Boone County Watchdog

Saturday, October 12, 2024

Boone County, District One Candidates talk Stellantis, rodeos, and jobs

Northern Public Radio | By Maria Gardner Lara

Published October 10, 2024 at 4:30 AM CDT

Listen • 3:33

Boone County Election Clerk

Democrat Michael Yates and Republicans Josh Shumaker, and incumbent Brian Schneider are vying for two seats representing the first district on the Boone County Board.

Leer en español

County boards make decisions that have a lot of impact on its residents that are sometimes overlooked, such as which roads get repaired, property taxes, and the funding for the local health department.

In Boone County, voters get to choose two candidates.

Here are profiles of the candidates for Boone County, District 1.

Josh Shumaker (R)

Josh Shumaker

Republican Josh Shumaker has lived in the area since he was nine. He works in corporate IT.

The thirty-seven-year-old said he decided to run because he didn’t see many folks from his generation on the board.

“Why aren't there people my age running?” he asked. “And so that's just how I kind of started to be like, okay, maybe I should get involved.”

He said securing a better future for his four kids is also a motivator.

Regarding issues facing the county, he said rodeos are an obvious one.

It's definitely about lifestyle and how people live,” he said. “It's something that I don't believe the government has a pipeline to tell people how to live.”

Scrutiny of the events has taken up a lot of the board’s time. Mexican American families have held the Mexican style rodeos, also known as coleaderos, in the county for over 20 years.

With respect to concerns for the animals’ welfare, he said if a crime occurs, then folks must be prosecuted accordingly.

He said another issue is solar panels.

He said there needs to be long-term planning on the need of farmland for the future.

“Farmland is very valuable as a local resource,” he said. “It feeds your population, it's, something that we need, and we should incentivize those farmers to use that farmland in the proper way.”

He said fiscal responsibility is also another issue important to him.

As far as housing, Shumaker emphasized the positive role the county has taken to spur the economy, especially in the I-90 corridor.

“I think the county board bringing jobs to the county in smart ways is good,” he said.

Michael Yates (D)

Michael Yates

Michael Yates has lived in Belvidere for over two decades.

He has worked in the Belvidere School District since 2008 in various roles including assistant principal and now, English high school teacher.

He said he’s gotten to know the families of the district over the years and is invested in their future and in turn making the county better.

“These children that I'm teaching right now and that are graduating,” he said, “I'd like to see the Belvidere high school graduates come back to Belvidere and have great opportunities for them.”

He said a major issue facing the county is the idling of the Stellantis plant. He fully supports the United Auto workers and said if elected to the board he wants “to make sure that the plant comes back and that those job opportunities are still there not just for the auto workers, but also really taking a look across the county and making sure that small businesses are supported.”

Yates said overall it’s about bringing good jobs to the county.

Also, he’d like to see more county support given to the public health department and the conservation districts.

Regarding the ongoing debate on the Mexican-style rodeos, Yates said he’d emphasize the importance of getting feedback from different organizations “and making sure you're doing your research, making sure you're listening to lawyers and attorneys.”

He added, “and making sure that you're actually doing decisions that are fair and just and that are in the best interest of everybody.”

Regarding housing, he said there’s a need for affordable housing, and he’s interested in learning about the county’s role in supporting housing development.

“How are we using the land to the best possible availability?” he asked. He said he thinks about his students and his own kids.

“I hope that they are willing to come back and move here,” he said, “and part of that is not only having a job, but also having affordable housing for them as well.”

Brian Schneider, incumbent (R)

The third candidate is incumbent Republican Brian Schneider. WNIJ reached out to him several times and hasn’t received a response.

Three advisory referendum on Illinois ballots

The three questions, as they appear on ballots, are:

Should any candidate appearing on the Illinois ballot for federal, State, or local office be subject to civil penalties if the candidate interferes or attempts to interfere with an election worker's official duties?
Should the Illinois Constitution be amended to create an additional 3% tax on income greater than $1,000,000 for the purpose of dedicating funds raised to property tax relief?
Should all medically appropriate assisted reproductive treatments, including, but not limited to, in vitro fertilization, be covered by any health insurance plan in Illinois that provides coverage for pregnancy benefits, without limitation on the number of treatments?

These questions are being asked because lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2412 in early May, instructing state election officials to add them to ballots.

For more comments on these issues go to: https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/voters-consider-ballot-questions-on-reproductive-health-tax-reform-election-interference/

Friday, October 11, 2024

County Superintendent appoints new District 100 Board member

Headshot of Jeff Diestelmeier

Jeff Diestelmeier - Board of Education

We’re excited to announce the newest addition to our D100 Board of Education, Jeff Diestelmeier. Jeff brings a wealth of experience and a commitment to supporting our entire school community.

