By Jason Crane
An Aurora alderman-at-large candidate forum Wednesday, Feb. 24, through the Zoom video conference platform, allowed viewers to learn more about the three candidates seeking the job as alderman-at-large of Aurora for the next four years.
An election will be Tuesday, April 6.
League of Women Voters Aurora Area alderman-at-large Candidate Forum was on the League’s Facebook page.
The candidates are Ray Hull, Brooke Shanley, and Ron Woerman.
Brooke Shanley was unable to participate in the forum, but sent opening and closing statements to be read by a member of the League of Women Voters.
The moderator was Susan Greenwood from the League of Women Voters Naperville.
The League of Women Voters is a non-partisan organization founded in 1920 that encourages informed and active participation by citizens in government.
It does not support, or oppose, any candidate, or any office. The League sponsors such events, so voters are informed on issues.
Here are the opening statements, selected questions, candidate answers (those in attendance), and closing statements:
Ray Hull’s opening statement:
“Good evening everyone and to the League of Women Voters. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to come and participate in this candidate forum.
“To everyone out there in Zoom land and Facebook, my name is Raymond Hull. I am a candidate for alderman-at-large in the city of Aurora.
“I’m a 45-year resident of this great city. I wear many hats. I’m a father, I’m a grandfather, a coach, a mentor, a public servant, minister.
“My children, I have three adults and they all attended the public schools as well as Aurora Christian School in Aurora.
“Currently, I am retired after a 36-year career with the city of Aurora at the Water and Sewer Maintenance Division.
“I spent the entire career there. I began as a laborer. The last nine and a half as superintendant of the Water and Sewer Division. That is the fourth largest division within the city of Aurora.
“I also was an Aurora Planning commissioner for three years. I spent nine years on the East Aurora School Board. I spent last year, the last year I was selected as the president of the Board and it was a wonderful time.
“The reason that I’m running for alderman-at-large is first and foremost just simply my love for the city of Aurora and I have an opportunity to give back to the City that has given much to me and my family. Thank you!”
Brooke Shanley’s opening statement (read by Bertha Baillie):
“Good evening!
“Thank you League of Women Voters for hosting tonight’s candidate forum.
“I apologize for not being able to attend in person due to a scheduling conflict.
“I believe forums like these are very important and while I’m unable to attend tonight I would be happy to discuss my positions personally and look forward to participating in future forums.
“I have lived in the Ninth Ward for nearly a decade now and am proud to call Aurora my home.
“As an educator in the East Aurora School District and also at the Waubonsee Community College, I believe in ensuring our children and young adults have the best education and support system, especially during difficult times like these.
“I have seen first hand as a third grade dual language teacher, the hardships that youth and families face.
“As an aldermen, I believe we can establish programs to provide the needed support for not only our children and youth, but their families.
“As an educator and a community member who wants to create a vibrant, sustainable, future for our City, working to support our young residents and their families is of the utmost importance.
“I also believe that we need to support our communities by continuing to bring good-paying jobs and opportunities to our City in addition to continue with the redevelopment of not only our downtown core but also our historic neighborhoods.
“As your alderman, I will also work to continue to take care of most valuable residents including our seniors and veterans.
“I will work for our residents to amplify access to vaccines for all who wish and support the organizations that help provide healthcare to those in need such as the VNA.
“As alderman my main focus will be creating new support systems for the social and emotional well being of our children and young adults and continue to support programs to help businesses and struggling families. In addition to this, I will be open and accessable to you. Thank You!”
Ron Woerman’s opening statement:
“Thank you for hosting this event. This is great!
“2020 and this pandemic has changed many things and it’s great that we can have this platform to get our message out. Thank you for doing that!
“My name is Ron Woerman and I’m going to introduce myself to everyone tonight and share with you my vision for Aurora.
“I believe my personal life and my professional career makes me the best candidate for this position.
“I hope to earn everybody’s vote April 6 and I will proudly serve Aurora if I earn that trust.
“I come from a hard-working family. My dad retired from Caterpillar located in Aurora after 28 years of service.
“We’re a strong union family. He taught us a strong work ethic will bring you great things!
“My family represents the diversity that exists here in Aurora today.
“I’ve been married for 21 years to my beautiful wife, Irasema. We have four wonderful daughters who continue to impress us each and every day!
“Our daughters embrace their culture, and proudly speak German and Mexican (Spanish) and I’m proud to say our house is trilingual. It makes me proud every single day to say that.
“I own two successful restaurants here in Aurora, O’Malley’s and Spartan House. Both are pillars in the community and we appreciate the business that we earn every day from the citizens of Aurora.
“I’m involved in two major projects, one that’s done and one that’s currently going on.
“I’m partners with four other people and we have an apartment complex downtown called Esser Lofts. Twenty-one apartments, fully leased. Part of the old Copley renovation project, which finally received financing and that’s on track again.
“My vision for Aurora is to continue economic growth, create new tax dollars, and share those tax dollars to spend wisely and continue to create jobs as I have now in private.
