As weak as it is, the plot continues to thicken.
Those mysterious ”Anti-Botti” buttons, which first surfaced last week at the Republican Central Committee`s Lincoln Day Dinner, now are showing up in the mailboxes at the homes of Du Page County Board members.
The buttons (blue with a white hypodermic needle and red lettering that reads ”Republican Anti-Bottis”) began arriving Thursday morning in plain white envelopes and postmarked March 26 from-surprise, surprise-Springfield. Each cost 50 cents to mail, was stamped ”Vote Republican” and bore no return address.
Rumors are flying fast and furious about the identity of the Aldo Botti basher. But whoever it is chose to send buttons to supporters and detractors of the County Board chairman.
”These aren`t as bad as I thought they were,” said Lloyd Renfro, a Botti foe who heard about the buttons before seeing them.
”Whoever this is, they`re total idiots,” said Carl Roth, a Botti fan.
Roger Kotecki, a first-term board member who`s still keeping his head low, simply chuckled and said, ”I think this is really silly. It seems to me this is something you`d expect out of somebody running for 4th grade class president.”
Basement blues
Sometimes it pays to go straight to the top when you`re feeling down and dirty.
That`s what Auroran David Fitch did about 6 a.m. Wednesday when he arose to find a good 4 inches of wastewater in his basement.
The water had arrived compliments of the City of Aurora, which had left a fire hydrant near Fitch`s home draining since 10 the night before.
After Fitch and his wife, Carol, had little success getting city workers to turn the water off by calling 911, Fitch took his complaints directly to Mayor David Pierce, who was nestled snug in his bed about five blocks away.
”My husband rang the doorbell four times and then started pounding on the door,” Carol said. ”The mayor came to the door while his wife stood at the window and wrote our license number down.”
Carol said the water was shut down soon afterward, and Pierce called later in the day to apologize. The city also lent the Fitches fans to help blow the basement dry; promised to send in a cleaning service; and agreed to pay for damages.
But Carol Fitch is still a tad peeved.
”We lost things we can never replace,” she said, ”such as newspapers saved from the 1940s, and all because of stupidity.”
Strange bedfellows
One day you`re a ”political hack,” the next day your not. And so it goes in the wonderful world of Du Page County Board Chairman Aldo Botti.
The chairman apparently has had a change of heart about a few of the Du Page Airport Authority commissioners appointed in November by outgoing Board Chairman Jack Knuepfer.
Knuepfer named to the authority Edwin Burtis of Glen Ellyn, Richard Rosenberg of Elmhurst, and George Varney and Michael Dow of Lisle. Botti was openly disdainful of those choices save for Rosenberg, saying, ”These other people are political hacks.”
He also said of the nine-member authority, ”I`ve got a full deck of cards stacked against me.”
But now that Botti has made his first two appointments to the authority-and soon will make his third once authority Chairman Thomas Fawell vacates his seat to become airport manager-Botti claims he will have a majority of support among the members.
”Burtis is the only one I know is anti-me,” Botti said Thursday.
We`ll soon see if the other ”hacks” are as quick to forget as Botti is. Quote of the week
Make that ”quotes of the week” from C. David Colren, director of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority; Du Page County State`s Atty. James Ryan; and, most especially, Du Page County Sheriff Richard Doria.
At the unveiling of the Du Page County drug abuse task force, Doria said from the speakers` podium:
”Being Sicilian, I can tell you we need the family. The family is very important.”
As the audience chuckled (Everybody seemed wise to the double meaning except Doria), Ryan edged near the sheriff and quipped, ”I`m his lawyer and I better stand right next to him now.”
Meanwhile, Colren made an exaggerated move to put distance between himself and Doria, saying, ”I think I hear my phone ringing.”
