LAWRENCE CO., Ill.—While the voter turnout was dismal in Lawrence and the Dems helped the Republicans shoot themselves in the foot, the election in that county had its amusing properties too.
The repulsive PeeWee Darnell
Chief among them was the entry of St. Francisville “police chief” Billy “PeeWee” Darnell into the realm of politics, in a bid for county board in District 4, a seat Pat Spidel is currently holding.
Darnell got his name on the Republican ballot alongside Harvey Ricker, and for whatever reason, actually believed he had enough family and party friends to vote him in. But alas, that didn’t occur, and Ricker took the contest with 94 votes, Darnell, 47. Perhaps folks in Dist. 4 thought a little harder about electing a person who is under a state civil rights violation lawsuit (after having already lost one) as well as a federal lawsuit (story coming up in the next print version).
The numbers story in Lawrence is the bigger story, even bigger than Dennis Bridwell’s loss to lifelong Democrat Mike Mefford on the Republican ticket, are the numbers.
Lawrence has a census of 16,604, estimated down from the 2010 actual count. Of those, 13,416 are of voting age.
But of those of voting age, only 9,354 are registered to vote. And yesterday, only 1,857 actually turned up to cast a ballot (that figure includes early voting, but not absentee, the latter of the two which numbers in the single digits.) That’s 19.85 percent, for those who can do the numbers…sadly, still a much better percentage than neighboring Richland County at 13.59 percent, but when the day has come that less than 20 percent voter turnout is considered an improvement over ANYTHING, the day in question is a sad one indeed.
Lawrence, it’s been said repeatedly, is full of apathy. The deficit budgets operating on tax anticipation each year for several years in a row is but a symptom of that. We’re being told that this year is the last year the county can operate that way; that the CAFR reserves are about gone. Both sheriff’s candidates for this Fall, Mefford and incumbent Russell Adams, have a proven track record for anyone so inclined to go look at it that they cannot stay within a budget. Lawrence is running out of taxpayers…literally. They have little left but tax absorbers, both on the low end of the scale and the upper. And because counties in Illinois cannot declare bankruptcy like many on this map have in other states, the options are narrow.
Something’s going to have to change…or the consequences are going to be disastrous.