“Create an entertainment destination downtown and continue the growth that we’ve seen there due to the Paramount and other things that have popped up around there.
“Fund and train our police and fire properly and somehow ensure the trust again with our citizens. Thank you.”
Questions have not been seen by the candidates in advance and have 90 seconds to answer:
• As an elected official who represents all of Aurora, how would you keep residents informed of the issues and the actions you are taking and how could residents share their views?
• Ron Woerman: “I think as we spoke earlier before this call started, I think the pandemic has taught everybody that we need to pivot and rethink how we communicate through Zoom, through Facebook Live as we’re doing tonight. I think that we’re able to at least provide the opportunity for our citizens to pay attention to what’s going on in their local government which to me is what everybody should do because that’s where you have an immediate effect on your livelihoods.
“In order to get this out, I think Facebook, I know Aurora has the info line, continue to publish that, mailers, I know aldermen do a great job with mailers, and hold quarterly and monthly meetings in some of the wards.
“I believe the opportunity is out there, it’s just that some need to step up and attend these meetings and provide their feedback and their views on the things that are happening in Aurora.
“It’s very busy here. The last four years mayor Irvin has done quite a few things. It’s very busy and very active and I think the more people that are involved, the better.
“We all have voices and opinions. I think that’s the beauty and our civic duty to voice those opinions and share in those decisions. Thank you.”
• Ray Hull: “As we know, social media is certainly the most effective medium that we have at this point.
“I’m looking forward and my hope is that this won’t be the only way that we’ll be able to return to some of the old fashioned ways of communicating.
“I believe in newsletters. I believe in face to face meetings. There are a number of homeowners associations within town and I would plan on making it a personal chore of mine because I am retired, I do have time during the day to be able to get out to the community, talk with the business owners, get in to these neighborhoods and hear what the people have to say.
“There’s no perfect scenario in this going on as we currently speak on how these things are going to be done.
“I am one from my past background, a person that can react on the fly.
“My professional life allowed me to be able to react and change at a moment’s notice, so I won’t lock myself into any particular way of communicating, but I certainly am able to make adjustments as needed and we’ll go from there.”
• As an elected official who represents all of Aurora, how would you check your bias toward your own ward and prioritize as well as meet the needs of all the wards and the City as a whole?
• Ray Hull: “First of all, my career at the city of Aurora from the beginning initial training and still to this day, we are trained in customer service and we go in different neighborhoods taking service calls. The Water and Sewer Division is the only division that takes service calls within the City and so I have never had a bias towards any area of town.
“First of all, I’ve lived in five different wards in this town. I started on the West Side, I’ve lived in what is currently Ward 5, I’ve lived in 7, I’ve lived in 3, part of what is Ward 4 and I’ve spent the last 20 years in Ward 1.
“I saw Wards 8, 9, and 10 grow from bean fields and woods to what you see now.
“The exponential growth that we’ve witnessed over the last forty years, I was intrinsically a part of that, so I know this City from Route 59 to Route 56 on the West to Mesa Lane to the north, and down to Montgomery Road.
“Bias? I don’t know anything about it. I’ve served this City from one end to the other, and I’ll continue to do so.”
• Ron Woerman: “As I stated in my opening introduction, having businesses on the East Side, West Side, a developmental project going on the Southeast Side, and a business downtown.
“I view this job of alderman-at-large as not ward specific, so bias-wise, I think it’s something that we look at the bigger picture, the development, Pacifica Square, going on at Route 59, the development going on at Fox Valley, the stuff going on in West Plaza.
“I look at it as assistance to the current aldermen, to help them out, when they need a hand. Have them use us to the best of their ward’s ability.
“I think we’re all adults and professional enough that I don’t see anybody in this position would have that biased attitude.
“We’re all here to serve the community and the entire community and I will probably do that each and every day.”
• What do you feel are the most important non-budget and non-tax related citywide issues that you want to address if elected?
• Ron Woerman: “You know, I briefly spoke about in my opening statement about funding and training the police properly.
“I think we need to fix that issue the police have with some of the residents here in Aurora.
“I think that can be done through training and engagement. I think at the end of the day, I have many police officers here in Aurora who are friends, people who work in the department of corrections and they say what they need is engagement.
“I think if we can provide that platform, it will help the path to getting that trust back that we all had as youth.
“I think that we need to make sure we focus on our youth and give them the opportunity to know what it’s like to work hard in the city and love their city. Do that through youth programs, do that through mentorships, do that through internships, from grade school, junior high to high school and even until they’re young men and women.
“I think the diversity here in Aurora is awesome and I think that we have enough pillars in this community that would gladly show their expertise and know how, and what it takes to be successful.
“I think if you give somebody the tools to succeed, most will!”
• Ray Hull: “I have spent the better part of the last thirty years volunteering within our community.
“In the year 2000, I was nominated for volunteerism by my previous superintendent and was awarded that by (former Aurora mayor) Dave Stover.
“I’ve spent twenty plus years coaching youth baseball both for Wayside Ministries and Boys Baseball of Aurora.
