City Council Candidate Talks Life in Joliet

From candidate Alex Rodriguez:

The week of December 18th, the week of our savior’s birth, we had a rival gang shooting in the middle of broad daylight on Collins Street. Then a 20 year old man working to make a living was robbed at gunpoint on Wilcox St. a few blocks from where I live. Then finally, young 24-year-old Brian D. Byrd man is shot dead on Christmas Eve driving home from Christmas shopping.

See the problem is the establishment, the political machine of Joliet; they want to cloud our vision with distractions. They rather have us talk about the Rialto and artificial turf at Silver Cross Field than the violence and the neglect our citizens are suffering from. There are not even working streetlights on Collins Street yet the City has no problem extending the Special Service Area to collect thousands of dollars in tax revenue from business and homeowners in that area. In 2013 Councilman Turk told the Joliet Patch “The single most important priority if elected is to keep the City’s financial condition sound in order to maintain a high level of essential services in Public Safety, Public Service, and Public Utilities.” Is this the high level of service Councilman Turk was referring to, or is this just more robotic political rhetoric that we as citizens are going to hear election after election.

Don’t take these statements as a hit on the Rialto or Silver Cross Field. The Jewel of Joliet must keep shining but she will never flourish until the problems drowning on our city center and surrounding areas are addressed. We cannot allow our city to become normalized to the violence; we cannot forget people like Dinesty Tillman who was shot dead steps away from Joliet Township High School, we cannot allow the establishment to continue to distract us so they can continue their empire of power and betrayal.

This is what it’s like to live in Joliet right now; there are people worried, unrepresented, scared, and business owners uncertain of their future. So here it is Joliet you will have a choice this April. We can re-elect Turk and Quillman’s combined 40 years of establishment service, we can elect -for the first time- an establishment puppet, or we can unite unbounded by the titles of East and West side, but as one Joliet to take back the city of champions. My name is Alex Rodriguez and this is exactly why I am running for Joliet City Council.

Submitted photo of candidate Alex Rodriguez and his wife, Martina.