February 23, 2005: Headlines: Figures: COS - Solomon Islands: City Government: Chicago Sun-Times: Micronesia RPCV Tom Weisner won 45 percent in race for mayor of Aurora
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February 23, 2005: Headlines: Figures: COS - Solomon Islands: City Government: Chicago Sun-Times: Micronesia RPCV Tom Weisner won 45 percent in race for mayor of Aurora
Micronesia RPCV Tom Weisner won 45 percent in race for mayor of Aurora
Tom Weisner, elected mayor of Aurora, IL in 2005, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Solomon Islands.
Micronesia RPCV Tom Weisner won 45 percent in race for mayor of Aurora
War, Peace Corps veterans top 2 vote-getters in Aurora ; Primaries eliminate 3 candidates in Aurora, 1 in N. Aurora
Feb 23, 2005
Chicago Sun-Times
A former Peace Corps volunteer and an ex-Gulf War veteran made the first cut in Aurora's mayoral primary Tuesday, winning the chance to do battle in the state's second-largest city in April.
Former Aurora city official Tom Weisner won 45 percent, and former assistant Kane County prosecutor Richard Irvin had 33 percent with all precincts tallied.
"It's a great victory," Weisner told some 350 supporters at Los Cabos restaurant in downtown Aurora. "Not bad for an inarticulate guy with no star power. I think it's a victory of substance over style."
It was a dig at Irvin, who has touted his "star power."
But at his own election night party, Irvin had his own words of warning, promising an aggressive sprint ahead.
"I talked to the voters, and they are tired of the status quo and the same old, same old," Irvin said shortly after he addressed supporters at a nearby VFW Hall.
"We're going to carry that message forward for the next 30 days."
'Worth a shot'
As the top two vote-getters in the nonpartisan primary in the far west suburb, Weisner and Irvin now square off April 5 to succeed retiring Mayor David Stover.
They left three other candidates in the dust -- Kane County Board member Bill Wyatt, 43, who received 15 percent, Kane County Clerk John "Jack" Cunningham, 66, who garnered 6 percent, and entrepreneur Angel Hernandez, 56, who received less than 1 percent.
"It was worth a shot," Cunningham said. "But I just didn't work hard enough for it. ... They were hungrier than I was."
Experience touted
The candidates drew sparks on everything from qualifications to character.
[Excerpt]
Weisner, 55, served in the Peace Corps in the rain forests of Guadalcanal in the 1980s. He and his wife returned after a son was born with cerebral palsy. On the stump, Weisner touted his 18 years of experience holding various jobs in city government.
But rivals called him a "quitter" for leaving his job overseeing Aurora's information lines last year in the middle of a city crisis, when residents were ordered to boil drinking water because the supply was tainted with E. coli bacteria.
Weisner said he didn't want to draw a city paycheck while running for mayor and insists the crisis in his department had passed. He raised more money than rivals and won support from top community groups, unions and contractors.
When this story was posted in March 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
| The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in over 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related reference material in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can use the Main Index to find hundreds of stories about RPCVs who have your same interests, who served in your Country of Service, or who serve in your state. |
| RPCVs in Congress ask colleagues to support PC RPCVs Sam Farr, Chris Shays, Thomas Petri, James Walsh, and Mike Honda have asked their colleagues in Congress to add their names to a letter they have written to the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, asking for full funding of $345 M for the Peace Corps in 2006. As a follow-on to Peace Corps week, please read the letter and call your Representative in Congress and ask him or her to add their name to the letter. |
| March 1: National Day of Action Tuesday, March 1, is the NPCA's National Day of Action. Please call your Senators and ask them to support the President's proposed $27 Million budget increase for the Peace Corps for FY2006 and ask them to oppose the elimination of Perkins loans that benefit Peace Corps volunteers from low-income backgrounds. Follow this link for step-by-step information on how to make your calls. Then take our poll and leave feedback on how the calls went. |
| Coates Redmon, Peace Corps Chronicler Coates Redmon, a staffer in Sargent Shriver's Peace Corps, died February 22 in Washington, DC. Her book "Come as You Are" is considered to be one of the finest (and most entertaining) recountings of the birth of the Peace Corps and how it was literally thrown together in a matter of weeks. If you want to know what it felt like to be young and idealistic in the 1960's, get an out-of-print copy. We honor her memory. |
| Make a call for the Peace Corps PCOL is a strong supporter of the NPCA's National Day of Action and encourages every RPCV to spend ten minutes on Tuesday, March 1 making a call to your Representatives and ask them to support President Bush's budget proposal of $345 Million to expand the Peace Corps. Take our Poll: Click here to take our poll. We'll send out a reminder and have more details early next week. |
| Peace Corps Calendar: Tempest in a Teapot? Bulgarian writer Ognyan Georgiev has written a story which has made the front page of the newspaper "Telegraf" criticizing the photo selection for his country in the 2005 "Peace Corps Calendar" published by RPCVs of Madison, Wisconsin. RPCV Betsy Sergeant Snow, who submitted the photograph for the calendar, has published her reply. Read the stories and leave your comments. |
| WWII participants became RPCVs Read about two RPCVs who participated in World War II in very different ways long before there was a Peace Corps. Retired Rear Adm. Francis J. Thomas (RPCV Fiji), a decorated hero of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 at 100. Mary Smeltzer (RPCV Botswana), 89, followed her Japanese students into WWII internment camps. We honor both RPCVs for their service. |
| Bush's FY06 Budget for the Peace Corps The White House is proposing $345 Million for the Peace Corps for FY06 - a $27.7 Million (8.7%) increase that would allow at least two new posts and maintain the existing number of volunteers at approximately 7,700. Bush's 2002 proposal to double the Peace Corps to 14,000 volunteers appears to have been forgotten. The proposed budget still needs to be approved by Congress. |
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Story Source: Chicago Sun-Times
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Solomon Islands; City Government
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