Robert J. Tomei Jr.: 2023 candidate for College of Lake County board
Bio
Town: Gurnee
Age on Election Day: 36
Occupation: Attorney
Employer: Self-Employed, Partner at the Law Firm of Johnston Tomei Lenczycki & Goldberg, LLC
Previous offices held: Board of Trustees, Community College District #532
Q&A
Q: Why are you running for this office, whether for re-election or election the first time? Is there a particular issue that motivates you?
A: There are many motivating factors that would drive one to devote time away from family, friends, and professional obligations for a volunteer public service. My primary reasons are quite simple: my family. More specifically, my 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son. Public service is not a right or privilege reserved for plutocrats, their facsimiles, or devout uncritical adherents. It is no small thing, public service, and it is not supposed to be comfortable, simple or swift. In a constitutional republic, true public service is an obligation we all have to not only honor those who came before us, but also to carry forward and preserve for the next generation the foundational traditions and values our country, including all of its flawed history, was built upon: truth, justice, and equality under the law. I am running for re-election for my children because I see the short term and long-term destructive nature moral relativism has wrought in our society, including, in our higher educational institutions, such as CLC.
Q: In tough economic times, many students (and working professionals) turn to a community college for its educational value. How do you ensure that a person's financial sacrifice results in an educational benefit?
A: The objective, quantifiable and intrinsic value for the financial sacrifice and time commitments away from family and other obligations to pursue an education at CLC should be clear to any objective third-party observer, but should more importantly, be self-evident to the individual making the commitment. The programs, resources, infrastructure, faculty and peer systems at CLC to pursue an educational degree, professional certificate or other career development objectives are in place and have been built over many decades. To the extent I can contribute in "end value" is to assist the governing body of the institution in the recalibration of college policy, culture, and values into one that empowers each student to attain, through hard work and self-reliance, not only an educational benefit for the time and financial commitments they make to their educational pursuits at CLC, but a life-long benefit built upon a devotion to excellence, and of course, fond memories.
Q: How would you describe the state of your college's finances? What issues will your district have to confront in coming years and what measures do you support to address them? If you believe cuts are necessary, what programs and expenses should be reduced or eliminated? On the income side, do you support any tax or fee increases?
A: Considering the vast amount of capital projects undertaken by CLC over the past few years, including the state-of-the-art Advanced Technology Center and Waukegan Lakeshore Campus, both of which were opened very recently, it will be important to assuage the prospect of future expansion. This is particularly salient in light of the fact that student enrollment has steadily decreased from 2017 to 2021 according to Illinois Community College Board at a percentage change of 16.9% with enrollment figures stabilizing only recently. There is a multitude of areas in which wasteful spending can be addressed including, most notably with administrative glut. Administrative deference, including the macro financial realities of inflationary pressures, has secured an acquiescence on my part to small tax and fee increases in the past, but moving forward, I do and will not support any tax or fee increases under any circumstances.
Q: What are three specific non-financial challenges your community college will have to face in the next four years and what are your thoughts about how each should be addressed?
A: Three specific non-financial challenges that CLC will have to grapple with in the next four years will be resignations, employee retention, enrollment, and most critically, college policy. We addressed resignations by adopting a remote work policy, and will continue to strive to be innovative in our approach to make CLC a true career destination for individuals in the field of higher education. In terms of the latter two issues, enrollment and policy, I address those matters more generally in response to questions 2, 5 and 7.
Q: Describe your experience working in a group setting to determine policy. What is your style in such a setting to reach agreement and manage school district policy? Explain how you think that will be effective in producing effective actions and decisions of your school board.
A: Consensus building is an organic function of healthy governance, which is not realized by fiat. As an exemplar, on January 24, 2023, the Board adopted, in a 4-3 vote, a new policy of "Board Governance" that is antithetical to our First Amendment principles of free and open dialogue. Instead of adopting the proposal which I drafted, the newly adopted policy seeks to frame trustee inquiry without prior notice to (and ostensibly approval of) the president as "unethical practices," imposes a prior restraint on elected trustees' ability to publicly criticize board decisions, administration or the president, seeks to prohibit trustees from talking to faculty and students alike, and also seeks to circumvent Illinois public policy as set forth in the OMA (5 ILCS 120/1) - all under the specter of formal censure. At the Jan. 28 Lakeshore Campus Ribbon Cutting, trustees were thanked by faculty members for our efforts but with qualifying language such as "I probably cannot say anything more" evincing that we do not have an institution devoted to academic freedom, free inquiry and debate but one in which hostility, fear, and resentment runs rampant manifesting in historic resignation rates nearly double the past ten year average at CLC in 2022.
Q: What makes you the best candidate for the job?
A: I am life-long Lake County resident, family man, and I am also the son of an Ecuadorian immigrant. I am a successful businessperson as a partner in a full-service law firm located in Libertyville. I have successfully litigated cases against some of the largest corporations in the world. Most importantly, however, I am truly an "independent" in every sense of the word. As described in detail in response to question 5, above, I am not beholden to a political sect, ideology, nor do I pledge fealty to a nebulous power structure - my devotion is to right over wrong through a lens of truth, justice, and equality.
Q: What's one good idea you have to better your district that no one is talking about yet?
A: Changing college policy. First and foremost, we must rescind and replace newly adopted Board Policy #132, as discussed in response to question 5, and replace it with a policy reaffirms our respective oaths to office and one that recognize that the board will be better equipped to engage in rational decision-making processes by aspiring to acquire new knowledge, to tolerate new and unpopular ideas, testing opinion in open competition, and proactively engaging in the discipline of rethinking of assumptions. In addition, a comprehensive evaluation of the CLC Student Rights and Responsibilities, Club Manual, Title IX Procedures, has revealed a number of policies that revising because they tend to restrict a certain amount of protected expression by virtue of vague wording, which can and has been used to restrict protected expression. These policy revisions are necessary because "the best truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out." Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. Supreme Court Justice.