Well said Micheal. Judge give them time, than Molly and Jim will start with the attacks.

Mr. Hoffman, I am impressed with your clarity and truth in your assessment of Jeanna Ives. Thank you

This is a misleading hit piece - get the facts from the City web site (the links are below). Items #1, #3 and #9 WERE COMPETITIVELY BID through the Suburban Purchasing Consortium - as you can see on the City's web site at https://dm1.wheaton.il.us/SireSearch/cache/6a44d19c-b88f-4ea4-a0a7-e52a2719a0dc.pdf, https://dm1.wheaton.il.us/SireSearch/cache/508005d8-b6ee-4cb0-b8b3-a21033fdb2c9.pdf and https://dm1.wheaton.il.us/SireSearch/cache/678fbbb0-75b9-4521-bc6f-5652d330891d.pdf. For items #2 and #7, the City already had the defibs, so if it bought replacements from a different vendor the police and fire departments would have had to use different, incompatible equipment - not the best idea in an emergency. See https://dm1.wheaton.il.us/SireSearch/cache/2c71da3a-89c1-415a-9615-4e33697d03f0.pdf. The paramedic/billing agreement is an extension of an agreement that was, once again, originally awarded through a competitive RFP process - there were bids. See https://dm1.wheaton.il.us/SireSearch/cache/1227bcb0-2547-4c6b-a8f5-8e45b79a2e10.pdf.

For #10, the City is already using the software and is just extending its license. https://dm1.wheaton.il.us/SireSearch/cache/3f1d057e-8ff4-48ea-b2d8-194639fef157.pdf. #6 was a contractor that previously prevailed in an open bidding process (https://dm1.wheaton.il.us/SireSearch/cache/d868abb4-06bd-4c75-aea2-37299aa2d1e8.pdf). I do disagree with Councilwoman Ives on #8 for the band director - I don't think a band is a core municipal service - but the salary was frozen for four years (https://dm1.wheaton.il.us/SireSearch/cache/be61a579-94bf-4d51-bc1c-926e9c075b51.pdf). Maybe Mr. Hoffman could offer to conduct the band for a lower fee if it went out to bid, but will he guarantee they'll be in tune??

None of your links work, maybe you can provide better ones or explain how she brought 100 million in development to Wheaton, or why she voted to give away taxpayer money for the hair salon. (Bought for 300,000 but sold for 200,000)

Truth is, Jeanne is more attractive than the other candidates. That was the deciding factor for me.

Rose colored glasses...

If people vote by the pound, Hage wins.

If you look at the mess Ives inherited from the outgoing council, I think she's done a great job. They Granted to many TIF's, dropped 11 million for TV building, and stole money from the Manchester bridge fund. She exposed waste in many different areas. She will win this race because she tells the truth and exposes big spending Republicans.

Big spender RINO's who like to blame Democrats for everything, but never themselves. If only we had some independent thinking Democrats we could change Illinois for the better.

My Dad (Go Army) always said, "there is only one thing worse than a big spending Democrat...and that's a big spending Republican".

Use that reptilian brain and Vote for Jeanne Ives.

You can get the links through the City's RSS web site https://dm1.wheaton.il.us/MeetingView/RSS_Meetings.xml - hope this works.

Run Jeanne Run! Any small town South Dakota girl gets my vote. She is a true conservative.

Can anyone explain, why she voted to sell Sandburg building at loss to the taxpayers or the 100 million impact to the city that Molly keeps talking about? Is Ives opposing 1st Trust in there attempt to lower there tax bill?

Judge Wheaton and The NKI, your comments were deleted because they violated our terms of use. Feel free to come back and comment under a legitimate name.

Jeanne Ives contacted Patch to say Hoffman's list is incorrect. Patch checked with City Manager Don Rose on these items.

According to the information provided by Rose, the list is misleading and incorrect—most of these contracts were put out to bid, but not necessarily by the City of Wheaton. Further, some contracts were extensions of existing contracts that were originally put out to bid, according to officials:

—1, 3 and 9: were not bid by the city, but through the Northwest Municipal League Conference. The city of Wheaton piggybacked on the league's contracts.
—2: The city bought a defibrillator that matches the ones it already had, and there is only one provider with the correct machine. This purchase was originally put out to bid.
—5: These were extensions of existing contracts, which were originally put out to bid. The city concluded it was to its advantage to retain services from the same provider.
—6: The city only received one bid. The city redid specs for the bid and awarded the contract to the only bidder.
—8: The band director has been the city's band director for 22 years. He did not receive a salary increase. His position was probably not put out to bid, according to officials.
—10: This was originally put out to bid. To continue to use this software, that is proprietary to the provider, the city must stay with the provider. If the city had changed providers, that would have required a complete change in the software system.

All items listed are no-bid contracts. The fact that some are perfectly explainable or justified is exactly the author's point. When she was a candidate, Ms. Ives certainly never gave the members of the City Council the benefit of the doubt. Instead, she herself misled the public by asserting that the award of no-bid contracts by the City Council amounted to cronyism or politics as usual - both things that the sincere and politically pure Jeanne Ives would root out if she were elected. This goes back to the author's 2 choices: By defending no-bid contyracts now, Ms. Ives is tacitly admitting that she demagogued the issue as a candidate. The issue that the author wished to raise is this: Like all too many career politicians and would-be career politicians, there is a great deal of daylight between Ms. Ives campaign rhetoric and her record. It appears to the author that there is little "bold leadership" in either.

The author would also be remiss not to remark on Jim McMahon's exhortation to "Use that reptillian brain and vote for Jeanne Ives." It is the so-called reptillian brain that operates without reason, logic or conscience. It would seem that relying on more evolved homo sapien brain functions like reason, logic and conscience would better serve the body politic.

One last thought. In Errol Morris's documentary "The Fog of War," former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara opined that when deft politicians don't like the question that has been asked, they will offer an answer to a question they WISH had been asked. Jeanne Ives' defenders have attempted to do something similar here.

Rather than respond to this author's core point - that Ives' campaigns are imbued with a cynical brand of rhetoric - the Ives camp focuses on the vessel that was used to make the core point: Her support of no-bid contracts. Unfortunately, even this attempt at rhetorical jiu jitsu falls flat.

The one no-bid contract that neither Mr. Stern nor Ms. Ericksen can muster a defense for also happens to be the one that took the biggest bite out of the tax payers' wallets. Of the ten contracts cited in the attachment to this blog post, No. 4 on the list was a paramedic contract amounting to almost $4 million.

To some extent this glaring omission begs the question: Why was a contract of this size not opened to competive bids? But more importantly, Ives' failure to defend her support of that no-bid contract underscores the smug hucksterism that this emerging breed of cynical politicians seems to traffic in. It is bad enough, that Ives' incomplete defense of her record on no-bid contracts insults her constituents' intelligence. The snarky sanctimony which allows her handlers to believe they can get away with it makes it all the worse.

Michael, stop calling yourself an author. You are doing a disservice to authors by even using that word. You refer to yourself in third person which is a kind of identity disorder I believe has its roots in a society that has drifted free from reality and is creating adolescents like you who are at most participant-observers in their own lives, with little genuine emotion - like actors playing themselves.

The signs and symptoms of this identity disorder are everywhere. Teenagers are embracing lies on a wholesale (and retail) scale.

What a sad life that francis lives by spewing her venom every chance she gets. Do you enjoy living your life commenting on Ms. Ives every chance you get. It is old and you really need to get a life.

Five and Fly: Your comment was deleted because it violated our terms of use. (Thanks for the link—I actually still have my copy from school)