Letter to the Editor: Kane County Would be Worse off with Lauzen

Dear Editor, 

Many of us appreciate and applaud Kevin Burns’ remarks about Senator Lauzen (as reported in the Daily Herald and elsewhere on Feb. 4).

Sen. Lauzen has been a cipher so far as his work in the Illinois Senate is concerned. The only bill he sponsored, except as a hanger-on, related to maintenance of Aurora residents' pigeon coops. Worse than doing nothing constructive, in his position as a senior legislator he committed an egregious breach of trust by his utter failure to raise early-on a loud and persistent alarm over the state government's grossly inadequate funding of state workers' pensions and/or its promising of pensions in excess of what the fund would be capable of supporting financially.

I suspect that his effort to move from the Senate to the County is motivated in no small part by some sort of pension-duplication/compounding scheme. He certainly has offered no constructive policy-driven reason for seeking this office.

His boasting about being pro-life and pro-marriage reveals a personal philosophy by which women are marginalized and gays are made scapegoats, as Kevin so colorfully pointed out during the Daily Herald endorsement interview. His boasting about holding those views reveals his lack of understanding of what the office he seeks is all about; the County Board Chair does not have any responsibilities to which those attitudes would relate, even remotely.

The County would be very much made the worse off if Lauzen were its Chairman. He has been a do-nothing seat warmer in the Senate and no doubt would continue that tradition if awarded the County Chair position.  

I am behind Kevin Burns 100 percent in his effort to become our next County Board Chairman.

Bob Mann

Geneva