Kids have homework.
Teachers have their own, grading those assignments, usually after school is dismissed or at home.
Workers in the private sector often take planning sheets home in preparation for the next day on the job.
Apparently, some of Waukegan’s elected officials need to do some of their own homework.
Certainly, 2nd Ward Ald. Jose Guzman is one of those. Perhaps he needs a back-to-school primer on what homework entails for an elected official.
One would think one of those provisions alders would familiarize themselves with are the various quasi-official boards and committees, and those who serve on them — often without pay — that help run a city of about 100,000.
Like the Waukegan Housing Authority.
After all, that’s an unwritten part of an aldermanic job description. Yet, Guzman, who successfully stalled renaming three incumbent WHA commissioners earlier this month to new board terms, surprisingly said he’s never met any of them.
This despite the incumbent trio — WHA board Chair Eleanor Murkey, Vice-Chair Michelle Obleton and commissioner Kittie Harden — serving multiple terms on the board, which oversees the city’s wide array of affordable housing options for low-income families, persons with disabilities, homeless veterans and senior citizens.
Indeed, he admitted in a Nov. 22 front-page News-Sun story by Steve Sadin that he wasn’t even familiar with the incumbents’ qualifications or backgrounds.
“I have no idea who they are,” Guzman told Sadin. “I’ve never met them.”
The same must be true of 4th Ward Ald. Victor Felix, 6th Ward Ald. Keith Turner and 7th Ward Ald. Michael Donnenwirth, who were in the same camp and voted with Guzman to table the reappointments.
These are not on-the-job trainees, but serious elected officials.
Although a majority of alders voted for the reappointments in a 5-4 action, seating the three must wait because a two-thirds majority of six votes was necessary to consider the appointments, according to Sadin’s reporting. The vote on the commissioners’ terms is now set when the council meets again Dec. 4.
By then, Guzman may introduce himself to commissioners or figure out what they do for his constituents and the city. Unless the alderman is taking a page from the playbook of U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Alabama Republican who’s blocked hundreds of military officers from getting promoted over his opposition to Department of Defense policies. Unlike Tuberville, Guzman doesn’t seem to know who he’s opposing.
Fellow Ald. Juan Martinez of the 3rd Ward, was one of the council members who urged Guzman: “Do your homework, and know who these board members are,” according to Sadin’s story. “I’m under the impression when we get ready to vote on something here, the homework has already been done, that the screening has already been done. We’re here to vote for it, or not for it. We’re not here to interview anybody.”
Well said. Martinez was a member of the WHA board before he was elected to the City Council last year. He pointed out one of the aldermanic jobs is to be prepared to vote on appointments once Waukegan’s mayor selects candidates for vacancies.
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Guzman, though, said he wants to get more and newer faces involved in the process. The appointments of the three he worked to stymie have background experience in their WHA posts, in community work and beyond.
Murkey, for example, is well-known and regarded across Lake County for her decades at the College of Lake County, and as the now-retired first dean of the college’s Lakeshore Campus in downtown Waukegan. She also chairs the Vista Health Systems’ Board of Trustees.
The WHA, governed by the commissioners, is funded by the federal government and is under the authority of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. City officials say announcements about openings on the WHA board and other city panels began in July at City Council meetings, on the city website and in the city’s monthly newsletter.
If Waukegan is like other area towns and the nation, finding qualified people who want to serve the community in volunteer positions is a challenging undertaking. Seeking volunteers for unpaid municipal posts and social service organizations is tough sledding in 21st century America.
Instead of snubbing the work they do and hindering them, city officials should be thanking them for their service. City Council members would be wise to approve them, get to know them and what they do for the community.
That’s their homework assignment for the next week.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
X @sellenews