It seems whenever someone is in office, in order to get themselves re-elected, they shout from the rooftops that it is “EXPERIENCE!!” that matters. Here is how that is not true;

Mayor Kim Maggard, Councilpersons Bailey, Conison, Kantor, their supporters and others all use this to invoke a fear, uncertainty and/or mistrust in the credentials and capability of those opposing their run for a particular office who have never held it before. If indeed ‘experience matters’ then we must ask how that credential was bypassed, with success mind you, by the likes of Mayor Kim Maggard, Councilpersons Bob Bailey, Karen Conison and Wes Kantor? Not to mention Abraham Lincoln! How is it their inexperience in the offices they now hold was unimportant then, but in seeking re-election, it is the most important consideration now? Its because they want to get re-elected and hope you’ll simply accept that as an important consideration of them without scrutinizing its truth as you should.

If experience was required to run a specific office yet no one had ever ran that office, how is one ever to enter an office without some measure of trust in them to do so given by the electorate? Its the chicken or the egg. How many times we’ve seen in the media an 18 year old getting elected to the Mayor’s office somewhere. He’s not experienced and that town still has services to operate, citizen needs and wants to be filled and the general overall operation of the city itself. (If experience truly mattered John Bishop would’ve never been elected and presided over this city’s greatest era.) Whitehall is not Chicago, Whitehall is not the Presidency of the United States. It is a small municipality near the airport within the confines of a larger city. Its chief internal concern lies in its crime problem. That which Councilperson Leslie LaCorte has been very frank about as well as her support of the police department. That which is evidenced in the confidence the Fraternal Order of Police has shown in her to lead Whitehall in it’s # 1 problem with their endorsement of her, not the ‘experienced’ Kim Maggard who currently runs this city. (It appears the police agree with me on this topic and have themselves shown the falsehood in the ‘experience matters’ claim!) Outside of that are the other concerns, all of which can and will be dealt with in the shadow of our number one problem, crime. The way in which to do this can be handled with sense, reason, an appreciation for all the citizens and surrounding yourself, not with fawning sycophants and cronies, but with the best that your city’s coffers can hire from the applicants you petitioned for the positions.

What matters a great deal more than experience is character. I cannot stress its importance, particularly in public office, any more forcefully than that. I would rather have an ‘inexperienced’ anybody with decency, morals, ethics, kindness and care for people, as well as respect for law and the citizens than ‘experienced’ persons who are vainglorious, deceitful, shirk the law and attend to self-serving wants over the actual needs of the people themselves. Ultimately then, it is not ‘experience’ that matters, it is character. By leaps and bounds.