Letter: Who will step up?

To the Editor:

The recent issue that occurred in our community at a restaurant was very concerning. No reasonable person wants to see such incidents on TV and our community’s name associated with such events.

I was proud of the people who spoke up about their experiences of living in our community at the recent Oswego Village Board meeting. I was disheartened to learn the feelings of those who do not feel part of our community and have experienced derogatory racial slurs. This is an issue that should concern us all and we must understand the ramifications if this is not addressed as a community.

Having lived here since 1976, I can say that Oswego has changed a great deal over the years. Yet recently, the community has become greatly divided on many core issues of economic development and our schools. It was shocking to witness firsthand the lack of support for our fire department, and the building of the new police station still prompts negative comments – ironically by those who claim to support our police. We now have issues brought to the surface that involve very serious matters of inclusion and understanding our diverse community, which will continue to evolve that must be taken seriously.

The pandemic and toxic national political divide can be blamed. Yet all politics in the end are local and they should be reviewed much more closely by those who run our local boards, their affiliations, who runs and funds their campaigns and their methods of getting elected. What we all put into this effort of choosing who runs our community reflects our values of how we are viewed as a community inside and out. One viable solution to these matters is to ensure that people we elect will represent everyone and take on the many challenging issues firsthand, as opposed to using them as wedge issues to get elected.

For the first time in many years, outside of our school board, many of our local boards have become politically motived and less diverse compared to where the community stands today. Is this good for Oswego as we grow and become a more diverse community? Almost 90% of the local population does not vote in local elections. We can only blame ourselves for the unsolved challenging issues at hand and their failed outcomes that we continue to ignore collectively as a community. Who will step up and lead Oswego, Illinois, through these many challenges?

David Edelman

Oswego