Gentes Needs Some Workin' On The Railroad

Photo by David McNeary.
In today’s Daily Herald, Bill Gentes, village president of Round Lake and candidate for the Illinois State Senate 26th District is crying foul about his opponent, Dan Duffy, pointing out the numerous real estate ties in Round Lake of Gentes and his wife.

The classic Shakespeare line “thou doth protest too much” instantly popped into my head knowing the nonsense that Gentes’ campaign has been throwing around concerning railroads. Gentes has made it a point to let everyone know the Duffy campaign has taken a $2500 donation from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and then linking that to support for the highly controversial issue of Canadian National’s proposed acquisition of EJ&E.

First off, Gentes claims he’s just noting the donation and it has nothing to do with the CN issue — hogwash! The Lake County Democratic Party’s website proudly touts “Bill Gentes is the only state Senate candidate in our area who has pledged to fight against this acquisition, which will be disastrous for our communities.” He has been repeating the allegations in person when meeting with people as one Daily Herald letter writer states. All of this despite clear support from Ela Township Clerk Bill Donnan and one of Barrington Communities Against CN Acquisition’s founders, Dave Nelson. This is a clear case of the candidate saying one thing to the paper (where he is certain to get picked apart with this ridiculous non-issue) and then saying another thing in person to people and having his campaign circulate it as true.

So, I have a lesson for Gentes on railroads because apparently he spent too much time playing Monopoly and not actually understanding how business works with this silly linkage of one railroad to another. BNSF, you know, the modern day equivalent of “the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” (great tune!) is a completely different railroad company than Canadian National, the operative word being Canadian. Saying that taking money from BNSF shows support for CN is a bit like saying someone taking money from Chevrolet shows their support for Toyota. It’s utter nonsense.

Dan Duffy is from Barrington, he’s been in the lead on the issue of the CN acquisition, he understands how it would impact our community and has been against it from the start. Look through the smoke and mirrors of his opponent’s campaign and you will see that Dan Duffy is the right candidate for the 26th.