By Jason Crane
An Aurora mayoral candidate forum Saturday, through the Zoom video conference platform, allowed viewers to learn about the three candidates seeking the job as mayor of Aurora for the next four years.
An election will be Tuesday, April 6.
Community Advocacy Awareness Network (CAAN) and New Covenant Full Gospel Church were hosts to the event on the New Covenant Full Gospel Church’s Facebook page.
The candidates are Aurora mayor Richard Irvin, John Laesch, and Judd Lofchie.
The candidates had four minutes each for opening statements. Names were drawn for the order of speakers. The order was, Irvin, Lofchie, and Leasch.
Here are the opening statements by the candidates:
• Richard Irvin: “First of all I want to thank everyone for putting this event on this evening. Thank you to the community for coming out and listening to what the candidates have to say about Aurora and what you think about our leadership and how we are going to take Aurora to the future over the next four years.
“I’ve loved being mayor for the last four years. It’s been a lifelong dream of mine. We are the second largest city in the State. We have a 450 million dollar budget. We have 1.4 million dollars in assets and only 1.1 million dollars in liabilities. That means we are on top of the water.
“We have so much in common. We are a multicultural mix of people. That’s our strength. That gives us our heart. When I became mayor, I thought that my experience would help me to do what I thought was going to be important. I call them my three pillars: Safety, education, and economic development.
“I thought that my experience as a lawyer, a prosecutor, business owner, owning my own business right here in the city of Aurora, working as a chairman of a large financial credit union, right here in the city of Aurora, a multi-million dollar credit union, and being an alderman for 10 years would prepare me for this job as mayor. That’s what I thought!
“I couldn’t have imagined when I ran for office and elected in 2017 that our City would be faced with a mass shooting where five people that work in our community would be killed by one of their own employees, one of their coworkers.
“I couldn’t have imagined that five cops, police officers, our police officers, would be shot trying to save more people so they wouldn’t be killed in that tragic incident. You know, that required leadership and I led us through that, my team and I.
“I couldn’t have imagined when I was taking office that this World would be dealing with a plague, a pandemic, that would affect the whole nation, our State and our City, that would effect our budget. That 450 million dollar budget I told you about, by drying up all of our streams of income because everything had to be shut down, and even more importantly, killing our citizens, our residents of Aurora.
“I couldn’t have imagined it, but I led us through it, my team and I.
“I couldn’t have imagined that we would have had social unrest where people tried to tear down our downtown that we tried so hard to build over the last four years. But it happened and I led us through it, my team and I.
“I couldn’t have imagined that because of the loss of jobs and frustration that our community is feeling, that our murder rate would take an uptick, but it did and I’m leading us through it, my team and I.
“All the time, still having to focus on those three pillars: Education, safety, and economic development, and continue to lead the City and have been doing it with my team, very successfully. More economic development in the city of Aurora, we’ve seen more in the last four years, than in the last four decades.
“We’ve brought the school districts together, all six of them, working together to make a difference with our youth. Giving them the same opportunity whether you’re on the far east side or far west side. You’ve had the same equal education.
“We’ve been working with our police department and community to address our crime and keep it in check, regardless of the increase in crime across the nation.
“I want to continue for another few years as your leader as I have and show you that I’m worth another four.”
• Judd Lofchie: “Good evening!
“Thank you to Mary Fultz and Reverend Thompson and the moderators for having this debate. Thank you to my opponents for showing up and having this discussion, I think it’s really important.
“My name is Judd Lofchie and I’ve lived in Aurora for 25 years. I own a law practice and real estate business in Aurora. I’ve got an office downtown and one on the West Side.
“My wife, Suzanne, and I live on the East Side, and my son has gone through all Aurora public schools.
“I grew up in an environment of community service. I was inspired by my parents.
“In 1992 I started StreetWise, a newspaper for the homeless in Chicago. We’ve helped 13,000 homeless people get an instant job and refer them to housing and other services.
“I have a passion for helping people. I’ve been a Rotarian for 20 years. Rotary is one of the largest service clubs in the World and the Club I’m in now on the West Side, we meet at seven o’clock Wednesday at Mother’s (Restaurant).
“We provide college scholarships, grants to local charities, and sponsor international youth exchange. This Club has sent over 200 youth all over the world for a year abroad which has changed their life, most of them say.
“I also regularly volunteer with Hesed House, the Chicago Sinfonietta, the Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry, I’ve been on the Board of GreenFest and the Chamber of Commerce.
“I also founded and am the president of the western suburb’s largest networking group called Aurora Business United. It’s a free group, we meet once a month, and we get 75 to 100 people to show up. We have a couple of speakers usually and networking and there’s 2,500 members.
“As an attorney and commercial realtor, I’ve helped 30 businesses open in Aurora, from small to large, mom and pop to Fortune 500 companies, from a Montessori school to recently ReStore on the West Side. It took the old Party City and Office Depot (building).