Jeff and his wife have lived in the Belvidere area for the last two years after having lived in Roscoe for about 35 years. There they raised their two children who attended the Kinnikinnick and Hononegah school districts. After their children finished college and established themselves elsewhere, Jeff was in the position to give back to the community and decided to run for a seat on the Kinnikinnick School Board and was elected. He served in that position for five and a half years, having been re-elected for a second term.

While a member of the Kinnikinnick Board, he was chair of the Finance Committee and also served on the Insurance Committee. When he and his wife found their dream home in Belvidere, Jeff had to resign from his position on the Board due to his change of residence, and he has been thinking about serving in Belvidere ever since.

Jeff worked for Woodward Governor for close to 20 years, then Ideal Industries in Sycamore for 2 and a half years. He’s been with Watlow, a St. Louis based company, for the last 18 years. Jeff has held a variety of leadership positions across all types of business functions, currently serving as Vice President and General Manager, leading one of three business units for Watlow.

While serving on the Kinnikinnick Board, Jeff was able to use his business experience dealing with finance, insurance and other matters brought to the board.

Jeff will be sworn in as a Board member at our October 21st Board meeting where he will fill the position through April 2025.

We are confident that Jeff's leadership and dedication will help us continue to foster a positive, inclusive, and thriving environment for our entire school community. Please join us in giving Jeff a warm welcome!

Thank you for your ongoing support of District 100.

Above is from: https://www.district100.com/

Thursday, October 10, 2024

Stateline Halloween trick-or-treat hours

Stateline Halloween trick-or-treat hours© WIFR

(WIFR) - Below is a list of Halloween trick-or-treat hours for the stateline. Unless otherwise noted, all trick-or-treat times are for Thursday, Oct. 31.

Winnebago County

Rockford - 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Loves Park - 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Machesney Park - 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Rockton - 5-7 p.m.
Roscoe - 5-7 p.m.
South Beloit - 4:30-7 p.m.
- Trunk or Treat from 3-4:30 p.m. Oct. 26 at South Beloit City Park
Cherry Valley - 5:30-7:30 p.m.
- Parade with Trunk or Treating at 4 p.m. on Oct. 26 at softball field in Baumann Park
Winnebago - 4-7 p.m.
Pecatonica - 5:30-8 p.m.
Durand - 5 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
New Milford - 5 p.m.-7 p.m.

Boone County

Belvidere - 4-8 p.m.
Capron - 4-7 p.m.
Poplar Grove - 4-7 p.m.
Candlewick Lake - 2-6 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 27

Ogle County

Oregon - 5-8 p.m.
Rochelle 5-8 p.m.
Byron - 5-8 p.m.
Mount Morris - 5-8 p.m.
Davis Junction - 5-8 p.m.
Forreston - 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Polo - 4 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Stillman Valley - 5-7 p.m.

Stephenson County

Freeport - 5-7 p.m.
Dakota - 5-7 p.m.
Davis - 4-7 p.m.
Rock City - 5-7 p.m.
Lena - 5-7 p.m.
Cedarville - 5-7p.m.
Orangeville - 5-7:30 p.m.

Lee County

Amboy - 4-6 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 27
Dixon - 5-7:30 p.m.
Franklin Grove - 5-8:30 p.m.

DeKalb County

DeKalb - 4-7 p.m.
Sycamore - 4-6 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 24 along State Street between California Street and Route 23
Kirkland - 5-8 p.m.
Malta - TBD

Rock County, Wis.

Beloit - 5-7 p.m.
Edgerton - 5-8 p.m.
Janesville - 5:30-7:30 p.m.
- Downtown Trick-or-Treat 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 26
Milton - 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Why Trump accuses people of wrongdoing he himself committed

Why Trump accuses people of wrongdoing he himself committed − an explanation of projection

April Johnson, Kennesaw State University

Thu, October 10, 2024 at 7:30 AM CDT·6 min read

311

Donald Trump accuses others of acts he has done at an Oct. 3, 2024, rally in Michigan. <a href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2024Trump/c398b5902b5241ce8497f3cbd2600aa5/photo" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" data-ylk="slk:AP Photo/Carlos Osorio;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas" class="link rapid-noclick-resp">AP Photo/Carlos Osorio</a>

Donald Trump accuses others of acts he has done at an Oct. 3, 2024, rally in Michigan. AP Photo/Carlos Osorio

Donald Trump has a particular formula he uses to convey messages to his supporters and opponents alike: He highlights others’ wrongdoings even though he has committed similar acts himself.

On Oct. 3, 2024, Trump accused the Biden administration of spending Federal Emergency Management Agency funds – money meant for disaster relief – on services for immigrants. Biden did no such thing, but Trump did during his time in the White House, including to pay for additional detention space.

