At the debate sponsored by the League of Women's Voters held at the Downers Grove Village Hall on 9/24/12. This debate was scheduled many weeks in advance. All candidates were called and emailed, those that did not respond to either received an invitation via certified mail.

Despite all those invitations the incumbent Forest Preserve Commissioner Joe Cantore District 2 was a no show like he is for many Forest Preserve District meetings. Because he was a no show the LWV rules limit the opposition (me) to only 5 minutes to speak about all the issues like:

•The ongoing FBI investigation of our Forest Preserve District of DuPage County.

 •The extra $50,000+ bonus paid to the FPD Executive Director (Brent Manning) despite the fact that he was in charge during the mismanagement which included a contract for $488,000 that resulted in theft for 6 years and 3 Class X Felonies.

•Their illegal closed door meetings and other issues.

This debate will be shown in Downers Grove on Channel 6 at 7:00PM this Friday 9/28, Saturday 9/29 and Sunday 9/30. FYI if you want to see the debate in your community ask your local community cable TV channel to get a copy of the debate from the Downers Grove Community Channel. They'll send one over to your town's local community channel for free.

SUMMARY: We need all elected officials especially our District 2 Commissioner and all the other Commissioners to answer the questions about these important issues. We need them to participate in the LWV debates and similar debates. I am open to a debate with Joe Cantore and at least one should be held before the election on 11/6/12. If you agree please consider sending a quick email about the need for a District 2 FPD debate to the following email addresses:amanda@patch.com, news@dailyherald.com, letters@tribune.com, letters@suntimes.com, fencepost@dailyherald.com, doingsnews@pioneerlocal.com, QuestPublishing@aol.com, lombardian@sbcglobal.net, publisher@buglenewspapers.com, mcolosimo@mysuburbanlife.com, bsanchez@dailyherald.com and emistretta@dailyherald.com. Please include your name, city/town and phone number which will not be published but will be used to contact you to confirm that you wrote the email.

Thanks again to the League of Women Voters for all their volunteer and nonpartisan work. They have been doing it for 90 years and hopefully will be doing it for another 90! Get more info. here: http://dgwl.il.lwvnet.org/