Campton Township's Ed Malek

Front page below the fold for my neigbor Ed Malek in today's Daily Herald: Fire protection district leader: It's a year to take action

Malek first entered the public spotlight as a private-practice attorney in the late 1980s, when he represented opponents of a proposed supercollider at Fermilab. He argued his clients were blindsided by the proposal -- which never came to be -- after officials did most of their decision making out of public view. The case was eventually dismissed, but not before prompting sweeping changes to public hearing rules in Illinois.

Another big case, Malek says, was one involving the Department of Natural Resources, which was accused of withholding public documents from taxpayers: "That really infused my political career because we saw how government worked."

But Malek's largest battle against status quo didn't come until 1993. That was when he and a slate of grassroots candidates overthrew the Campton Township board by forcing a Republican caucus.

Reminiscent of his other confrontations, Malek's slate was fed up with a town board that "talked but never did anything" and took matters into their own hands. Among the slate was Neal Anderson, a local farmer whom Malek recruited to give voters "a link to the agricultural community" that was still dominant in the township.

Anderson later succeeded Malek, who didn't seek re-election in 2001, as supervisor. Anderson remains in the position today.

Not all in Il-14 have been big fans of Fermi Lab as a transparent bunch.

Campton's done much to preserve open space and Ed Malek deserves a big thanks for leading those efforts.

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Talking about talked but never did anything, the Herald has a good Editorial today on issues Presidential and Congressional candidates should be talking to us about including this one which would be a huge economic shot in the arm to the region,

And what are their thoughts on O'Hare expansion, or whatever else they have in mind to ease the congestion in the skies? Will they push for completion of western access to O'Hare, to ease congestion on the highways motorists use to get to and from O'Hare?

I take the Elgin-O'Hare expresswasy to O'Hare. A highway that goes to neither Elgin or O'Hare, and makes me snake around on Irving Park to enter a dowdy looking terminal.

It makes more sense to talk about that then sneak Embryonic out of Embryonic Stem Cell Research and try and make an issue (Mark Pera writes: Stem cells: Pera vs. Lipinski (IL-03) of that.