This is not the first time he has accused someone of something he had done or would do in the future. In 2016, Trump criticized opponent Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured personal email server while secretary of state as “extreme carelessness with classified material.” But once he was elected, Trump continued to use his unsecured personal cellphone while in office. And he has been criminally charged with illegally keeping classified government documents after he left office and storing them in his bedroom, bathroom and other places at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Boxes of documents are stacked in a bathroom.

After complaining about how Hillary Clinton handled classified documents, Donald Trump stored national secrets in a bathroom. Justice Department via AP

More recently, the Secret Service arrested a man with a rifle who was allegedly planning to shoot Trump during a round of golf. In the wake of this event, Trump accused Democrats of using “inflammatory language” that stokes the fires of political violence. Meanwhile, Trump himself has a long history of making inflammatory remarks that could potentially incite violence.

As a scholar of both politics and psychology, I’m familiar with the psychological strategies candidates use to persuade the public to support them and to cast their rivals in a negative light. This strategy Trump has used repeatedly is called “projection.” It’s a tactic people use to lessen their own faults by calling out these faults in others.

Projection abounds

There are plenty of examples. During his Sept. 10, 2024, debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump claimed that Democrats were responsible for the July 13 assassination attempt against him. “I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me,” he declared.

Earlier in the debate he had falsely accused immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, of eating other people’s pets – a statement that sparked bomb threats and prompted the city’s mayor to declare a state of emergency.

Similarly, congressional investigators and federal prosecutors have found that Trump’s remarks called thousands of people to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, encouraging them to violently storm the Capitol in order to stop the counting of electoral votes.

Trump isn’t the only politician who uses projection. His running mate, JD Vance, claimed “the rejection of the American family is perhaps the most pernicious and the most evil thing the left has done in this country.” Critics quickly pointed out that his own family has a history of dysfunction and drug addiction.

Projection happens on both sides of the political aisle. In reference to Trump’s proposed 10% tariff on all imported goods, the Harris campaign launched social media efforts to condemn the so-called “Trump tequila tax.” While Harris frames this proposal as a sales tax that would devastate middle-class families, she deflects from the fact that inflation has made middle-class life more expensive since she and President Joe Biden took office.

How it works

Projection is one example of unconscious psychological processes called defense mechanisms. Some people find it hard to accept criticism or believe information that they wish were not true. So they seek – and then provide – another explanation for the difference between what’s happening in the world and what’s happening in their minds.

In general, this is called “motivated reasoning,” which is an umbrella phrase used to describe the array of mental gymnastics people use to reconcile their views with reality.

Some examples include seeking out information that confirms their beliefs, dismissing factual claims or creating alternate explanations. For example, a smoker might downplay or simply avoid information related to the link between smoking and lung cancer, or perhaps tell themselves that they don’t smoke as much as they actually do.

Motivated reasoning is not unique to politics. It can be a challenging concept to consider because people tend to think they are fully in control of their decision-making abilities and that they are capable of objectively processing political information. The evidence is clear, however, that there are unconscious thought processes at work, too.

Influencing the audience

Audiences are also susceptible to unconscious psychological dynamics. Research has found that over time, people’s minds subconsciously attach emotions to concepts, names or phrases. So someone might have a particular emotional reaction to the words “gun control,” “Ron DeSantis” or “tax relief.”

And people’s minds also unconsciously create defenses for those seemingly automatic emotions. When a person’s emotions and defenses are questioned, a phenomenon called the “backfire effect” can occur, in which the process of controlling, correcting or counteracting mistaken beliefs ends up reinforcing the person’s beliefs rather than changing them.

For instance, some people may find it hard to believe that the candidate they prefer – whom they believe to be the best person for the job – truly lost an election. So they seek another explanation and accept explanations that justify their beliefs. Perhaps they choose to believe, even in the absence of evidence, that the race was rigged or that many fraudulent votes were cast. And when evidence to the contrary is offered, they insist their views are correct.

Two women in suits stand on a stage.

Vice President Kamala Harris has campaigned with Liz Cheney, right, a prominent Republican who formerly served in Congress. AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

A way out

Fortunately, research shows specific ways to reduce people’s reliance on these automatic psychological processes, including reiterating and providing details of objective facts and – importantly – attempting to correct untruths via a trusted source from the same political party.

For instance, challenges to Democrats’ belief that the Trump-affiliated conservative agenda called Project 2025 is “dangerous” would be more effective coming from a Democrat than from a Republican.

Similarly, a counter to Trump’s claim that the international community is headed toward World War III with Democrats in the White House would be stronger coming from one of Trump’s fellow Republicans. And certainly, statements that Trump “can never be trusted with power again” carries more weight when it comes from the lips of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney than from any member of the Democratic Party.

Critiques from within a candidate’s own party are not out of the question. But they are certainly improbable given the hotly charged climate that is election season 2024.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: April Johnson, Kennesaw State University