“When we talk about non-budget issues, one of the things I’m concerned about especially with COVID now, I just believe that we need to make sure that some of our non for profits are well taken care of, especially, I believe, the women and the mothers of this community and the areas that have been hit really hard because you have to make some choices between going to work, and staying home with your children.
“I worked for the United Way on the Allocations Committee and know the importance of organizations such as Aunt Martha’s and Lifespring, the Hesed House transitional living.
“The city of Aurora has a United Way campaign that goes on annually and they contribute to many of those organizations and I would love to just continue to do those things.
“It’s really important that we look out for our families and I’ll continue to mentor youth within our schools, which I’ve also done since I retired.
“I’ve been able to pick and choose what I would do with my eight to ten hours in a day, actually.
“I still get up early at four thirty every morning!”
• How should the city of Aurora improve efficiency and streamline budgets to reduce or hold the line on taxes while maintaining needed services?
• Ray Hull: “For me, I have no problem with that!
“First of all I was superintendent during the recession the last time, so I know what it means to have a decrement list.
“The City Council has to do a better job at scrutinizing the budget!
“They need to begin to act as an independent entity to look over such things as capital purchases. That is not something that has to happen every single year. We should look at that really closely.
“I believe we should eliminate what is known as carry overs within our budget. If you’re not able to get the work done during that budget year, you should come back before the Council in order to have that approved again.
“We have many capital projects that can always be pushed back another year, another two years.
“We can take a look at some tough areas that no one wants to talk about but maybe we look at the executive pay, the Mayor’s Office. That’s on him, that’s not on the Council to see that is it necessary that executives would have an increase every single year?
“There’s a lot of ways we can do that, because as we continue to increase wages, there’s a trickle down effect that adds to our long-term debt.
“Those are some of the measures we can take as far as our budgets go to streamline it a little more.”
• Ron Woerman: “I think as a small business owner, I know what it means to adhere to a budget.
“When you have to make hard cuts, you have to make hard decisions.
“It’s not always fun to be a business owner or as glorious as people think it is.
“In my previous career, I worked in cost and budgeting. I know exactly what it takes to put a budget together and have people adhere to that.
“I understand the process as far a capital budgets and I think what we need to do is prioritize what we need, understand what our revenues are going to be and meet that every single year.
“I think as aldermen, that we also need to look at other ways not only to maintain our basic services but I think we all deserve new services as well. I think that can be done!
“Again, continue to drive economic development, bring in outside revenue, whether it’s people visiting something going on in the City, grants available at the State and Federal level.
“I think there’s all kinds of opportunities to continue what we have, but enhance what we have and make Aurora even better than what it is today.
“It’s tough! It’s not easy, but that’s what we’re in office for is to make those tough decisions. Thank you!”
Closing statements:
Candidates had one minute for closing statements.
• Ron Woerman: “Thank you again for providing this platform for us to speak. I really appreciate it and God bless everybody for doing this!
“I think throughout this call I stressed that I have the skillset and the knowledge, and the drive to work hard for the citizens in the city of Aurora.
“The City is far from perfect but I’ll tell you that the current administration, current aldermen are trying their best to keep moving the City forward.
“I think there’s some big hurdles that we need to be concerned with. We need to close the digital divide that exists between our schools.
“We need to drive development downtown, we need to drive new jobs here in the City.
“We need to make sure that we don’t forget our youth and step in where they need to be.
“I have proven myself as a successful business owner, a proud family man, that I can continue to do what I do best which is support this community. Thank you!”
• Brooke Shanley (ready by Bertha Baillie): “I would like to thank the League of Women Voters for hosting the candidate forum this evening and graciously reading my opening statement and closing statement.
“I’m disappointed that I couldn’t be with you today to engage in this important conversation about the future leadership of our great city.
“It is so important that we have aldermen that are committed to our city, families, and children and community.
“I believe there are a lot of families struggling right now who we must support. It is unfortunate that I was unable to discuss my thoughts for working to reduce our high property taxes making our neighborhoods safer, supporting our small businesses, and continuing to develop our downtown, and fighting to help the needy and vulnerable in our population.
“A vote for me, Brooke Shanley, is a vote for a person who chose Aurora as their home almost ten years ago, a person with no personal agenda or conflict of interest, a person who cares about our families and our children and a person who you can rely on to be honest, ethical, and accessible.
“Please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!”
• Ray Hull: “I would like to end by just reflecting on the elections that took place yesterday (February 23).
“We had less than three percent voter turnout in yesterday’s primary and that is abysmal to say the least!
“I am encouraging everyone out there that first of all, politics are local!
“You need to be concerned with who your sheriff is, who your state’s attorney is, who your county board members are.
“Most importantly, who your school board members are that are handling the revenues and funding for your children every day.
“I want to encourage you to get out, vote, exercise your right!
“I know that my family and my ancestors shed blood in order to be able to do that and I need to encourage everyone that does not find any value in going out in a municipal election, get up, get involved, stay involved, and become a part of the solution!
“Do not vote for individuals you know nothing about! Thank you.”