appearance of impropriety is there true need for these lobbyists. DuPage County Board member Dirk Enger said it best last night, I don't have the exact wording but his point was, who is better than the elected official at advocating on behalf of the citizens.
I agree with Dirk Enger. It should be the job of the DuPage County Board member to lobby on behalf of those that elected him. We heard last night from Don Puchalski who disagreed with Mr. Enger. He said something to the effect that they are powerless, we don't have the connections to get the job done and we heard more of the same from JR McBride.
Mr. Puchalski and Mr. McBride what are we paying you for?
The only way to guarantee that those officials will work for the voters is to ban campaign donations from anyone but a registered voter, and cap donations at an amount affordable to anyone eligible to vote.
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