“I know how to do business with Aurora and I know how to get people open, generate new jobs, start paying taxes.
“I’ve had the privilege of serving as the 10th Ward alderman for the last four years. I’m on the Public, Health, Safety, and Transportation Committee and the Infrastructure and Technology Committee. I have a 99 percent attendance rate.
“I’m proud to say I drafted and helped get an ethics ordinance passed.
“I’m an experienced business person who knows how to manage people and manage a large business. I’ve done large developments.
“Right now we (city government) have 1,200 employees and we need someone who knows how to manage people. People know who manage others, it’s not that easy and not much fun, but someone’s got to do it.
“Friends, Aurora is 1.1 Billion dollars in debt. That’s billion with a B! I’m running on a platform of fiscal responsibility, economic development, and public safety.
“The current administration has added 65 Million dollars to the budget the last two years and our debt-service is 11.4 million this year and we have to issue 3 million more just to pay for that.
“We had to increase our tax levy 3.1 percent.
“If you vote for me, you’re voting for a change.
“People say, ‘well leadership doesn’t change,’ well you can tell there’s a difference between Trump and Biden. So if I was elected mayor, I would stop the spending and live within our means.
“I would get our fiscal house in order. Service is who I am and it defines my purpose. I will not change as the mayor of Aurora.
“My name is Judd Lofchie. I’m an alderman, and I’m running for mayor, and I ask for your support on April 6. You can check out my website Judd
forAurora.com. Thank you!”
• John Laesch: “Thanks everybody!
“Thank you Mary and the CAAN organization, Pastor Thompson, our moderators, and everybody who’s participating tonight.
“My name is John Laesch, I’m running for mayor of Aurora, and I would like to earn your vote on April 6.
“A little about me, I’m a former Naval intelligence analyst. I served in the middle-east, I’m a union carpenter, a green-builder, a graduate of Illinois State University.
“I’m running for mayor because we need strong ethical leadership, who will focus on the issues that impact all of us. Not just those who can buy access to City Hall.
“I’m not a life-long Auroran. I grew up on the mission field in west Africa. Our family moved to the United States when I was 12 years-old during a military coup in 1986.
“My father worked for a non-profit. Lutheran Bible Translators which used to be next to the Aurora Pancake House and our family was very poor.
“I’ll never forget taking a bath that first night on the farm house in Newark in an old steel bath tub, I peeled back some duct tape that was on the wall and I could see this huge hole, and right outside was the snow on the ground, and I knew we were no longer in Liberia.
“As kids, we wore clothes bought at the Salvation Army, we drove a beater van, my brother and I eventually had to share it. My mother worked at a minimum wage job at a local chicken farm just to get a little extra money and I started working when I was 14 years-old.
“I knew I had to work hard in school if I wanted to succeed and I did. I earned As, mostly As, a few Bs.
“Started saving for college and it still wasn’t enough. Even with a few scholarships and savings, I was out of money by the end of my first semester at Knox College.
“I moved to Aurora in 2008 because I wanted to put down roots. I liked the diversity of my community.
“I became very active in the community with Northern Illinois Jobs With Justice, fighting for a living wage, opposing an 18 district for profit charter school, Wall Street money grab, and protecting teacher’s pensions.
“I successfully ran for the East Aurora School Board in 2015, and while there was some controversy on that Board, I’m proud of the fact that all seven Board members voted to get busses for the first time in the history of East Aurora. It’s improved graduation rates there.
“The number one issue facing students at East was poverty and it remains the number one issue in this race. We need to bring better-paying, living-wage jobs to Aurora and I have a plan to do that.
“I want to see Aurora become one of the first Green New Deal cities in the United States. Putting people to work making homes more energy efficient. Jobs installing solar panels in schools, grocery stores, and residential spaces. Jobs doing energy audits, insulating basements and attics.
“Let’s put people back to work who lost their jobs during the pandemic.
“Lets provide job training for those who’ve maybe slipped through the cracks in the education system. Maybe they’re working dead-end jobs at McDonalds, those who are reentering society after serving their time.
“A good paying job and economic opportunity are the best ways to address rising crime levels in our community.
“I see all these issues as being interconnected and as your next mayor, I’ll focus on crime prevention, living wage jobs, and reconnecting and recovering after the pandemic.
“I’m also very accessible. I’ve put my cell phone number in the chat. If you didn’t get your question answered tonight, you can text me at 630-878-7454. Our website is JohnforAurora, my name is John Laesch and I’d like to earn your vote on April 6.
“I think that Americans are hungry for change and better government and I believe that the city of Aurora can be a beacon of hope. Hope for a strong economy and an ethical government that works for everybody. Thank you.”
The Voice will have more campaign coverage in the next several weeks.