Names may change, but embarrassing outcome never does

Image is a lot like a rumor. Somewhere it has a basis in fact. Fact then often skewed to excess, but fact at its heart nonetheless.

Nowhere has that been more true than in Carpentersville, once seen as home to uneducated, lower-class whites, then as the preferred home of illegal immigrants, now as the home of those who beat their spouses and always as home to dysfunctional government.

There have been momentary interludes of professionalism, of course. After years of financial disarray that included endless discussion of a $1,500 ice machine, the village finally managed a few years back to meet legal demands for a timely audit and stabilize its finances.

This is a village that can't seem to tolerate professional government for long, however, and one that is expert at both poor behavior and then blaming others for it. Its poor image, for example, has always been the fault of the media.

Current leadership is made up of people who truly detest one another, and who spent $20,000 in legal fees the last couple of years to make sure everyone knew how much they detest each other. As if we couldn't tell. And this expenditure came in a village so poor that it created a gas tax at the height of high gas prices to help pay its bills.

In truth, it is hard to find anyone likable in this bunch. Village President Bill Sarto speaks on behalf of illegal immigrants while silencing legal citizens at every opportunity. Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski is his sidekick, getting ideas by attending anti-American LaRaza meetings when she isn't officially pandering to illegal immigrants at home.

Trustee Paul Humpfer seems unable to either separate from his wife or avoid hitting her, even though I sat in a room with him while he fervently claimed it would never happen again. It did. Trustee Judy Sigwalt is his sidekick in efforts to zealously combat illegal immigration and negate the impact of a now very public liaison between Humpfer's wife and Sigwalt's son.

Only in Carpentersville could all of this behavior seem less than shocking, with government seemingly concentrated on one unlikable group trying to take out another unlikable group, all while residents throw up their hands. Or just throw up.

Oh, yes, there has been the occasional call for good sense and decent government. But coming from pot-stirrer Jack Roeser, it has to be taken with a grain of salt.

He's mad because it has been suggested publicly that his firm, Otto Engineering, might hire the occasional illegal worker. That, more than any angst over the state of Carpentersville government, with which he has long experience, is likely what caused him to fire off a letter to the state's attorney demanding Humpfer's ouster after Humpfer's conviction on misdemeanor domestic battery charges.

Though Roeser said at a public meeting that he was "embarrassed" to be part of a village with "this kind of government," he showed little concern with "this kind of government" when it was more to his liking, say, when Sarto was silencing those who disagreed with him.

Truly, though, no one looks good here, which is perfectly in line with the village's longtime image. And nothing is likely to change at least until next spring, when voters can change part of the board. Provided, of course, they can uncover their eyes long enough to cast a ballot.

And given the civic history, it's not hard to imagine they might stay home, knowing that while the trustees might change, the outcome never does.